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Leaving a company and then targeting their clients is poor form

by Brett Iredale July 23, 2009

I received an email this morning from a person I have never spoken to.  The email is a "personal note" to let me know that this guy and his mate have left Indeed.com (a US job site who we work with) and that they have gone to join a competitor site called Juju.com.   I have a couple of issues with this email.

1.  I do not know this person so it is not a "personal email"
2.  We do business with Indeed.com, not with individuals who work there
3.  He has clearly taken my details from his previous employer and is now using them to solicit my business. This is unethical at best.
4.  He has left one of the leading job sites in the US to join what looks to be a very poor imitation designed by a small child. Good on you mate.

I find this approach highly distasteful and we will not be doing business with pupu.com.

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Brett:

 

Good afternoon! I hope that you are doing well. I wanted to personally let you know that Brendan Cruickshank and I have left indeed.com for juju.com. I feel confident that there are significant opportunities to work together and grow the targeted jobseeker traffic to your site. We would like to look at creative opportunities to maximize your ROI.

 

Please let me know if there is a convenient time to set up a call.

 

Kind Regards,

Chris

 

 

Christopher Campbell
ccampbell@juju.com



Entry filed under: General

5 CommentsAdd your own

1. Craig July 23, 2009 at 12:26pm

If Indeed.com can show they took confidential information, ie customer lists, with them when they left, they could be in big trouble.

2. Craig July 24, 2009 at 8:19pm

With everyone doing what they are on sites like Twitter, Linked in etc what information is really confidential?

Its not that hard to get a clients email, phone, fax numbers from other means than taking a list when one leaves.

People been sacked for saying something on Twitter - what happened to freedom of speech?

3. Greg P July 27, 2009 at 9:48am

I think the case Brett cites above is clearly taking the p!ss, though I think your point about the lines starting to blur in terms of ownership of data are valid (though I think there was a court case last year regarding owndership of LinkedIn details?). Ownership of data is hugely different from utilising it however.....

There is one thing in Brett's post that I don't necessarily agree with though - I think clients are equally likely to buy from an individual as they are from a company.

4. Brett I July 27, 2009 at 11:54am

Hi Greg

In recruitment yes I agree you may by from the individual and not necessarily the company but not when it comes to software systems or business critical systems. Those decisions are based on the company, the product, the price etc - and rarely on the sales person.

5. Greg P July 29, 2009 at 7:11am

Yeah absolutely - when you're talking technology, you're dead right.

Flip side of that might be consulting or recruiting - the individual is far more important (IMO) than the company

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