Poaching makes you look desperate...

So the other day i'm driving down a highway in Southern California and my phone went off with an alert from Gmail. One of my clients received an email. When I got home I looked at the email and it was an email from a competitor asking if my client would be interested in working with this person again. 

I politely wrote back "I'm in good hands thanks." 

What made me mad was this person had worked with my client first before his last person then me. So lucky number 3 was able to produce results that number 1 and 2 couldn't do. 

In fact number 1 did an awful job and has gathered a pretty bad reputation in the comic con world that at this point only has a hand full of clients. Someone I know actually got a hold of that client list and this person falsely put down people this person doesn't even work with. 

Now this isn't being written to blast someones poor work ethic but it opened my eyes up to another problem.  Poaching...

I have never once poached a client. I have received all business from referrals or website traffic. I run an honest business and I am so proud of that but there is a legit problem out there. When people are scrambling and running out of luck most people come to the poaching method to save their business.  

Poaching makes you look desperate, it's inappropriate and it's unethical. 

The truth is poachers are people that need to stop doing business until they get their own business under control.

Two they should work on their networking.  If you need new business networking is possible to increase your clientele. Don't steal other peoples clients.. find your own.

I think the true issue here that makes people result into poaching is their business has hit the proverbial wall and the way to get more business is dipping into someone else's pool. 

Most people don't tend to be smart when expanding their business because they don't know how to so the easiest way is to steal clients to keep money pumping into their business. 

This is a sign that one, you don't know what you are doing and you don't need to be in business. Playing dirty never wins.