While all companies have right to do business; this does frequently present a question with regards to ethical behavior when it comes to competition.

How much should you trust "other" guy? How much should you tell "big" guy? How far apart should you really set yourself?

Sure, you can always answer questions of your competitors, but how much information is enough, and how much is too much? There is a difference between working with integrity, and simply handing all of your “secrets” over to competition.

These are things you will need to ask yourself every time another competing businessperson or person in a similar industry approaches you with questions with regards to your services, rates, and other business-related information. How much should your competition really know about you?

There are some points that you can politely and professionally decline to give away, but you must have enough integrity to not seek same information from competitor to whom you have previously denied your own information. These points include:

Your rates - how you develop your rates is your business, and allowing competition to know how to calculate rates will lose you an important advantage.

Where you get your sales - you have worked hard to develop your customer base. You needn’t provide your competitors a free ride.

What are you paying for? If you think its all same and it really doesn't matter, then why aren't you buying your clothes from Wal-Mart, Target or K-mart?

What you pay and what you get....DOES matter and is directly related!

Don't get me wrong, these businesses do a excellent job of targeting and marketing to their clientele and they pay their associates accordingly.

You pay your Hygienist an excellent salary because of amount of production you expect her to produce. Your Assistant produces to an extent, but she is an "assistant" you are producer. (Now hold off before you start sending in all those letters.)

Have you thought about everything that's going on up front? This is your first and last impression area, your hub of activity: Telephone calls are received and made Patients are welcomed and dismissed Appointments are scheduled and rescheduled Treatment is enrolled and financial options arranged Money is discussed and collected Insurance is filed and payments received Relationships are started, nurtured, take root and grow

This area is not only a top producer area, it is your in-house "Specialist" area.... actual LIFELINE of your practice!

When we think "specialist" we think "tops in their field" and they get paid for what they know and for what they can do.