For the Record....

Life at Mazuma never fails to be dull, that's what I love so much about running a business. Whether we're ordering 6 foot purple envelopes or signing up record numbers of new customers it's always exciting here, amazing considering that we are dealing with tax and accounts on a day to day basis!

I've blogged before about the one thing in business life that really annoys me and I think it's time to do it again.

When Sophie and I started the business we planned for all the usual stuff; how we would get our clients, what our unique selling point was, what advertising budget would be and so on. However, the one thing that we never put into the business plan was the time and cost involved in merely defending our business.

Now I'm not talking about competitors in the traditional sense here. Everyone one knows that competition is par for the course in business and in fact, it keeps us all on our toes and makes us all raise our game, so it's generally a good thing. What I am talking about is defending your business from competitors who blatantly steal your ideas.

Perhaps it was a little naive to think that other Accountants would be trust worthy folk. After all, isn't that what the profession sells itself as? To be fair, the majority of them are, but I am completely astounded by the number of times we have had to deal with cases of copyright infringement and passing off in the last few years. 19 to be exact; all of which has been by other Accounting firms.

Surely if you start a business you want to be unique? You want to be remembered for being you, not a bad imitation of somebody else? If you're starting an Accountancy business then surely your integrity, honesty and trusted advisor status are the very things that you are selling as added value to your potential clients? How can you meet with a new client, saying how honest and professional you are when you have stolen copy from another Accountant's website?

Again, I have to put a bit of a disclaimer here; many of the companies that we have had to approach because they have infringed our copyright have stated that it was web designers or copywriters that are to blame for the embarrassing mistake and that they knew nothing of it. That in itself is slightly concerning. Shouldn't these web and copy writing professionals also know the legalities of copyright infringement?

I know that everyone does a bit of market research when you start a business and it's only natural to be inspired by another company's products and services, but don't just go and copy them! If you've got the balls to start your own business then you must at least have the balls to think up your own ideas! The copies of Mazuma's work have actually been astounding. We have seen a site that copied every single word and page from ours, in the same layout! When they were approached by us they were shocked that they had been discovered. I declined to mention that the www bit of their web address stood for "world wide web" and that, in putting their site up, presumably they wanted to be found by someone?

What is even more frustrating is that it seems that nothing we do to deter people from copying our work has any effect. We have highly visible copyright notices on our site that actually state the words "do not copy".

So I am writing this, on the world wide web, for everyone to see.

Warning
If you steal content from our site we will take legal action.
If you pretend to be us, or to be affiliated with us, we will take legal action.
If you infringe our intellectual property rights we will take legal action.

I really hope that is clear!

For those of you who are reading this and thinking that this is just another money-grabbing company trying to stop other small businesses making a dent in the market, then think again. Mazuma started from my spare bedroom. Sophie and I gave up good jobs and made significant sacrifices to get the business going and faced harsh criticism from many other members of the Accountancy profession for daring to buck the trend. We didn't borrow any money from banks, families or friends and we had no other means of supporting ourselves once Mazuma launched. Yes, we have had some success, but business is not plain sailing, we just choose to remain positive and focus on all the good rather than the bad.

If you're in any way offended by this then I'm not going to make any apology for defending my business. Why would I? Mazuma have worked hard to build what we have and it hasn't always been easy. We not only have our business to protect but we have the livelihoods of our staff to think about - staff who have mortgages, children and families of their own to provide for. They put their faith into Mazuma by agreeing to work for us and if we did anything less than staunchly defend our hard work then we wouldn't be very good employers would we?

I'm not trying to deter anyone from starting their own business. Running your own business is a hugely rewarding experience. All I am asking is that you play fair. Don't copy and paste text from another company's website and pass it off as your own and don't pretend to be anyone else thinking it will land you some business. The only thing it will land is a solicitors letter on your door mat and some hefty legal fees.

If after reading this you are still inclined to try and copy Mazuma's work, then a) I sincerely doubt your honesty and professional integrity, b) you have no excuse as I've made my feelings quite clear and finally c) you'll be hearing from our solicitors in due course.