Equestrian Professionalism and Business Ethics

This is a topic that I had already put lots of thought into as someone who was making the transition from an equine amateur to a professional.  I had established that I would treat my new business in the manner that I would as a services professional.  I had the opportunity to bounce my ideas off of a couple of well known equine professionals and felt that my ideas were indeed very reasonable.

One of my core tenants is that there are many areas of expertise within the equestrian community and even within the same discipline, there are professionals with different strengths.  This being the case, I feel very strongly that instead of the rivalry that is prevalent, I would embrace a style that seems to be favored by the eventing community; good natured competition, but under it all a high degree of professionalism and sportsmanship.  I would like to see a positive change in some of the lower levels of the sport, where instead of being in a constant state of competition, we recognize the strengths of others and support them.

In practice this is A LOT harder to do than I thought!!!  I am finding that in some professionals, anything is fair game, and that it is by any means necessary.  I have a very pertinent example of this that occurred recently to another equestrian professional friend of mine.  In this case, someone had a complaint, so that person, rather than approaching any concerns face to face, aired them in a false claim on a popular scam discovering website.  All of the claims were FALSE, but any new business coming in would search this professional and come up with the accusations quickly, whereby my friend was left trying to defend herself.  I had a chance to read the so called review, and in my mind it was ABSOLUTELY FALSE, but not only that, it seemed to be coming from a competitor... WOW!!!  Talk about very bad business ethics on that person's part!!  Unfair, for sure, but this friend suffered definite damage to her reputation from someone else's lack of ethics.

Unfortunately, I not only have a secondary example of it, I have had it happen to myself twice already from the same professional.  This truly saddens me and disgusts me.
So, forewarned is fair warned right?  

My challenge to other equestrian professionals at my level is this: I challenge you to use business ethics; those are respecting others, staying within your area, not poaching other's clients (potential or current), keeping comments regarding other trainers and disciplines positive, using honesty when dealing with others, being open and communicating with other trainers, working together to build rather than focusing solely on oneself and tearing down, owning up to your mistakes and making restitution when needed.  I think in this manner we can make this sport better and help people entering in as novices STAY in it rather than become frustrated at the negativity seen in it and leave.  I've thrown the gauntlet down to dirty business... who else will follow suit??

See you in the Ring!

Crystal