Marketing Secret #98 Ethics  

This is a topic that has been on the forefront of all our minds lately. If you ever get into a situation where you have to compromise your ethics get out of the situation.

Everyone always wants to take you at your word.     

It is human nature to trust that people are telling the truth. When you get any prospect these days, you will be having to prove yourself over and over.  

When you make a mistake and do something unethical, it will come back to haunt you forever.  

There is nothing that will destroy you faster than bad word of mouth or worse, an article about you in the press saying you’ve been “bad”.  

I know that this conversation will sound trite, but I have to say this: I have on many occasions, passed up opportunities to make money in ways that went against my ethic barometer.
This instrument works as follows: If I would not want to tell my partner and kids what I did, then I don’t do it! I will share a quick story with you about something that happened to me in 2015.   
I was bought on to manage and coach business coaches to become successful in their own advisory business. One of our many agreements is that I would organise and coordinate regular webinar sessions with local and international guest speakers. In this instance I was given 24 hours to coordinate with an American based speaker. This was completed and all parties informed.  

That night, I was flying overnight from Perth to Sydney to meet clients the next day when I received a phone call from the client demanding to know why the webinar wasn’t working. When I checked back it was apparent that the error was on the part of the American based speaker. After a few phone calls and apologies, the webinar was rescheduled.  

However, during the day I received numerous phone calls from the client, demanding that I put everything and everyone else on hold as he had a number of other duties that needed to be fulfilled immediately.  

I got to the end of the day and I came to a simple conclusion. This relationship was not going to work. My business and my other clients were going to be affected by this particular client, irrespective of our agreement. So, I regretfully (but thankfully) ended the relationship and wished the client the very best in his endeavours. That client was worth $100,000 minimum per annum to me.

My partner said, “No, you’re not!” in response to me indicating I was going to quit. All my friends and relatives told me I was crazy.  

Everyone who said this, though, did not understand that this client’s business ethics were dreadful.   Our values were completely different, and I realised that if I stayed there for a moment longer, I would be doing myself a disservice.  

As much as it hurt the bank balance (and it did), I didn’t care… because I was able to look at myself in the mirror!  

Moral of the story: always follow your conscience and do the right thing. It will come back to you.

It's like the adage says; what goes around comes around.

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