Selling Through Personal Integrity

The Highest Ethical Standards Approach for Success – First Step

In order to repair the damage already done and earn back the consumer’s trust, the successful sales professional of the future will need to apply nothing short of the highest ethical standards approach for success.

(Paragraph excerpted from Selling Through Personal Integrity, Frugal Speaker blog post, April 16, 2009, by Kenton W. Davis.)

In the preceding post, we discussed how the constant negative news of fraud, schemes, and scams, combined with a struggling economy, has damaged the ethical image of the professional salesperson making it more difficult to earn the consumer’s trust.

Moving forward, we will be discussing specific steps you can take to build a strong foundation of trust with your customers and ensure your continued success as a sales professional.

The first step is to develop the right selling philosophy!

Your thoughts control your actions, not the other way around. More importantly, your thoughts are framed by your philosophy. Having the right selling philosophy is the single most important step toward earning the trust of your customers.

So, what exactly is the right selling philosophy? Simply stated, it is: Do the right thing and you’ll get the right results. Okay, so the basic principle is easy enough to understand. However, the more challenging bit is to determine what the “right thing” to do actually is— and then do it! For that answer, you need to look no further than the Golden Rule.

Harry J. Gensler, author of the book Formal Ethics, defines the rule like this:

The golden rule is best interpreted as saying: “Treat others only in ways that you’re willing to be treated in the same exact situation.” To apply it, you’d imagine yourself in the exact place of the other person on the receiving end of the action. If you act in a given way toward another, and yet are unwilling to be treated that way in the same circumstances, then you violate the rule.

In your career as a professional salesperson, when you are guided by a “do the right thing” philosophy, you work with your customers in the spirit of the Golden Rule, treating them in the exact manner that you would want to be treated if you were the customer. It means that the things you say and do remain the same regardless of whether or not someone is there watching you. It means providing your customers with an uncompromised level of personal and professional integrity— ensuring that your actions are always consistent with your words.

Although it may not be easily done, those whom truly embrace the do the right thing philosophy can overcome any negative associations that have been forged in the consumer’s mind by the recent unethical actions of so many in the news today.

When you develop and employ the right selling philosophy, you become a unique type of sales professional — one that customers will trust and actually desire to do business with.

Continue to stay tuned for success!