Ethics anyone?
Do you consider yourself an ethical business owner?
Sorry, I seem to have ethics on the brain lately.
I wrote about
the issue of ethics and Corporate America yesterday, but few of us think about the issue and small business.
Business fraud and general misdeeds are typically thought to be a big business issue, like Enron and Worldcom. At least you start to think that when you read the popular press. When’s the last time you saw a front page newspaper story on a small business owner gone bad?
OK, maybe they are just too small potatoes to get that kind of ink, but it’s definitely something all entrepreneurs should be thinking about.
So pull up a chair with me and lets have a Socratic moment.
Why should we care about ethics?
Shel Horowitz, author of the new book “Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First,” offers his insights:
“First we all, we all want to have an impact on the world -- that's why we started our businesses. You want your legacy to your children to be something they're proud of and you're proud of, something that helped people to live better, more fulfilled lives. Ethical approaches enable you to focus on this.
And second, ethical businesses can be more successful. By creating an organization that others trust -- customers, suppliers, people in the community, employees -- and understanding how to market those values both internally and externally, you'll have higher employee productivity and morale, lower employee turnover, more profitable business relationships...and a steady stream of people sending work to you. People want to do business with companies that reflect their values. Businesses with a 'green' consciousness, that play fair, and that want to be good corporate citizens can easily attract more business -- as long as they understand how to present these values. We've seen this over and over again, with companies like The Body Shop, Ben & Jerry's, Johnson & Johnson, Tweezerman, Interface, Rocky Mountain Institute, many others.”
OK, so it’s a good thing. But how the heck do you go about making it happen?
Horowitz offers some real life tips:
1. Design your business to focus on the Magic Triangle of Honesty, Integrity, and Quality. When your company stands for more than the bottom line, the bottom line actually increases.
2. Forget about wasting energy chopping down competitors; market share isn't even the right metric. This is why IBM opened up the PC architecture many years ago; its market share dropped-but this move created a vast expansion in the overall market (and thus IBM's PC revenues).
3. When you understand that a customer's experience of your brand is not your advertising and marketing-it's what happens when a customer attempts to do business with you -- you can channel that understanding into creating sales agents from your own customers -- people who actively refer new business to you.
This guy actually had an ethics pledge he came up with
on his website.
Can you raise your right hand?
