Ever since recently rereading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the world appears to have polarised into good and evil. Right and wrong.
Politics has become about doing what’s right, wars are declared against tyrants, and countries led by bad men are branded as evil.
Businesses have grown to realise that being good not only looks good, it is good. And good can be good for business.
Parents strive to do the right things for their children. Good parents want their children to grow up into good people.
Some time ago, Google realised that their AdSense system was being abused by many websites. Thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of websites were setup to make their visitors click on ads without realising it. Google tightened up the rules – but was this because they were morally opposed to the deception, or because their advertisers started to realise that the content network was producing low-quality traffic?
If a PR company doesn’t believe in a product, should they take on the client?
As a matter of course, SoftwarePromotions turns away more companies than we send price quotes for. Last time I checked, we turned away three companies for every company we decided to work with.
But was this a moral decision,or a business one?
If a company doesn’t benefit from our services, the client loses and so do we. We get paid, but we also get another entry in our unhappy customer file.
The truth is probably somewhere between the two – a decision influenced by business and ethical considerations.
Our company has taken on products that we really believed in at lower cost. We worked with a company selling a beautifully simple financial management tool for a fraction of our lower rate. We believed in the product, and we thought that the initial investment would prove to be worthwhile.
And we’ve turned away products that we are morally opposed to, including gambling applications, violent games and more.
But these fall into the clear categories of good and bad. What about the examples that make you go hmmm?
If your company is in the business of selling, do you really believe in your product?
Do you believe in the claims that you make on your website?
Do you believe that your customers should be buying your product, and not those of your competition?
If so, does your website communicate your belief, your unwavering faith in your products and your absolute conviction that what you sell is best?
The world’s a lot simpler in two colours. So is selling your product.
