Grow your business with ethics-driven marketing (part II)

Evaluate your business practices against your code. Write them down and consider whether they’re consistent with your ethical values. It’s helpful to focus on each step in the sales process. For example:

• Do your pre-approach letters communicate the type of practice your code envisions?
• Do your appointment-setting calls project professionalism and truthfulness?
• Do you practice full and accurate disclosure in your first prospect meeting?
• Do you perform a careful job of identifying financial needs and understanding a prospect’s personal concerns?
• Are your sales tools accurate, truthful and approved by the appropriate authorities?
• Do you recommend the right products for the right reasons?
• Are your sales documents – illustrations, exhibits and collateral – completely accurate?
• Do you use high-pressure closing tactics, appealing to prospects’ fears and ignorance, or do you use friendly persuasion to move them toward appropriate resolutions?

If you find any disconnects between your values and your procedures, fix them.

Communicate your ethical values to the marketplace. The final component of ethics-driven marketing is communicating your commitment to ethics. How? By sharing it in your marketing materials, on your Web site, at your seminars, in your client newsletter and in the articles you write for local publications. The NEB encourages its members to use every communication vehicle at their disposal to showcase their ethical standards.

The point is this: If you are truly committed to ethics, then make it the focal point of your marketing effort. It will energize your business and communicate the one thing prospects really want to know – that you are a person they can trust.