So I’ll keep this really short. I’ve just been reading a thread over on a very well respected forum regarding the ethics (or lack of them) in Internet Marketing. It seems opinions are divided over whether you need to be the nice guy, over delivering to all your customers, making customer service a higher priority than earning money, refusing to engage in any unethical practises… or accepting that you’re into internet marketing as a way of earning money and if that means you upset some people, do some things that aren’t perhaps in the best interests of your customers, step on a few toes…. then so be it.
Now Internet Marketing has a really bad reputation. And that’s down to the fact that a lot of the so called gurus engage in the Mr Nasty tactics because they see it as a business and the point of the business is to make money, not friends. They can justify it, because generally, it’s a given fact that you’re never going to really develop a friendship with your customers. That would make them friends, not customers.
But can you make just as much money, and build a successful business if you don’t follow the Mr Nasty route? And if not, why not?
Personally, while I don’t have many of the skills to engage in some of the less ethicial practises used by some marketers, I doubt I’d use them even if I did. Sleeping at night is waaaay easier when you’re not worrying that you ripped someone off by selling them something they didn’t need. But for a lot of folks, they don’t worry about that type of stuff. And that’s the deal breaker isn’t it?
You can only do business in a way that suits you. Regardless of what you read, no matter how you’re told to run your business, you’ll come across some training or advice that you just won’t be able to put to use because it goes against your own principles.
At the end of the day, it’s down to you. You can do Internet Marketing ethically, or you can do it unethically. But your choice will always be ethical to you, because you are the one who sets the standard of what’s right and wrong in your life. Not me, not your mates, not your customers, just you.
