How Ethical Selling Engenders Trust - And Builds Profits

What Ethical Selling Means

Ethical selling means having a set of clearly defined principles that are delivered in practice throughout the marketing and sales processes. Those principles should, in brief, encompass:

• Honesty about the product being sold.
• Accurate technical knowledge to back-up any claim made.
• Fairness in the price point the goods are sold for;
• Quality of the goods deliverable, and delivery of those within the agreed timescales;
• The ‘ right to redress’ if something goes wrong at any point of the sale or afterwards.

To cut to the chase, what does every buyer want? The million dollar question. Buyers want to know that your product or services can solve their problem effectively. They need assurances that the quality of those goods or services are sound, and that their purchase will perform the function for which they have bought it for. The buyers want to be able to believe the promises you make on behalf of the products you are selling. Right product – right application – job done.

Why Ethical Selling Translates Into Benefits For The Seller

A successful business is not just about making sales. It’s about developing a relationship with your customer that is built on trust, so that not only do they buy your goods, but they feel good about their purchase, and in a wider sense, about the seller that supplies them. If you sell ethically, the benefits you can expect are:

• A mounting reputation as a trusted seller who delivers on their promises;
• The ability to build genuine partnerships with other parties, and business transactions that take place more smoothly and therefore more quickly, increasing your sales and your company’s bottom line; and
• An increased number of returning customers, which gives your company a more reliable stream of income, enabling better budgeting and forecasting for the future, and providing opportunities for business growth.
• Highly satisfied customers can indirectly become a sales agent for you when they start to recommend you during day-to-day conversations.

Why B2B Companies Must Surmount More Barriers To Make Sales

These overarching benefits are equally true for businesses operating in both the B2C and B2B markets. But selling ethically is in many ways a far easier prospect for the B2C business. B2C is often made up of a series of single transactions, exchanging goods for money, simple. But in the B2B world, it’s dramatically different and much more complex than the B2C markets. Goods or services bought by B2B customers become part of the final product that goes to the end customer, or are consumed in the production process. In B2B selling, the marketing process is more about building an ongoing relationship. Throughout the negotiation process, the stakes are far higher, not least because the value of the transaction is in many cases higher, therefore prices are negotiable in the B2B world.

Product features must be personalised to the individual buyer, for instance. The price is open to discussion. And terms of payment, delivery and so on are all critical parts of the deal. More than that, the potential customer base is smaller, so the stakes become higher for each individual sale.

In short, B2B selling must be a far more personalised process than B2C selling in order to be done successfully. And that’s where ethical selling to build trust becomes so very important. We look more in depth at this issue in our next blog.