“Just Say NO – Loudly & Clearly – To Unethical Clients! Advice From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”
By: J. Glenn Ebersole, Jr., Chief Executive of J. G. Ebersole Associates and The Renaissance Group ™
Have you ever been asked to do something unethical by one of your prospects or clients? Have you ever been pressured by a supervisor, manager or owner at your business to do something unethical? Have you ever observed unethical behavior by others in dealing with a prospect or client?
In today’s business world, there are daily instances of unethical behavior occurring all around us. What a sad commentary on business and society today. Over more than 35 years in my own professional career, there have been instances where I have been approached by unethical prospects and clients and was fortunate to have had strong ethical mentors and supervisors, managers & owners that supported my actions to turn away from the unethical requests and to report them to my superiors.
And later in my own business, I have made decisions to forego doing business with unethical prospects clients that meant turning away some very significant assignments. One must always ask – what price do I put on my ethics? How can one justify a compromise of their ethics? It is essential to have some good advice on how to reduce the chance of an improper request from a client or prospect and how to respond when actually approached by an unethical prospect or client. Your strategic thinking business coach offers the following advice.
+ Always present and project a professional image that reflects your integrity and your personal and company core values.
+ Respond directly, clearly and confidently by saying “NO” to unethical prospects and clients.
+ Continuously reinforce company and personal core values to everyone in your organization.
+ Continuously reinforce the code of ethics of your company to all employees.
+ Never compromise your ethical standards in response to an unethical request.
+ Remember, it is impossible to “waive” your ethics, in spite of what Enron tried to do.
+ Be proactive and report the unethical behavior, prospect and/or client to your supervisor, manager, business owner or other appropriate people.
+ Use the “lessons learned” from previous experiences of responding to unethical prospects and clients to help reinforce your ethical standards and as a mentoring and training opportunity.
+ Provide positive reinforcement to those who say NO to unethical prospects and clients.
Your strategic thinking business coach encourages you to be stand firm and be firm in responding when it comes time to dealing with unethical requests and unethical prospects and clients. If you would like to learn more about dealing with unethical prospects and clients and how a strategic thinking business coach can facilitate and guide you in that endeavor, please contact Glenn Ebersole today through his website at www.businesscoach4u.com or by email at jgecoach@aol.com
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“Just Say NO – Loudly & Clearly – To Unethical Clients! Advice From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach” - To learn more about this author, visit Glenn Ebersole's Website.
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