The Ethical Businessman

For most of his working career, my father was a shoe salesman. He was a district manager for a shoe company, and managed stores and trained staff all around southern Ontario. Some of my fondest early memories were of visiting him at one of his stores and darting behind the curtains into the cavernous labyrinth called the shoe storage area with hallways that seemed to never end.

I started working for my father at age 16, behind the slipper bar during Christmas break from school. My clientele were mostly local businessmen, looking for a last minute gift for their wives. I sold alot of slippers to men, young and old, clueless about the size of their wife's feet, and can only imagine how many returns my father had to deal with in January after I returned to my studies.

In the summers, I graduated to the main sales floor, and learned to fit shoes properly and match a customers request to the proper product. I watched my father and the other sales staff for tips on handling customer requests, and started picking up lessons that I carry with me to this day.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned didn't even strike me as notable at the time I observed it. It was something I took for granted, and I had no idea that it would have a profound effect on how I conducted my own business years later. My father knew his customers and his product like the back of his hand. He didn't even have to go into the storage area to know exactly what he had, and in what sizes. But more importantly, he also made a point of knowing what styles his competitors were offering, particularly if it was a brand that was popular with his customers.

When he ran out of stock, or out of a particular size, he would redirect his own customers to a competitors store, if he knew that store also carried the same shoe in stock. His customers loved and respected him for his knowledge and his honesty; his bosses were not quite so generous with their praise. In their opinion, what my father should have done is convinced the customer to buy a different shoe from him, even if the substitute was considerably different than the original shoe requested. Today, we would call that a bait and switch tactic, something I suspect we all have experienced.

I know my father's ethics were not unique, but they seem unusual today in a world where marketing is designed to separate us from our hard earned cash in exchange for products we never knew we wanted or needed until we were convinced by the sales person. In addition, knowledge levels of sales staff are generally apathetic. Asking if a competitor carries a brand name item that your favorite store has run out of usually elicits a blank stare or a flat no from the sales staff, leaving you to hunt and find the product on your own. Even worse, you may be lied to. I once priced custom drapes at a large downtown department store. As the price quoted was quite high, I asked if they ever went on sale. The saleswoman adamantly claimed that this particular brand of drapes NEVER went on sale. Within a week, I saw a large ad for this department store, with the drapes I desired on sale. I bought them somewhere else.

At first, I didn't realize that I carried my father's passion for ethics and honesty with me as I began my financial services career. I naively believed everyone conducted business the same way! When I began working for a large trust company in the mid-80s, I was taught they had superior products and enough variety that a client never had to look elsewhere for their financial needs. The trust company indoctrinated us in the same manner used by most companies, and we were disloyal if we didn't believe what we were told. Sales staff today, much smarter than I was 25 years ago, refer to this as "drinking the koolaid".

In my next post, I'll elaborate on how difficult it can be to maintain one's ethics while the world around you rewards sales at any cost.