Integrity: your sales edge

Integrity was voted the number two sales trend for 2011, which is a sign of the times. Your word, your honour, your promise are on show and people will judge you on your actions – not on your spin.

So what does integrity mean for us in business and beyond?

As stated on Wikipedia “integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness of one’s actions.”

The word “integrity” stems from the Latin adjective integer (whole, complete). In that context integrity is the inner sense of “wholeness”, deriving from qualities such as honesty and consistency of character.

One may judge that others “have integrity” to the extent that they act according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold.

Your values, how you act and what you stand for are just as important as your technical skills and capabilities in today’s business world.

With the internet comes a whole new transparency. False promises, dubious actions, bad behavior, customer complaints and bad press will be tracked and publicly broadcast to many in 2011.

And as we are coming to realise, what goes in the internet stays on the internet – forever.

If your intention is to deceive people, your clients, your colleagues, your community, you do so at your own peril because Wikileaks, Facebook and Twitter are exposing deceptions in milliseconds.

Observe what is happening in Egypt and the Middle East, with peaceful and often not so peaceful uprisings – people in those nations are uniting like never before.

Tired and frustrated with the dishonesty, abuse and corruption which have been a part of their lives for so long they are using social media to bring regimes down.

There is nowhere to hide in the virtual world and people are voting with their voices by sharing their feelings and taking action online as well as in the streets.

The speed at which they connect and collaborate to hold powerbrokers to account is amazing.

Your reputation now precedes you and you will be judged.

Despite prevailing paradigms of 20th century “old school selling” tactics such as product monologues, bully boy tactics and in some cases deception, highly successful, effective, ethical sales people and businesses have nothing to fear.

They have always known that the best way to sell and engage with customers is to develop honest and open relationships. They know that TRUST supersedes like.

The time has arrived to move beyond the old sales stereotypes and enter the real world of the honourable sales professional.

All your knowledge, skill, products, company infrastructure and brand will mean nothing without integrity.

Companies and sales people need to shape up in 2011 and make sure what they promise can be delivered.

Proactively forging honest and open relationships (of any kind) based on trust, transparency, respect and doing what you say you will do, will be on show in 2011.

Remember, everybody lives by selling something.

Sue Barrett practices as a coach, advisor, speaker, facilitator, consultant and writer and works across all market segments with her skilful team at BARRETT. Sue and her team take the guess work out of selling and help people from many different careers become aware of their sales capabilities and enable them to take the steps to becoming effective and productive when it comes to selling, sales coaching or sales leadership.To hone your sales skills or learn how to sell go to www.barrett.com.au.