I was reminded of the impact of integrity in business, or its absence when a client and friend was affected by the behaviour of someone without integrity.
Damian Papworth of SEO Resellers Australia runs his business with integrity as its cornerstone. It’s a wholesale service, providing white label SEO services and other digital marketing services to web designers and agencies in Australia and around the world.
If his customers don’t trust Damian and his team to do the right thing – by them, by their customers, by Google’s rules – they won’t give him their business.
It makes sense – would you hand over a part of your business to someone if you didn’t trust them? Me neither (I do trust him and my digital marketing Smartify My Biz is a proud customer of SEO Resellers Australia).
The story, though, is how a rogue associate caused harm. The rogue behaved badly, told lies to customers and resellers and was terminated by Damian (after a lengthy and angst-ridden period of hoping it would right itself without such harsh action).
What’s interesting is the reaction of those who we might have expected to support our rogue or believe his (ongoing) lies.
They didn’t (believe his lies). He mounted a campaign of misinformation and accusation intended to make himself smell sweet like a rose and to make Damian and his business smell tainted and corrupt.
But nobody believed him. Everybody believed Damian and his team.
A lie is (usually) easily exposed and integrity exposes itself in our daily actions.
The shitfight we feared didn’t happen and our rogue disappeared with a grumble.
It seems integrity is not just important but when it’s not negotiable and part of the fabric of what you do is pretty obvious from the outside too.