Morals, Values And Losing Sleep

A debate about door prices got me to thinking; can a company/salesman have morals and values and still get on in this industry.


I'm on the side of the fence which says you can. When the company I work for started 30 years ago, one of their selling rules was to not do the 'hard-sell'. Be honest with the customer as much as possible and don't take advantage of those who could be taken for a ride.


Customers, now more than ever, are aware of the pricing tactics many use to try and get a sale, dishonestly. I never charge more than the set amount of profit or commission than necessary, but we still make a healthy profit and I do well out of selling that way. I've never been short of money, I've always done well for myself. 


Now for a scenario: a large national company quotes £3300 for a door, my price is way under that. There are some which say I could have charge a lot more than normal, still look cheaper and pocket the the extra. But to me that's just taking advantage of someone who may not be as wise to this. Maybe I'm lacking something but I just couldn't bring myself to knowingly over-charge a customer and dishonestly pocket their extra hard earned cash.


And to show that my way of doing things works, I managed, by selling according to my morals and values, a 56% conversion rate in 2010, in what was a tough trading year. My rates didn't drop below 66.6% for the last five months of that year.