jMoore!

I was reading an article about relationships and the topic was how to figure out what’s fair. I didn’t finish the piece because it turned out to be about sharing housework, but I wandered off thinking about finding fair. It seems to me that the idea of fairness has gone out the window with all the ways we have of seeing more detail than we’re used to in every aspect of our lives and the continual clamor of media telling us over and over again how we feel about it.

This morning I dredged up all the cliches about fairness I could think of. Here’s a few, followed by my first reaction: All’s fair in love and war. (really? or do we just wish it was?) Play fair. (let’s see the rules.) Fairness doctrine (can we legislate fairness?) Fair fight. (unnecessary escalation or just lowbrow entertainment?) Won fair and square. (sounds like there were rules for that game that everyone understood.)
Unfair advantage (now if we can get a discussion going on this one, we might get somewhere)

How does any part of this relate to marketing? Let’s start with Unfair Advantage because I think there are some valid business points to be made. I’m going to point out what I think some fair advantages are when it comes to succeeding with a small business.

Fair Advantages in business

• Better location
• More capital
• More skillful salespeople
• Better product

I think you get the idea. So what’s an unfair advantage? Here are a few I came up with:

• Selling stolen goods so inventory is cheaper
• Spreading lies about competitions product
• Inventing customer satisfaction testimonials or reviews
• Stealing customers or commissions by representing yourself as someone or something other than you are

What’s the point?

There’s a current discussion going on in the world of affiliate marketing about advances in technology, specifically the use of toolbars to improve your online marketing efforts and increase sales. One network (Shareasale) has presented the opportunity for open discussion by asking for input before tweaking their current policy on the use of software on an affiliate site. Many affiliates think that toolbars give an unfair advantage by enticing site visitors away and in some cases, even setting a new cookie (or the like) to steal a future commission.

I like to imagine the details of both sides of an issue and gather some real information before I make a decision and from my perspective, that’s the real way to find the fair outcome. I run through as many of the scenarios as I can in my head and check my gut reaction and my mental gymnastics to see if I can figure out where fair, ethical, reasonable, lawful and good business meet.

I spent many hours in Corporate American attending and then facilitating management ethics sessions. The big “carry home” that has remained with me over the years is this:

If what you are doing becomes tomorrow’s headline, will you wish you could hide the paper from your family and friends?

Since many people verbalize their judgement of character by saying “It’s not fair”, I think you begin to find fairness when you imagine how you’ll be judged and factor it into your decision.

I don’t think the discussion of technology and business is going away anytime soon, so I would like to suggest ways to keep the discussion and solutions fair.

When discussing toolbars and similar technologies:

• Be honest about your concern for the potential of misuse
• Try to be concise and specific with what you know about twisting technology to an unfair advantage
• Don’t unfairly dominate the discussion by continually repeating the same thing as an accusation
• Keep the discussion on track by moving with the flow of the conversation. When you continually backtrack to bring up something that has been dealt with already, you are not being fair to the people trying to solve the problem.
• When you belittle someone else’s comment, you are not just being unfair to the discussion group, you are perpetuating abuse. That takes the discussion further off track.
• Discussions should give everyone involved a fair opportunity to speak their opinion without being ridiculed, beaten down or ignored.
• The leader of a discussion should not have to continually defend the reason for the discussion. If done correctly, the reason is stated upfront and the discussion is for the purpose of gathering input.

I’ve been watching and listening as the discussion moved along from opening salvo to a distributed policy that is still being discussed. I think it’s fair to say that Brian Littleton and his ShareASale network is still the champion of fair opportunity for all to succeed. Finding fair is difficult. Having global territories makes it next to impossible. But I think we can still tune in to the rules of ethics and fairness and find the place where our marketing skills bear fruit that’s worth the effort.