Philly Sprints Business Tips

Archive for the ‘Ethics’ Category

Has honesty become a thing of the past? Many people are asking themselves this question as they scour the net for what they need.

As the low economy in the United States takes its toll on many, people are constantly looking for alternative ways to solve their dilemma, including the internet.

In a frantic search to find the ultimate solution, they spend their hard-earned money on “Get Rich Schemes” only to find out that the bargain they hoped for wasn’t a bargain at all.

With crushed hopes, dreams, and an empty wallet many people retaliate. Some may pass it off by learning negative things such as not trusting anyone else… possibly for the rest of their lives. Others quit buying altogether. While still others, run and tell there friends they got ripped-off and by whom causing a viral rift, giving marketers a bad reputation.

Either way we look at these facts, we still come to the same conclusion. We need to change the way we are doing things and become more ethically inclined when running our businesses.

Honesty has a great deal to do with any marketer, if not for any other reason but to be able to continue with one’s business. Secondly, it helps someone else get what they need.

I remember a time when people put great trust in their local merchant. You remember those days? The marketer was fair and usually gave the consumer more than they bargained for…They new the secret to long term success.

We too have that same power to claim long term success and to help change what is going on in the internet marketing circle! By claiming this power and making a few changes, we can help stimulate the economic growth that is needed to overcome hard times.

You may be saying to yourself, but I am honest in my work. You may be! There are still many marketers that use ethical marketing when selling their products. That’s great, but what about passing these ethical techniques to future merchants? Like our affiliates for example…Are we teaching them about honesty? How about the new marketer who seeks wisdom and a JV with some of the old timers?

I know some folks who have been making money for several years are going to say, “We’ve tried to teach the young about ethical marketing, but they aren’t listening.” That may be so. We cannot twist anyone’s arms to get them to do the right thing.

However, we can be examples for them. We leave the ball in their court. The young will then learn from their mistakes. Without customers and future financing, they will once again seek wisdom from the old timers.

Then, and only then, will online marketing be instrumental in economic growth so it can stand firm throughout the trials that face all of us.

If this article offends anyone maybe it’s time to take a look at the overall marketing picture.

Trust is built on the very foundation of honesty, especially when dealing with costumers. It’s a two-way street…the consumer gets what they paid for, their hopes are flying high and their wallets still have money in them so they can buy other things.
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Toy surprises buried in cereal boxes or in bags of popular snacks have been a marketing tactic for as long as package goods have been sold in supermarkets. Most people probably can’t even imagine a Cracker Jack box without a prize inside.

Giveaways are not just for kids; adults have long participated in incentive giveaways ranging from a free tote with the purchase of makeup or perfume at a department store, to $500 gift cards with a new account at the local bank. All of these giveaways are designed to entice the consumer to try particular brands and services.
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Business always moves faster than government …

It’s no surprise that a great deal of lawmakers’ time is spent reacting to advances in commerce and science. It’s also no surprise that one of their favorite tactics is to call on their enforcement agencies to bring scrutiny against any topic about which they’re struggling to understand.

We’re now seeing this applied against at least two e-currency operations.

One of them, INT Gold, saw their head offices in Texas raided by the FBI in December. No arrests were made and no disclosures were presented to indicate the reason for their actions. The only auspices mentioned were that they were pursuing an ongoing fraud investigation. It’s now been over a month and nothing further has happened.

At roughly the same time, e-Gold was also served with a search warrant. It seems the justification was petty — they allegedly didn’t have a ‘required’ currency-exchange license — and they were upset enough to place the following posting on their website:

e-gold® welcomes US Government review of its status as a privately issued currency January 20, 2006

“Starting in mid-December 2005, Gold & Silver Reserve, Inc. (G&SR), contractual Operator and primary dealer for e-gold, has been the subject of a warranted search of its premises and records, had its domestic bank accounts frozen, and been the target of a precisely timed, extraordinarily misleading attack by a major business publication.

“In an emergency hearing in US District Court January 13, 2006, the freeze order on G&SR’s bank accounts was lifted. Though numerous criminal claims had been made in obtaining the search and seizure warrants, the Government has not sustained these allegations and the only remaining claim is a contention that G&SR has operated as a currency exchange without the proper license. G&SR had previously proposed to the Government that e-gold be classified for regulatory purposes as a currency, enabling G&SR to register as a currency exchange. In a Treasury report released January 11, 2006, however, the Department of Treasury reaffirmed their interpretation of the USC and CFR definitions of currency as excluding e-gold.

“G&SR, for nearly a year, has been engaged with an agency of Treasury in a BSA (Bank Secrecy Act) compliance examination it had voluntarily initiated. G&SR, though preferring that the venue was not a courtroom, welcomes the opportunity to extend its discussions with the Government on how best to achieve appropriate statutory or regulatory cognizance of e-gold while continuing to build e-gold’s market share as a medium of international commerce.

“Despite the unfounded charges and adverse misleading publicity that have severely damaged both e-gold and G&SR, G&SR has continued to meet all financial obligations and remain completely operational. e-gold remains highly committed to its goal of bringing, for the first time in history, to people of any financial means across the globe, a secure payment mechanism at a fraction of the cost of any other system. e-gold fully expects to transcend the unfortunate events of the past month and resume its exponential growth.

“Further information can be found at:

www.e-gold.com
www.omnipay.com
www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/js3077_01112005_MLTA.pdf”

The proactive approach by e-Gold should be applauded. INT Gold should have done the same thing.

If more of the public only knew how many times search papers were served on financial institutions for one reason or another, they’d no doubt be as skeptical as I am about the publicity the authorities have given their actions against these two e-currency companies.

Let’s consider how authorities move against major banks when wrongdoing is suspected. One characteristic which becomes quickly evident is that any releases issued by the investigating authorities have always been very specific in their nature, because major banks have enough financial and political clout to strike back at anything less.

An example of a precisely identified transgression is the Citigroup private banking scandal in Tokyo in 2004. The Japanese authorities said the bank helped clients manipulate accounting records through improper real estate transactions, failed to process tax refunds for clients and mismanaged customers’ confidential information. As a result, they ordered Citigroup’s Japanese private banking operations to close, but took measures to ensure all unaffected investors would be minimally affected while they moved their accounts.

Rarely, total loss to depositors happens. The Silverado collapse in Colorado sent Charles Keating to prison for what should be a thousand life terms, as more people than that lost their life savings. It’s notable that this occurred in what was a laissez-faire junk bond scenario.

Raids only receive mention when it serves the authorities’ purposes to do so. One reason for this is because the searches and/or seizures don’t yield sufficient results to merit charges being filed. There can exist a vast gray area in modern financial activities, and when the fine print of a certain situation is scrutinized, it often occurs that, perhaps those activities have sailed close to the legal wind, but they did not take the airs of disrepute.

It remains to be seen what they’re investigating at INT Gold. As opposed to their treatment of major banks, the nature of the authorities’ announcement of this raid was quite vague, which I’m sure was by design. So, the issue is one of whom they were attempting to stir. However, American law says the parties involved are innocent until proven guilty, so they should duly be accorded that right. Until the entire story comes to light, it’s improper to cast aspersions. After all, as with most raids at major banks that go unpublicized, it may be that the transgressor is not the company, but a client who has abused its privileges within that company’s facilities.

The e-currency investigations are surely a result, in part, of one government’s indecision as to how to regulate e-currencies within their borders when those currencies are neither fiat nor necessarily domiciled within those borders.

This reminds me of broadcasting’s early days, when the Feds were perplexed about how to best cope with radio signals that only obeyed the laws of physics and thus had the ability to cross state lines without governmental permission. As ridiculous as that sounds today, the thought of a particular technology being more advanced than political and/or geographical delineations was of deep concern to them. It ultimately took nearly 15 years for the American government to create the Federal Communications Commission to cope with such an ‘advanced’ business as interstate broadcasting.
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In the 25 + years of working with some of the best people in Business Development within the power generation industry, we have found some unique characteristics that separate these individuals from the rest. It doesn’t seem to matter what organization they work for, or the services, the client base or the economic climate. We find that these individuals are in fact the top 3% of the professionals in their field. In addition to learning to think as CEO’s, Presidents, entrepreneurial leaders of Business Development units, we’ve discovered they have acquired the behavioral characteristics of a leader. They have learned how to set strategic and operational objectives in putting together plans, how to be visionaries and see opportunities for their organizations that other individuals may miss, and in the role of Business Development, they have mastered the 12 Core Competencies, a benchmark to measure leaders.

One of the most compelling definitions of a leader is an individual whose mere presence inspires the desire to follow. When asked if leaders are born or bred, the general consensus is that leadership can be taught. While few of us have had the opportunity to be formally trained or mentored in leadership, all of us are called to be a leader at different times and circumstances in our lives. Leadership is first about who you are as an individual, not what you do, and the term character best describes the core characteristic of a leader. It is this part of an individual that inspires other to follow, so we see character as the summation of an individual’s principles and values, core beliefs by which one anchors and measures their behavior in all roles in life. Principles and values of a positive leader include loyalty, respect, integrity, courage, fairness, honesty, duty, honor and commitment.
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