Once upon a time, it was widely presumed that ethics had no place in business. The laws of the jungle prevailed, and it was the apex predator who came out on top. Today, however, savvy business leaders understand that internal ethics aren’t just an ideal or a luxury. In the modern global marketplace, ethics are essential.
However, internal ethics are about far more than making your employees, investors, stakeholders and clients feel good. Internal ethics are also highly beneficial for your company’s bottom line. This article examines the role that internal ethics play in your company’s external marketing and sales.
Prioritizing Accessibility
One of the most important ethical decisions you can make for your business is to prioritize accessibility both in the physical and virtual domains in which your company operates. By ensuring that your company’s web content is fully accessible, functional and relevant to end-users of all abilities, not only are you preventing the marginalization to which too many audiences with special needs have been exposed, but you are also dramatically expanding your content reach.
What this means, ultimately, is that by offering content that can be consumed and instrumentalized in myriad ways, you’re no longer limiting your marketing, relationship-building or recruiting to a finite pool of candidates prepared to access and use your content in typical and homogeneous ways. Rather, you’re driving growth in regard to revenues, client acquisition and retention, and workforce-building through diversification. In short, accessible web design boosts your marketing efforts.
The same holds true for physical accessibility. If your campuses, storefronts and other business properties are fully accessible to persons with diverse needs, including those with mobility or sensory impairments, you are inevitably going to expand and diversify your workforce and your customer base. Best of all, you will, at last, be employing workers and serving customers who have for too long been excluded due to a physical, cognitive, or psychological disability.
Selecting for Sustainability
The issue of environmental sustainability has gained a lot of traction in recent years, compelling business operators to revise their business models in support of green practices. But, sustainability is far more than a passing fad or a trending buzzword.
It’s increasingly being recognized as the future of business, particularly as awareness of and concern over the threat of climate change continues to grow apace. What this means, ultimately, is that businesses that don’t adopt sustainable practices could soon find themselves behind the eight ball in regard both to regulatory compliance and business growth.
Consumers and corporations alike are increasingly more likely to partner with enterprises embracing sustainable practices and to separate from those that don’t. In B2B relationships, in particular, aligning with companies that aren’t sustainable isn’t just a moral hazard, but it’s also a practical one. Prospective commercial partners or clients are unlikely to team with your organization if doing so could potentially jeopardize their own sustainability metrics.
Emphasizing Employee Well-Being
Every smart business leader knows that your employees are the fuel that makes your organization run. Prioritizing your employees’ happiness and well-being is more than an ethical value, it also makes great business sense.
Ensuring that your employees are physically, emotionally, and mentally strong means that you’re always already building a robust team of brand ambassadors, those who will go out into the world. Happy, healthy employees will represent your company in the best possible light and draw both the most coveted workers and the most lucrative clients to your organization.
Best of all, when you enact ethical policies that prioritize employees’ wellness, such as offering comprehensive physical and mental healthcare benefits, flex time and hybrid work schedules, and ample paid time off, you’re going to significantly reduce the risk of employee burnout and turnover.
That’s going to enhance your sales and marketing techniques because you will be holding on to talented employees who already know your business from the inside out. They will have built strong relationships with clients and have established rich and productive professional networks that they are uniquely qualified to maintain and grow.
Driving Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Much like the prioritizing of physical and web accessibility and the emphasis on employee well-being, the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in your company is going to propel growth while nurturing the best and most talented workforce.
DEI mandates the cultivation of an organizational culture that recognizes, respects, and accommodates the unique needs and perspectives of a heterogeneous workforce and client base. This inevitably leads to an optimized employee experience that will, in turn, translate to a superb customer experience and the sales increases that almost certainly follow.
Above all, when employees feel that their diverse needs and perspectives are welcomed in the workplace, they are far more likely to remain and grow with the company. In high-pressure fields, such as B2B sales, the continuity that turnover reduction provides can significantly improve organizational effectiveness, especially in the areas of marketing and sales, where familiarity and relationship longevity are key.
The Takeaway
Ethics in business are not antithetical. Indeed, if you want your company to survive and thrive in today’s market, prioritizing internal ethics is essential, providing robust benefits for your external marketing and sales practices.
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