Increasingly I’m working with and meeting people and companies who have a very different philosophy of business. They are rapidly moving away from the “I must make a sale to every prospect” attitude, in favour of building a long term relationship with a client built on trust.

I attended a workshop on advertising using PayPerClick (such as google adwords) and the facilitator talked of the time when these companies used to simply have their adverts appear in order of price with the top spots going to the highest bidders. It wasn’t until one of the big companies (if I remember correctly this was Google) decided to factor in a type of quality score, that this market really changed.

The benefit of this approach was that users of the service who create relevant advertising and information on their sites received a boost in their advert rank. Perhaps not intentionally, they created a new sense of trust in this advertising medium and thus customer loyalty. In the long run they make much more money out of an advertiser who pays 50p for a click through and receives 1000 clicks a month than they do from one who is prepared to pay £3.00 and receives only 50 clicks a month. The other plus is that happy customers mean less bad publicity and press (very important if you use the internet heavily).

Yesterday I attended the 1st Anniversary of the Derby Conference Centre (very nice food too) and sat with a man who works with a major stockbroking and financial advice company. The whole philosophy of the company takes this approach of building a relationship with the client and reaping the rewards down the line in terms of trust, referrals, repeat business etc. It takes me back to a number of books I’ve read on this subject – the most memorable for me is “Natural Selling” by Michael Oliver, which is geared towards Network Marketing but contains some incredible tips and information for any business.

To me, it’s a pleasure to meet people with this attitude, certainly in a networking environment where you are normally bombarded with business cards and offers of this, that and the other. That kind of attitude sticks in your mind and somehow you remember these people. If there comes a time in your life when you want such a service, the chances are you’ll fish out their details and contact them.

This attitude and philosophy is not new, though it has certainly been much forgotten over the years and thankfully it seems to be making a big comeback. It makes business and sales a much more attractive proposition for all of us if there are people out there going about their work in an ethical and honest way.

I’ve found from my own work that sometimes (when it’s appropriate) the best thing you can do for someone who contacts you about your product or services is to tell them that you don’t think that this is for them. In time, some of these people naturally return to you, others supply you with referrals (remember of course that they have yet to experience you or your product) and the rest go on to find the thing that is for them. In the end everyone wins.