If you’re starting out in business, online or offline and you’re keen to make money quickly, it can be tempting to cut corners. You might talk up something that really isn’t going to do what you’re promising, copy other people’s work and pretend there’s no such thing as copyright, sell your customers things that actually breach trademark laws and basically twist the truth to a point to almost guarantee a sale.

I don’t know about you but when I get treated like that as a customer, I sure as heck will eventually find out I’ve been jibbed and will tell people about it. It goes without saying that I would never trust you again. The opposite is true if you over deliver on your service, what you sell me does more than I expected, and you pretty much showed me that you operate with a good deal of decency. I’ll tell plenty of people about you, show my friends what I bought and become a devoted customer who trusts you thanks to your ethical marketing.

Operating your business with a level of decency centered around how you would want to be treated yourself, will certainly help you set yourself apart from the average person who is willing to sell at all costs. Short term gain is a recipe for long term pain or in this scenario, a not so successful business.

Treat your customers as you yourself would want to be treated, and you’ll go a long way toward building a tribe of loyal followers.