Greed Is Not Good

The public outrage over million-dollar bonuses for bad performance proves that one thing money can't buy is a good reputation.

This type of situation always reminds me of a lesson I learned from my father, a successful International Harvester farm implement dealer in Quincy, Ill. When I was still in grade school, he told me about a businessman who owned a local appliance store, but was suspected of cheating his customers on repairs. To see if the suspicions were true, my dad had one of his employees get repairs after first marking all of the parts. Sure enough, the employee was charged for parts that weren't replaced. My dad made a point of noting that even though the businessman happened to be a deacon in our church, he was dishonest and deserved no respect.

One definition of public relations is "doing good things and then telling people about them." One of those good things, as my dad made clear, is to treat your customers with honesty and fairness. If you don't, no amount of PR will save your reputation.