Business ethics from God's perspective

"My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you...then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God...Then you will understand what is right and just and fair-every good path."  Proverbs 2:1,5,9

In the business world, we walk a fine line between what is right in God's eyes and what is right from a business/worldly standpoint.   As a christian businessman, it seems that with every business decision, there is an opportunity to take sides.  Does this have to always be the case?  Can we make decisions that glorify God while also improving the bottom line?  Of course we can!

However, there are many areas of business that I struggle with greatly.  This is one of those posts that I am not going to claim to have all the answers.  In fact, I have probably been guilty of acting for the greater good of the company when in fact my actions probably didn't glorify the LORD that speaks so clearly to me in the passage above.  

In my business, there are many factors involved in how we "price" our customers.  

1. What are considered to be fair rates according to industry standard? 

2. How much time and effort will we put into "servicing" their account?

3. Will the customer price shop and potentially switch to another company in 6 months anyway? 

These are all tough questions that I am sure many people deal with on a fairly consistent basis.  I try to take all of these into consideration when I price an account.  I do this by evaluating their business and customizing my proposal to fit their business.  This is different from other companies that offer the same rates to every merchant, no matter what business type.  This is not in the best interest of the merchant and often ends up costing them way too much money.  The next step I take is guesstimating how much time and energy we will put into servicing this account in the future.  We have many customers that call us quite often and need us to drive out to their business to meet with them.  Time is money!  High maintenance customers might pay a little more than customers that never call us for anything.  I don't see anything wrong with this school of thought.  The last thing that I think about is, "will this customer price shop and leave me in 6 months to save $10 on their service with another company?"  In my experience, I have had customers that I have given extremely low rates(too low!), spent lots of time with the customer on an ongoing basis, only to hear that they went else where to save a few bucks.  Therefore, I don't underprice accounts anymore.  Don't take that to mean that I give high rates, that is not the case at all!!  Simply put, I am fair while still being extremely competitive.  

So far, this philosophy has worked out well for our company.  We are motivated to give the absolute best service possible by being responsive, proactive, and extremely dedicated to the well being of our customers.  But more importantly, I feel that we honor God with our actions.  We play a vital role in a business owners ability to run their business.  I always tell people, "There is not a more important business relationship that with the people who are in charge of your money".    As long as you keep God's words at the forefront of your mind in all business decisions you make, He will honor you and make you prosper.

Thanks for reading!