My point is that maximum protection provides the means for you get and keep your money.

Awesome article. I think you will find a lack of integrity acrossed any industry, although there may be more or less integrity in specific industries, it does exist in every field =(

I have work coming up that will involve some Web Design and I was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of some generic templates that I should use to bring some organization to the process?

Contracts, Information Gathering Questions, etc…

Note: I have downloaded the Web Site Ebook Sample, and do not have the money for that at this time, so any other suggestions would be appreciated!

Whenever money is involved, there are going to be people who will lie, cheat and steal to get it.

In the end, you have to do three things:

1. Protect yourself as best as you can by having iron clad contracts, and getting as much payment up front as possible.

2. Make serious efforts to collect money from anyone who doesn’t pay. Don’t let them off easy.

3. Know when to quit. Despite my rule #2 above, there comes a point when you’re wasting more time, effort and money trying to collect from a deadbeat than it’s worth. Every business needs to factor in a certain amount of fraud into their pricing. It’s unfortunate, because the upstanding people who do pay on time end up paying more to cover the losses incurred from the deadbeats, but that’s how all businesses do it.

Yes and no. My major integrity issues currently have to do with local providers. I have some off-shore teams who are fabulous and trustworthy.

It’s trust again. You have to trust people that you are doing business with—so maybe we should all be a bit more careful about who we do business with.

Wouuld you work without a contract? Hopefully not. In a few short interactions with someone you can’t expect to come to know them well enough to know if they would ever be dishonest. Getting a signed contract is part of good business.

I also have a special form for credit card payments also, that protects me just in case they try to do a chargeback. It actually is more preventative though, because just knowing they signed the form is probably going to prevent them from trying.

You should trust your clients, but you shouldn’t be naieve and believe that none of them will do something like this. Protect yourself in business and in life…

Commerce is as a heaven, whose sun is trustworthiness and whose moon is truthfulness.

And, more fundamentally:

Truthfulness is the foundation of all the virtues of the world of humanity. Without truthfulness, progress and success in all of the worlds of God are impossible for a soul.

The second one I believe has applications on every level of our existence: in our personal relationships, in our business lives, in our spiritual growth, and anywhere else.

I can’t claim to have perfect integrity. Really I’m not so sure that anyone on this earth can. But there are some who make a sincere effort, and there are others who don’t.

Thanks for this article.

For example, suing (or threatening of suing, which is not much better) somebody who is being attacked by hackers is described as a stroke of marketing genius not even contemplating how wrong this is on so many levels.

Also many of the business ideas and marketing methods discussed here are often ethically ambiguous.

In the future, if you take credit card payments have your clients sign a one-page credit card authorization form acknowledging work was complete and the charges are accurate. I have been told by several people that these forms will hold up against a chargeback with credit card companies.

Mine even has a clause noting that if they *did* issue a chargeback, all bank fees, credit card fees, attorney’s fees and other fees incurred would be charged.

If you want an example document that I use just let me know. I wish we could just take a handshake, but it seems lack of integrity runs rampant these days. I’d rather be safe than sorry.

Brandon

His motto was simple: “Just do the right thing”.

Give us hope :)