There are some irrefutable concepts in consent in the context of personal relationships – especially when it comes to sex and romance.
I was thinking, though, could some of those steadfast rules about consensual behavior apply to marketing and sales contexts as well?
This could be a really important consideration if you want to practice your business and your marketing ethically.
Doing something that’s changing the world and would you like to have a chat with me about it? Click here and fill out the form!
Don’t like videos? Here’s the text version:
Are you getting an enthusiastic yes in your pricing strategy?
Hi I’m DJ from Rainbow Dragon Digital in today’s video I want to talk about the concept of consent and how this might apply to sales.
If you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel already, please do. It’ll help me loads and if you click the bell you’ll get notified of new videos.
Consent: An Enthusiastic Yes
I was thinking the other day about the concept of consent.
In sexual and romantic contexts what we’re talking about when we talk about consent is about making sure that we get a real, enthusiastic yes. Not just silence or a nod, we’re getting enthusiastic yes, from our partner, about doing what we’re doing to them is still welcome.
My thinking was, do we do this in pricing? When we sell things to people are we making sure that when they click buy, when they give us their money, are we sure that they’re really, really saying yes?
Or has your marketing convinced them to say yes and they’re not really on board?
It’s a thing to think about as an ethical business.
Consent: We Can Change Our Minds
The other conversation that comes up with consent is that people can change their minds. And in the sexual context, we always say that at any point during this process, you’re allowed to change your mind and say you no longer want it.
Do we do this in pricing? Do we do this in our sales strategy? Is your sales process giving people the ability to regret their purchase and go back on it?
Now, I completely get that this does not apply to all businesses, especially things like you know retail or food, where you can’t really take it back. But even in food in a restaurant, the waiters come by and ask if everything’s okay and that sort of thing.
So, I think there really is something to be said here about the ethics of the way we sell stuff.
Service Businesses Should Put Consent Front and Centre of Pricing and Sales Strategy
I think in service businesses this is especially important and something that really should be front and centre of your pricing strategy and your sales strategy.
You should be making sure that you have an enthusiastic yes, when they accept your proposal or your quote. And you should be giving them the ability to completely change their mind if they’ve decided that you aren’t right for them anymore.
And this is exactly what I do. I offer my clients a package where there is a zero minimum for an hourly rate, and I only charge them that month for work that I’ve actually done with them or the number of sessions that I’ve actually had with them. And that way I’m earning every single penny that I am charging for, and it means that the client is in full control of how much they’re paying and how much they’re getting me to do.
I also offer different, fixed packages for clients that prefer that way of doing things to fix in their budgets.
Ethical Businesses Have a Responsibility to Offer Control to Customers
I think this is this is an important thing for all ethical businesses to think about. How are you making sure that your customers are in control of their buying decisions? Because this has much wider cultural effects as well in terms of what we’re convincing people to do with their money.
Now I realise this is a really complicated issue and I could go down so many different paths with this! If you’re really keen to discuss this kind of thing, I’ve had so many great type chats with people about this sort of thing where they have just messaged me separately, so please feel free to do that on LinkedIn or even send me an email about it, I’m really happy to discuss it.
I love talking about this stuff and if it will help you run your business in a more ethical way, if it will help me run my business in a more ethical way, I’m really open to it!