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How can you get more and better business by turning from the idea of selling to not selling?

When ethics are a major consideration in marketing, there will be times when you have to turn down work. One of the challenges, at least at first, is getting comfortable with the idea- especially challenging if you’re a small entrepreneur just getting started, and you’re used to struggling hard for every last dollar.

But amazingly enough, in my experience, when you say no to the jobs you don’t want, you open yourself up to finding those that you do – and your business grows very nicely.

When would you need to refuse an order? Here are several situations, and they all come back to the three key attributes of the Magic Triangle – honesty, integrity, and quality:

• You don’t have the appropriate solution; someone else is better equipped to solve the client’s problem (honesty)
• There isn’t enough time to do the job well (quality)
• You could do the job, but it’s an area you’re trying to get away from (honesty—to yourself)
• The client will obviously be so high-maintenance and/or so demanding that the job isn’t worth the price you can charge (quality—of the client)
• The client asks you to engage in unethical behavior (integrity)
• The product is too shoddy and you don’t feel good about working on it (integrity/quality)
• You find the job itself morally distasteful (integrity)

As an example of that last bullet, I was developing a relationship with a local PR firm that wanted to subcontract some copywriting assignments to me. The very first job I got was so clearly wrapped up in a cause that I have spent my life working against that it actually made me ill to look at the client’s publicity fliers. My only hesitation was knowing that the PR shop was overextended and needed materials on a short deadline; I didn’t want to strand the woman who was subcontracting to me.

But after spending an hour agonizing about it, I picked up the phone and explained that while I didn’t want to leave her hanging, I couldn’t in good conscience take the job-but I could still help her manage her overload by taking on a different client.

I was fully expecting that she’d be furious-but actually, she told me she respected my stance. She did take back the problem assignment and give me one that I felt totally comfortable handling.

As a marketer, I used to take on projects for clients even if I didn’t feel their products were good enough—but I’ve stopped. I discovered that if I think the product is shoddy, or a terrible value, or just unable to capture my interest, I can’t write decent copy for it anyway. The last time I tried was a few years ago, when I was hired to write a press release for a truly trashy book on dating, with only a few words on each page and an absurdly high price for the value received. I did write the press release, but not only did I hate working on it, but the client hated what I turned in. From that point on, I decided that I would have to feel good about the product in order to take on the job.

I find that people respect me for this stance, and that I feel a lot better about the work I do. My conclusion? I should have started that policy years ago! Now, when a client contacts me about doing some work, there’s a clause in my return e-mail that allows me the right to back out of a project if I don’t feel it’s a good fit.

Interestingly enough, Arthur Andersen the person, the founder of the accounting firm that was driven out of business by its willingness to look the other way when major audit flags kept turning up at Enron, lost a major account after refusing the company’s request to engage in exactly the sort of unethical accounting that brought down his company almost 70 years later—at a very early stage in his career, when he wasn’t sure he could meet his next payroll. He told the company president that there was “not enough money in the city of Chicago” to change his mind.

If only his corporate heirs had had that attitude!