because it's just not worth it you can
destroy relationships over stupid lies I
lost that six-figure client over an
email that was like three words long
it's weird
making a video and giving advice on
business ethics because I don't want to
come off as someone who's like holier
than Alec oh I'm the most ethical person
out there business ethics and trying to
be a good person is a pursuit just like
anything else and it's all a constant
struggle what I wanted to make this
video for was to tell you it's not worth
it if you think about lying your
business partners or stealing money or
acting in a way that's untruthful
unethical I just wanted to say that it
comes back first of all who am i I'm
Alex Berman I've generated over 10
million dollars in sales for our
companies our own multiple businesses
with a lot of moving pieces a lot of
team members and gone through several
co-founders now and I've dealt with some
ethical people I've dealt with a lot of
unethical people and it doesn't turn out
good for the unethical people let me
tell you some stories here we go
you've heard that it's important to test
your subject lines to have at least an
80 percent open rate and we enable
to achieve that pretty consistently for
our clients selling the billion-dollar
brand the hardest part was coming up
with the subject lines but lucky for you
we put together 50 cold email subject
lines for you to test at email 10k com
slash subject 1 co-founder I used to
work with at a lead generation company
years and years ago had this streak of
lying his main thing was he would
pretend to be multiple people and we
could do this because we were a remote
team so he would pretend to be two or
three people and collect three times the
salaries and that's just crazy
one how do you even think to do that but
- yeah sure he collected you know a
couple extra thousand bucks a month for
a while but the company fell apart it
was eventually found out and I didn't
even know he was doing this until a
co-founder that he founded his next
business with told me that he was doing
the exact same thing so now that guy is
not doing any sort of business as far as
I can tell he's off social media like
he's totally gone
and that's what I mean by it's not worth
it being unethical or trying to mislead
or lying to your business partners can
pay off in the short term
that's what's so tempting about being
unethical right like he did make money
in the short term and yet in the long
term he destroyed a bunch of
relationships with people that he
probably shouldn't have and it's much
much harder now for him to make it so
it's just not worth it and that goes for
not just your co-founder relationships
but with clients as well I've lost deals
with clients that should have been six
figures because of mistakes and then
lying about those mistakes
for instance one time I was supposed to
schedule an on-site meeting with a
client this was a couple years ago I
sent them an email to schedule this
meeting but instead of sending it to
them I accidentally replied and only
sent it to myself and then for weeks
instead of just sending them another
email I didn't want to admit that
mistake so I just kept telling him that
it was in their inbox I don't know why I
was doing that and so by the time that
this was actually solved in 3-4 weeks
the clients trust was completely ruined
because of that one stupid lie there was
no point in me doing that I could have
just sent another email my ego is a
little big because I I'm like the email
guy so the email guy messing up emails
it's pretty rough but it does happen and
it's just not worth it if I just told
the client oh hey I made a mistake here
how's Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. work we would
have made six figures instead of what
happened which is the client got pissed
off and stopped working with us if
you're a digital agency owner without a
contract template that can be quickly
customized we have some great news we
are giving away the actual template that
we use to close business with our
clients download the contract template
at email 10k com slash contract and save
a thousand bucks in legal fees so you
think these little lies are fine and
they're not it's just not worth it the
same thing happens with mistakes you
might make in other areas of your
business the last couple months our
marketing budget was a little higher
than it should have been like 20 30
percent higher and instead of lying to
my co-founder I told him right away that
the marketing budget was a little higher
than normal after I found out about it
after two months cuz our marketing teams
just kind of going he was fine with it
because of the openness it's not worth
it to lie it's
almost always worth it to admit you've
made a mistake and then try to be better
so if you are acting unethically right
now and the way to find out if you're
being unethical is when I say that does
something come up in your mind right if
I'm saying something like if you're
acting unethical right now or doing
anything that's unethical
it's not too late to change if you're
hearing that and thinking oh I'm doing X
thing just know it's better to tell
whoever you're hiding from what you're
doing right now then to let it sit and
let it build up because it's just not
worth it you can destroy relationships
over stupid lies I lost that six-figure
client over an email that was like three
words long this stuff adds up and it's
just not worth it is it worth stealing a
couple thousand dollars a month if you
lose millions of dollars no is it worth
lying about something stupid to save
yourself from embarrassment if it means
the relationship is destroyed for the
future no it's just not worth it
and it's as simple as that thanks for
watching the video if you like this type
of content subscribe for more videos
like this on business ethics marketing
sales etc and let me know down in the
comments below what do you think of
business ethics let's get a conversation
going and if you want to start your
company
check out email 10k com we have a free
presentation all about how to build your
business how to start from scratch and
how to book meetings with clients that
can afford you thanks for watching I'm
Alex Berman