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Golden Pillar of Sales Success #1: Integrity

Pillar number 1 is integrity. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably thinking, Integrity? Yeah, I’ve heard of that. I know what that means. I’m a person of integrity. But I want to peel back the layers a little bit here because I’ve found some very interesting things as it relates to integrity through my career and speaking engagements. The reality is hardly anybody understands what integrity really means. Most people, when they think of integrity, think of synonyms: honesty, trustworthy, things like that. Of course, those are good. They’re important to think about, but integrity is far deeper than that.

The fact is other people are questioning your integrity at a conscious and a subconscious level all the time, from the moment they meet you. They’re trying to decide if you have integrity. Here’s an interesting thing. Everybody thinks they have integrity. I do these seminars, and ask, “How many of you think we have a problem with integrity in America today?” Guess what? Everybody’s hand goes up. If you read the newspaper or turn on the nightly news, you’ll see one more person, leader, religious leader, political leader, business leader, somebody who’s done something that makes us say, “How could that person do that?” We know there is a problem with integrity, but then I always ask this follow-up question, “Okay, we’ve all agreed there is a problem with integrity in America today. How many of you would describe yourself as a person of little or no integrity?”

That’s exactly what you get: silence. Nobody raises their hand. Nobody shoots their hand in the air and says, “Yeah, that’s me, a low-integrity guy – lie, cheat, and steal. That’s the way I make my money.” It tells me that there is this dichotomy. On one hand, everybody thinks there’s a problem. On the other hand, nobody is willing to admit they’re part of the problem.

I began to ask this question, “Why don’t people understand what integrity really is? We think there’s a big problem, but we don’t think we’re part of it. We don't know anybody who will admit to being part of it, so is it just the other guy?” I began to ask myself, “Well, what exactly is integrity?”

If you go back to high school math, you remember a word that shares the root word with the word integrity, and if you are even remotely close to remembering what you learned in high school, you’re going to think yourself, Okay. It’s an integer. You’re right. In my seminars, I will use the odd one or two people who say integer, and then I’ll say, “Okay, follow-up question, smarty pants. What is an integer?” Usually, no one knows what an integer is. In fact, I’ve asked probably a million people this question. I’ve had probably less than 15 people know what an integer actually is, or at least say it out loud in my seminars. An integer is a whole number. Literally, the root word of integrity means whole, W-H-O-L-E, whole or complete, or if you want to look at it from another direction, undivided – whole, complete, singular not plural. You have a circle. If you’ve got a piece of paper, just draw a circle. Make sure that both ends connect and you’ve got a circle. That’s a whole circle. That circle has integrity. It’s whole, complete, undivided. That’s what integrity means.

You might be thinking, Okay, Chris, what in the world does this have to do with selling? Stay with me because the first Golden Pillar of integrity is the most important. The other three can be put in whatever order you want to put them in, but the first one is integrity. All of integrity is the premise of all of sales.

Think about this for a moment. I used the word singular. To have integrity means that you operate from a single set of morals, ethics, and values. I’ll say that again, a single set of morals, ethics, and values. It means you do not operate out of a dual set of morals, ethics, and values. In the selling process, you do not treat one person one way and another person another way. You do not tell the truth sometimes and hedge the truth other times because as soon as you do that, as soon as you begin to operate out of a dual set of morals, ethics, and values, people begin to look at you and they begin to back away from you. Why? Here’s why: integrity breeds trust.

The entire relationship between a seller and a buyer is built on trust. You can learn all the techniques in the world, but if you do not show integrity so that people trust you, you will never build a six-figure sales career. Let me give you an example of how this works. A number of years ago, my wife decided that she didn’t want a minivan anymore. We have four kids who are all gone from home now. At one point when the kids were older she said, “No more minivans. Will you go buy me an SUV?”