Why You Should be an Honest BusinessMan or Woman
Salam,
An honest and truthful businessman shall be in the shade of the throne of Allah. – The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)
Sorry everyone for not posting in like 3 weeks, I was having alot of technical problems with my wordpress 
upgrade and it got really annoying like the devil. WordPress upgrades can be real conflicting, sometimes you get a database error, other times you get an internal server error, then all of a sudden your permalinks don’t work, your tags get screwed up and the list goes on. However I decided to just go back to the regular 2.3 version and brother Azeem was able to fix it for me.
“Trust is like the air we breathe. When it’s present, nobody really notices. But when it’s absent, everybody notices.”(Legendary entrepreneur Warren Buffet)
Which leads me to my new topic, yes its about business. Not monkey business, it’s actually about why we should keep our honesty when dealing with customers and especially maintain our Islamic business ethics in our every business matters. I work in a retail store, we sell overpriced clothes for no reason to beat our customers in the head. For example, we have a $1,500 coat in our store, which attracts alot of window shoppers. Anytime I sense a customer is ready to buy it, I advise them to not get it from my store and get it from saks fifth ave or something. Where you can actually save hundreds, automatically they are stunned.
They can’t understand why an employee in the store would show them so much honesty, I’m not trying to brag about my customer service, the point is treat others how you would want to be treated. Another girl walked in ready to buy $300 jeans, I also redirected to another store to get a better deal and again she was staring at me like an alien. Calm down, I’m a citizen. But I realized when you break the norm for the right reasons, you are looked upon as as stranger, which in reality is quite disturbing. That shows how backwards we are.
Back to honesty, see me and manager have different philosophy’s on how to run a business, he believes that you should attack every customer and hunt them down until they buy something. See he wants to increase sales as much as possible, me on the other hand, I’m laid back and I like to let customers move freely around the store and shop with interest and conviction.
After all, I think most people would want to be ultra conservative in their spending habits based on the current economic situation. So while you have customers trying to save, you have businesses trying to survive.
The point I’m trying to prove is many people believe that you have to lie in order for your business to get moving. To me that’s throwing away blessings. As a Muslim, the first word that should come to your mind when selling anything is honesty.
Here are some tips I decided to put together to help us all whether we run businesses or work for a business:
- Be real with your customers, which means take into consideration all the principles and ethical practices that are absolutely necessary for future growth. Don’t always think about money, if you believe in your service or product and it has selling potential, it will sell for itself. No need to strip peoples pockets.
- Keep your promises, false claims can be very viral. If you dissatisfy a customer or mislead them, they will tell others and eventually you will lose customers.
- The sunnah is professionalism, (that’s my next article) Most companies practice the sunnah when it comes to customer service, whether its smiling when greeting your customer or being patient and controlling your anger when your client gets you mad.
- Practice what you preach. Don’t tell your employees to do something you don’t practice yourself. Lead by example. Cause and effect, show them why fairness, excellence, honesty and integrity is what makes your business succeed.
- If your the boss, don’t look down upon your employees. They are your workers, without them you couldn’t survive, being rich is a trial from Allah swt, the ones who are succeed are the ones who are humble.
So yea honesty is the best policy, stop trying to corner your customers. Insha’Allah you keep it real with them and show them the product as it is, and it will be a win – win situation for everyone. It will pay off in the long run, it’s the most profitable investment you can make.
I end with a verse from the Holy Quran to keep us in check:
“Woe to those who deal in fraud, those who, when they have to receive by measure from men, exact full measure, but when they have to give by measure or weight to men give less than due. Do they not think that they will be called to account on a Mighty Day, a Day when (all) mankind will stand before the Lord of the Worlds (83:1-6)”
Just because the cameras aren’t watching and taking you into account doesn’t mean God won’t! I’m out wasalaam.
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