Ensure that your integrity is without question.

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As someone who has spent a lot of years helping others do business the right way, it really rubs me the wrong way when I am told “The seller won’t sell to me if their creditors will be contacted” or “I’ll lose the sale if they have to wait for a day or two for a lien search”.

For starters, it is not legal to contact another’s creditors without written permission. No one but they will be contacting their creditor(s).

Secondly, if they don’t want to contact their creditor for a lien release, there may be bigger problems. How do you know they legally own it? If you don’t care, I feel for the people you pass equipment along to next. There is no integrity, and that piece of equipment becomes part of the bigger problem everyone else is trying to eliminate by doing the right thing.

As far as waiting for the lien search, I get that equipment deals move fast. I really do. But that should not ever be a compromise for doing business right. The people that own the equipment after you deserve no less than you should as a buyer. Don’t do dirty and questionable deals. It’s possible that the guy will wait in order to do business with you but wants to see if you are going to do the right thing and get the lien search done.

Here is a different frame of reference – I get those frequent phone calls for vacations or a cruise I have been “chosen to receive” knowing full well that nothing is free. I always ask if I can contact them at a later date and discuss it with my husband. We are both self-employed and do not get X vacation days a year. Our coordination of time off takes a little longer. If their answer is “No. This is a one-time opportunity. We can only offer this to you right now.” I will not be cruising with them. No one should have to compromise in the moment.

NOTHING in life is the only opportunity. If “that guy” selling the equipment is willing to compromise your integrity for their greed, you are dealing with the wrong guy and there are better opportunities to buy. If “that guy” has the best deal on the market – it might be too good to be true and might have other problems that will come back to bite you later. Is that the kind of business you want to run and have passed along to the next guy?

For every piece of equipment on the market

another is coming around behind it.

Don’t go where your integrity in business can be questioned later. Everything depends on that curious mixture of character and competence called trust. Never let it be questioned.

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