Sunlight Testing

You've likely heard of a type of these in a roomful of chin stroking execs.

The basic premise is that for any behaviour that you're thinking of acting out, how happy would you be for your friends, family or colleagues to find out about it?

Also often framed as whether you'd fancy it to become a front-page news splash in the papers. Or in modern form, flash across feeds and screens of all the world's phones.

It's an oft-used lens to assess the ethics of doing something.

Interestingly, there's also the different concept of a 'sunshine law'. Primarily around making it simpler for taxpayers to uncover previously secret information about the machinations of government and its spending.

Similar in the sense of considering transparency and its ramifications.

I recently heard another spin on this. Although from someone describing themselves with that possible alarm bell of 'tech investor'.

When alluding to gauging your own workplace behaviour or management style, Chris Farmer recommended;

if you explain it to someone on the street and they think it's inappropriate then it probably is.

Aside from its moral roots, the issue of judging what's good and right can extend for us into things that our prospects and customers would be happy we did.

Is your method of selling, delivery dna or product development full of integrity which holds meaningful win-win with your client interests to the fore?

Imagine your buyer community's most read sector website. Or the message system they as a group all post pics and clips to. Or maybe if a 'send all' email were to appear with you and what you've just done as the subject line.

There's a potential chasm between what you might try and promote through contemporary PR and the uncontrolled viral spread of someone commenting on what you did.

A Sales Sunlight Test should seek to illuminate precisely and explicitly how, where and why you aim to make life both good and right for your paying customer.