In Fairness to You and Your Company, Quit or Sell

If you take a person’s money, you owe them the work. This is true when the person is your client, but is equally true when your company pays you. If you collect a paycheck, you owe your company the results that they are paying you to produce. If you are paid to sell and you aren’t selling, you are stealing.

Quit: If you don’t believe deeply in your company, if you don’t believe in what you sell, you will never sell as effectively as you should. You’ll pull your punches. Your subconscious mind will dictate your actions, and you’ll phone it in. You’ll go through the motions, but you won’t sell with passion. It is unfair to take your company’s money for a half-hearted effort. You owe them more.

Sell: Every company has problems and challenges in serving their clients, especially their dream clients. Getting results isn’t easy. If it were, you wouldn’t be special. If you know that you can make a difference and you put forth the effort, you should sell and collect what you have earned for doing so.

Quit: If you believe that your company is wrong, that the decisions that they make are wrong, and that you are powerless to make a difference, you should quit. If the fact that you disagree with your company means that you cannot—or will not—sell and earn the money you are paid, out of fairness, you should stop taking their money.

Sell: It doesn’t take long to discover that there is no company in the world that matches your ideal. There will be policies that you don’t like and decisions with which you disagree. Businesses are, after all, made up of human beings, and being human is messy. If the fact that your company doesn’t meet your imagined ideals doesn’t prevent you from believing it is a good and honorable company, and if it doesn’t prevent you from selling, do your part and then collect your paycheck (and commissions).

Quit: If you believe that your competitors are better than you, if you are jealous that they have resources that you don’t have, and if you believe the only way to succeed is to copy their strategy and try to equal them in order to win, you should discontinue collecting a paycheck. If you don’t have the fight in you, then you are morally bound to refuse a paycheck. You owe your company your best effort. You can’t throw the fight.

Sell: If you aren’t susceptible to believing that your competitors have it easier than you do or that they are better than you, if you harbor no jealousy, and if you believe that it is wrong to copy your competitors and execute a “me too” strategy to win, then go out and fight like Hell and win. And collect your prize for having done so.

In fairness to your company, you owe them your very best effort. If you aren’t willing to give them your very best effort, you are obligated to leave so that they can find someone who will do the work for which they are paid.

In fairness to yourself, you owe yourself the opportunity to do meaningful work. By vacating the position you are in, you free yourself from your obligation to the company you are unhappy with so you can find a new position where you can make a difference and make a meaningful life.