Let's demand it. From ourselves, the companies we do business with, our elected officials, and each other. Downturns in the economy are cyclical and we may have had one right now anyway but would it have deepened into the chaotic mess we see before us had we exercised a bit more integrity in our business dealings over the last 20 years?

Late Friday day night I was cold called by a salesman from the Better Business Bureau. We were in the midst of preliminary staging steps for a furniture delivery on Monday and I, the business owner, was left unguarded for the smallest of moments. His pitch, successful businesses, like presumably the one we have, should join the BBB so that other businesses seeking partners with integrity can find us.

We had moved all of our furniture out pending delivery of new office furniture. I was sitting at a card table. The place couldn't have looked more like a sweatshop if we were one. All day I kept remarking to the rest of the company that I felt like I should be calling people at home selling magazine subscriptions. Into this hovel walks the dapper salesman from the BBB. He had called on us once before. I recognized his face but wasn't confident enough to answer correctly when he asked if I remembered him. He launched immediately into his pitch. No questions, no confirmation that he knew what we did, no inquires as to our business philosophies, despite the aforementioned sweatshop appearance.  He wants me to join the BBB because they need companies like us. Does he know what we do? Does he know we are honest? Does he know that we have integrity? He does not. Had I signed up for the less than $400 per year, DIG would be able to proudly wear the colors of the Better Business Bureau whether we deserved to or not.

This salesman could have researched us, spoken to some of customers, and decided we were exactly who should be in the BBB, he did not. He was working late on a Friday night; cold calling of all things, but that time might have been better spent selecting the companies who he would call by phone during business hours, presumably with a better value proposition than the one he gave me Friday night. I promised to visit the website which I have done. I'm still unclear as to how BBB membership will help DIG.

But here are some bigger questions:

• Had I been a sweatshop would I have gotten in anyway just because I wrote a check?
• Why doesn't the BBB feel obligated to teach their sales force how to sell properly?
• Why don't businesses that cheat people go out of business quickly because no one will buy from them?
• Why is it necessary to have an entity to provide "integrity" credentials for businesses? Why doesn't the marketplace do it naturally?

But then again, why were we buying from Merrill Lynch whose CEO found it necessary to redo his office to the tune of 1.3 million in the middle of a recession and while employees beneath him where losing their jobs? Or why are the taxpayers helping out General Motors which is so well run they are losing $118,000 per minute as of this writing? Why do they think they have the right to ask for help in the midst of that type of mismanagement?