Jane* starts the conversation.  “It starts off innocuously at first. “It’s harmless” you tell yourself as you write a testimonial for a product you haven’t really used. It’s a favour for a friend, or on behalf of someone that promised a testimonial but never came through. It’s just another form of ghost writing.”

Jane stirs her coffee a few times, then looks directly into my eyes “Where it went after that may seem shocking to my real life friends, but my old Internet marketing friends just laugh and tell me I am doing a great job ”

Jane is like so many other Internet marketers, encouraged by the examples set by many of the “big names” in the business, she has crossed boundaries she would never cross with people face to face.  Jane tells a fairly typical story, one I have heard many times in my position of Business Certification Officer at Female Ethical Marketers (FEM).

The FEM service allows women to advertise their business is an ethical one by passing our stringent list of criteria. On gaining the certification, women can proudly display our badge for a 12 month period before needing to re-certify. The yearly registration fee is used to create educational material on ethical marketing as well as paying for travel expenses for our speakers to present at Internet marketing events.

Jane is having coffee with me today as we go through her application for her first year of certification. It has been a tough ride for Jane just to get this far in the process and if she qualifies it will be worth all the hard work . Bearing the FEM “ethical” badge means becoming a preferred supplier to other ethical marketers and are known by new people entering Internet marketing as trustworthy sources of information.

Here is what she will have to prove

A FEM member must not produce,promote and/or endorse the following

• make claims in any website that are not verifiable to the attributed source
• products that take advantage of the inexperience of new marketers
• products that have illegal, false, deceptive claims
• endorsing a product they have not used personally before
• becoming an affiliate for a product they would not personally buy
• endorse,affiliate or do business with any marketer that knowingly does the above

Jane smiles at me as she goes through all of her paperwork ” I feel pretty proud of myself doing this, I never felt comfortable telling the white lies that seemed necessary from the teachings some of the “gurus” give out there”.

Jane and other FEM members have one other task to perform as part of their membership, and this one is probably the hardest. A FEM member must call out any offer, product or marketer she comes across that does not fulfill the above criteria. This is not done lightly or spitefully, and all reports are checked out by the FEM team. Any false claims will result in the FEM member’s certification being revoked.

All proven claims are made public and this has become an extremely popular check-in place for potential buyers who are looking to ensure they will not be taken advantage of. Two large gurus in the last year have publicly acknowledged they have changed their marketing methods after being named on the FEM site.

FEM currently has 1500 certified Female Ethical Marketers and more applying every day.

Jane sums it up quite nicely “I want the badge to prove I am NOT one of “them”".

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What do YOU think ?

*not her real name