I knew one... back when I worked in radio, our highest grossing salesperson would sometimes send clients to our competitors because she knew that in that particular instance another radio station's demographic base was better suited to the product at hand.

By working against her own immediate self-interest, she eventually developed such a level of trust among her clients that they would agree to anything she suggested -- a trust she never abused since she had worked so hard to gain it. And when it came time to advertise, those clients would always give her the lions share of the budget, leaving the scraps for the other radio stations to fight over.

Absolute integrity and putting the clients' interests ahead of her own paid off for her big time, and she would certainly resent your sweeping generalizations.

tanstaafl.