L.L. BEAN: INTEGRITY

In 1912, Leon Leonwood Bean started a mail order business in Greenwood, Maine by selling a hunting boot with a money-back guarantee. However, defects in the design led to 90 percent of them being returned. Making good on the guarantee could ruin his fledgling business, but Leon kept his word, corrected the design, and continued selling the boots.

Today, L.L. Bean is one of the largest mail-order companies in the United States, in large part because it has continued the tradition of treating its customers with integrity.

(Louis Upkins Jr., Treat Me Like a Customer, Zondervan, 2009. From a sermon by C. Philip Green, Hot Pursuit, 2/19/2011)