However, despite the high demand for recovery services, the rehab industry is in shambles. For the last decade they’ve built lucrative businesses off of expensive residential treatment services and amenities. However, in recent years the laws have changed and rehabs who don\u2019t accept in-network or state insurance programs are finding themselves in difficult financial situations.<\/p>\n
Their for-profit model is no longer able to meet the demands of the public. Luxury, inpatient care doesn\u2019t work. Not when someone needs to get off of opioids. They proved that by showing how easy it is to make money by repeatedly treating patients who relapse, without being held accountable for outcomes.<\/p>\n We knew our ability to help rehabs reach people who needed their help through organic marketing was a unique skill that we had learned over the years. And, we saw a lot of shady marketers and agencies taking advantage of the ignorance of these business owners, so we felt obligated to help.<\/p>\n But, no one was fixing anything. <\/strong><\/p>\n At Eminent SEO, we started discussing ethics early on but we\u2019re surprised to see so many other business owners act like it didn’t matter. It’s as though business and ethics came to belong in separate categories somehow, just like (we tried to do) with politics and religion.<\/p>\n Business owners act as if morals don\u2019t matter when making a decision that could impact their bottom line. That if there was any gray area of what one would consider morally or ethically acceptable, lining their pockets was the deciding variable.<\/p>\n We started wondering when doing business became synonymous with money and power over doing the right thing?<\/p>\n And, as business owners ourselves, we were sickened by it.<\/strong><\/p>\n How could the people who made it their mission to help others find recovery take advantage of those same people in such a deeply disturbing way?<\/p>\n We might not be the treatment providers but we’re the marketers for those providers. We\u2019re creating the path that leads to their door\u2026 so, for us, it is personal.<\/p>\n We knew there had to be a better way but the harder we fought for it, the more we realized how corrupt the industry had become.<\/p>\n I started to ask myself, what is it that we are really fighting for here?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n It’s always been my personal mission to make the internet a better place. I realize that\u2019s an extremely broad mission but the reality is there’s so many ways that I can help do this\u2026 and there are so many reasons I should.<\/strong><\/p>\n Not only do I run across outdated information, dysfunctional websites, broken links and missed opportunities every single day online. I also see awesome businesses, amazing artists and incredible people who are not getting the type of recognition they should because they don’t have the right systems, tools, technologies and marketing campaigns.<\/p>\n This makes me sad.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I know a lot of the same people have spent a lot of time and money on the services but have either hired the wrong people to help them or have gotten in their own way for whatever reason.<\/p>\n It’s impossible to pinpoint the problem or blame one thing specifically. The internet changed the way we do things as a society and it has impacted every aspect of the way we live. But some people forget that the Internet isn’t that old and there is still a lot to learn about the long-term implications of its impact on our society and how we live.<\/p>\n Moreover, the people who make the tough decisions on what should and shouldn’t be allowed on private websites, hosted servers and media outlets don’t always understand the nuances of the very platforms are trying to make decisions about.<\/p>\n And, don’t get me started on politics and the government’s role here.<\/p>\n Big websites like Facebook are receiving penalties from US government agencies<\/a>. But, a monetary fine for data breach that affected not only the lives of Americans but the political landscape across the world, can hardly be enough to stop that large of a company from benefiting from any number of uses of our data for monetary gain in the future.<\/p>\n How can the government, our government and our law, be responsible for public information and ethical decision making on our behalf when it’s not just the United States that has to be included?<\/p>\n If we want to keep tech giants and online businesses in check, we can’t rely on lawyers and judges or law officials who don’t understand the internet. There have to be people who are willing to stand up and do the right thing because the right thing is needed.<\/strong><\/p>\n And, right now and more than ever, it’s clear that business practices online are in need of unethical overhaul.<\/p>\n Although we continue to offer our services to treatment providers, unless a rehab wants to invest quite a bit of time into organic marketing or money in paid ads, helping them is going to be tough.<\/p>\n Ethical marketing is hard. It’s doing the right thing even when other people are making money doing the wrong thing.<\/strong><\/p>\n So, despite our longing to do good work in this space, we’ve decided to revisit our focus and, as a team, decide how we want to move forward.<\/p>\n See America is facing more than a drug epidemic. We’re facing a mental health crisis. Just look at what’s happening around you. The gun violence. The systemic racism. The ongoing fight for women’s equality… All of these issues stem from trauma and pain. The kind of trauma that can only be healed through coming together as a global community and addressing our needs holistically.<\/p>\n The fact that people act as though we’re not connected or that \u201cbusiness is just business\u201d shows how deeply scarred we are. It’s not just America that’s in crisis, it’s the entire world. When people choose to look the other way about environmental and social issues, they choose to live in ignorance.<\/p>\n So, my personal mission shifted to more than just making the Internet a better place. Now, it’s about making the world a better place.<\/strong><\/p>\n But, how am I going to do that? I’m just a marketer.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n 2019 was another hard year for our agency. Our relationships, client base, partnerships and years of work were intermingled with addiction treatment.<\/p>\n But, it\u2019s clear. The privatized addiction treatment industry is going nowhere. Fast. I started asking myself, how was my agency going to survive on a dying industry? How are we going to drive our mission of making the world a better place?<\/p>\n Despite addiction treatment being a primary industry we service, we’ve worked on a wide array of projects in a number of different industries. And, because our company was built with treatment providers, we\u2019ve always done well helping other healthcare, medical and wellness providers.<\/p>\n When a local cannabis dispensary asked us for help, even though we hadn’t done cannabis specifically before, we figured our team would be a good fit. Some of our rehab partners thought it was a little ironic (enter stigma) but we always saw the connection. Cannabis, just like CBD and hemp, has a stigma around it that was propagated by fear and political agendas.<\/p>\n When you educate yourself on the health benefits and how people are using cannabis and hemp today, it doesn\u2019t make sense that it\u2019s illegal. With the right education, we believe the public will accept cannabis as a viable alternative to expensive and addicting prescription medications for things like pain and recovery.<\/p>\n So, despite the critics, we went ahead and offered our services to a medical marijuana dispensary. We found that are multi-channel and organic approach, that worked so well for addiction treatment centers for all those years, also worked well for this dispensary.<\/p>\n That was definitely an aha moment.<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Overdoes](\"https:\/\/theboonroom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Overdoes-Death-Rates.jpg\")
What Happened to Ethics in Business?<\/h2>\n
You Can\u2019t Outmarket Bad Business Practices<\/h2>\n
A Bigger Calling<\/h2>\n
A Shift Towards Something New<\/h2>\n
![\"uses](\"https:\/\/theboonroom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Uses-of-hemp.jpg\")
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