02 Dec HOW FAR ARE YOU WILLING TO GO TO CLOSE A SALE

I recently wrote about an episode early in my sales career when I worked in a shared office environment with salespeople and remote workers.  I overheard another salesperson, Stan, tell the manager of the buyer’s contact he had been working with that he had been promised a contract by a recently deceased prospect. It was untrue. The prospect had said to him that he was no longer under consideration, then passed away shortly afterward.  I assume there wasn’t a paper or email trail.  Stan was able to get the business from the uninformed manager and bragged about what he did to me while we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant, where he abused the waiter.  No, I have not kept in contact with Stan.

I have also seen salespeople exaggerating software capabilities to impress the prospect.  I corrected each instance I saw, either at the time or shortly afterward.

I recall a situation in which the CIO of a large Chistian-managed Midwest hospital told the salesperson on my team that if he wanted to win the business, he had to arrange a visit to Atlanta and an evening at the Gold Club for him, then a well-known strip club, as our competitor did. We refused to do so and lost the sale.  I pondered reporting him to his Board, but we decided not to do so as we had no evidence.

How far will you go to close a sale?

Everyone has a different criterion.  For some, the limit is very unrestrained, as in the case of Stan, and for others it is very well-defined. One female salesperson told me, matter-of-factly, that she would “do anything” to get a sale.  (She later became an accomplished vice president at one of the largest software companies in the world, which was known to use aggressive sales tactics.)

It is more than a question of personal ethics and morality to me. I also want to sell to people who will become happy customers. It is my goal that the buyer of my solution is recognized for improving the profitability or customer satisfaction of his company or whatever goal he has and receives a promotion. I always welcomed the telephone call from a customer who said, “Steve, guess what? Good news! I was promoted.”  This cannot happen if I am not completely honest with the customer about whether the purchase will genuinely solve the motive for the purchase.

Ethics and morals

I am a person of faith and try to be a moral person. I believe in the Ninth Commandment,¹ which states that one should not bear false witness against one’s neighbor.  This implies lying is a grave sin. Adhering to this commandment would obligate sales and marketing people to refrain from deceiving buyers, requiring them to be honest and transparent in their sales practices. Some might think that this would be incompatible with sales success. However, I believe my success in sales was due to my honesty and forthrightness in working with prospects and customers.

I terminated a manager who counterfeited a customer’s signature on a contract on December 31, intending to replace them with a valid signature when the agreement was signed in early January. I also terminated a manager who lied to me about returning a call from a customer who had canceled his subscription with our company and did not resolve a territory issue between two salespeople that resulted in them fist-fighting in the office. We also found out later this manager was running his own company on the side. In the latter case, the termination was against the wishes of the company President, whom I reported to.

I could not tolerate having sales managers who reported to me lie and cheat.

In summary, I hope your conscience leads you to a long, successful sales career in which you do not need to stretch the truth or deceive anyone to be successful.

How far will you go to close a sale? Please let me hear from you.

Steve

¹ Exodus 20:16

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