Inside Sales Telesales Tips Blog

Ethics 101: sometimes you have to fire the customer

  

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Several weeks ago, I posted on the subject of lost sales reports, and one of the topics addressed was walking away from the business when ethical breeches are egregious. I call this “firing the client,” and I don’t imagine today’s post will be the favorite of some of the sales managers that read this blog and share it with their inside sales reps. But I’m writing it because one of my inside sales training clients asked me to elaborate a little bit more on the subject for the sake of clarification. And give examples of ethical dilemmas that a salesperson might encounter. 

Here they are, two examples, from my own days carrying a bag: 

1) My product was an ultra-secure database product. The potential customer was a foreign government. When I met the official, he told me he wanted to buy our product to create, in his words, “a black list of undesirables.” I knew the track record of the people ruling his country, and decided to walk away from the deal. I failed to return phone calls, and didn’t make any, either. I was right. That administration, now deposed and discredited, is looked historically at as one of the most dismal, in terms of human rights, in that region of the world. I didn’t get the commission on the sale, but I slept better.

2) A powerful entity in the medical business was in my territory. This time, my product was in the content management/advertising/publicity space. He wanted to use my product to promote and sell a breakthrough medical/pharmaceutical solution that was quite invasive. I researched the technology, and there was data suggesting that his solution was pure quackery, and life-threatening as well due to the fact that it involved an invasive medical procedure. Again, I bailed, convinced the whole thing was a very bad idea. 

We generally don’t talk about hard issues like these in “lunch and learns.” And sales meeting are about what we can do to get more business, not about what we can do to walk away from business. So ethics often don’t get discussed until something goes wrong. 

Sales is about more than making money, although that’s a large part of it. I think we all want to be proud of our solutions, proud of our customers, and take that information to craft wonderful user stories telling how our customers are using our solutions to dramatically improve their lives and businesses. In doing so, we improve our civilization. Salespeople love to swap stories of successes, and my own best ones involve terrific ways my clients used my solutions to make the world a better place. 

So go out and start putting together success stories about how your solution has helped make the world a better place to live. You can do it with just about every product or solution. At the same time, do consider ethical issues when they’re in front of you. And consider walking away if you know something just isn’t right.