Have you encountered ethical issues in sales and how have you resolved them?
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Has anyone experienced:
1) unethical sales practices when buying B2B products?
2) worked in an organization that engaged in unethical B2B sales practices?
3) personal ethical dilemmas in a marketing, sales, or business development situation.
If so, what was the experience? (For question 3, what was the dilemna, and how did you resolve it?)
Ethics is driven by reward. People cross the line in ethics when people on different sides of the table are after different things. Yes - any business developer has run into ethical challenges across their career...especially when their only measurement of success is revenue.
What you could be asking is: How do I avoid ethical challenges, either as a bizdev leader, or a company. The answer is the same: deal structure.
There are usually 2 'deals' on the table. The first is the relationship between the bizdev person and the company they represent. The second is the relationship being built between company and client which the bizdev person is facilitating.
Deal 1 - Company needs to CONSTANTLY evaluate what is most important for them at the time, and compensate their bizdev team on measureable results in line with those goals. As goals change, so should compensation drivers.
Deal 2 - for real bizdev deals...defined (for our purposes) where both parties agree to shake hands and benefit from the upside. Defining the upside is critical. It needs to be a measureable result towards which both parties are ruthlessly committed. This way, is anyone is to cheat...they cheat in the direction of the common goal.
Ethics is hairy - and the only real solution is prevention...which requires thoughtful forsight.
Good luck! |
