You May Have an Ethical Responsibility to Make the Sale!

“…an ethical responsibility to make the sale? You’re kidding me, right?” Uh… no, actually I’m not.

Now, I do realize that suggesting that you may have “an ethical responsibility to make the sale” is a rather provocative concept, particularly in light of the more traditional discussions surrounding ethical selling practices. But, I encourage you to keep an open mind. Continue reading, and this article may become more than just a simple thought provoker concerning the subject of ethics.

Sales ethics 101

Let’s begin with a few well-established “ethical selling practices” talking points: Never pressure the customer, don’t oversell, be truthful, and promise only what you can deliver. Sound familiar? Well, let’s hope so. Although I am confident that you could easily add a few more “ethical best sales practices” to this short list, there is no question that following these simple guidelines will go a long way toward ensuring that customers are treated appropriately throughout the sales process.

So, where does “make the sale” fit into the ethical picture? That is a fair and reasonable question—one that requires a fun-to-read allegoric response followed by a (as close to idiot-proof as possible) multiple choice question.

The fun-to-read allegoric response

The scenario: You’re selling a life insurance policy. Your prospect is interested and can easily afford it, but tells you that he doesn’t want to be “pressured” into buying anything. You back off, assuring the customer that it’s okay to “think about it” (after all, no biggie—you just “closed” a good one on your last appointment), and you agree to “give him some space” and call him back in a few days.

The next day, in the freakish of all freaky accidents, your prospect gets pancaked by the last remaining unknown piece of Skylab as it plummets down to earth. In short order, without his income or an insurance policy to cash in, his wife will have to put the house up for sale, cancel the children’s future college plans, and they will be forced to put the dear family dog “Max” up for adoption (hey, dog food can be expensive!).

You (once mere reader, now important allegoric character) unwittingly learn of your “former” prospect’s fate when you open the morning paper and read the front page headline “Unknown Rogue Piece of Skylab Flattens Family Man….” After you finish the article and swish down the remaining puddle of lukewarm coffee in your cup, you pause in reflection for a moment, and you then (here comes the idiot-proof multiple choice question I promised):

A) make a mental note to delete his name from your callback list

B) wonder if his wife has insurance for herself yet

C) feel a tinge of discomfort that you failed to “make the sale” when you had the chance

D) decide to wear a helmet for the next several days—just in case

Please tell me you selected the letter option "C".

Go ahead—it’s okay to react defensively, I’ve been expecting it

Remaining in the spirit of the allegoric character you are still portraying, you would undoubtedly say to me, “Hey, what are you talking about? How can I be responsible for what happened to this guy? He clearly told me that he didn’t want to do anything, AND, I certainly didn’t want to pressure him.” (…desperately attempting to take the moral high ground to defend your argument.)

Okay, okay. So you’re not legally responsible… but morally? That may be a different story.

To be continued…

Selling Through Personal Integrity

The Highest Ethical Standards Approach for Success – First Step

In order to repair the damage already done and earn back the consumer’s trust, the successful sales professional of the future will need to apply nothing short of the highest ethical standards approach for success.

(Paragraph excerpted from Selling Through Personal Integrity, Frugal Speaker blog post, April 16, 2009, by Kenton W. Davis.)

In the preceding post, we discussed how the constant negative news of fraud, schemes, and scams, combined with a struggling economy, has damaged the ethical image of the professional salesperson making it more difficult to earn the consumer’s trust.

Moving forward, we will be discussing specific steps you can take to build a strong foundation of trust with your customers and ensure your continued success as a sales professional.

The first step is to develop the right selling philosophy!

Your thoughts control your actions, not the other way around. More importantly, your thoughts are framed by your philosophy. Having the right selling philosophy is the single most important step toward earning the trust of your customers.

So, what exactly is the right selling philosophy? Simply stated, it is: Do the right thing and you’ll get the right results. Okay, so the basic principle is easy enough to understand. However, the more challenging bit is to determine what the “right thing” to do actually is— and then do it! For that answer, you need to look no further than the Golden Rule.

Harry J. Gensler, author of the book Formal Ethics, defines the rule like this:

The golden rule is best interpreted as saying: “Treat others only in ways that you’re willing to be treated in the same exact situation.” To apply it, you’d imagine yourself in the exact place of the other person on the receiving end of the action. If you act in a given way toward another, and yet are unwilling to be treated that way in the same circumstances, then you violate the rule.

In your career as a professional salesperson, when you are guided by a “do the right thing” philosophy, you work with your customers in the spirit of the Golden Rule, treating them in the exact manner that you would want to be treated if you were the customer. It means that the things you say and do remain the same regardless of whether or not someone is there watching you. It means providing your customers with an uncompromised level of personal and professional integrity— ensuring that your actions are always consistent with your words.

Although it may not be easily done, those whom truly embrace the do the right thing philosophy can overcome any negative associations that have been forged in the consumer’s mind by the recent unethical actions of so many in the news today.

When you develop and employ the right selling philosophy, you become a unique type of sales professional — one that customers will trust and actually desire to do business with.

Continue to stay tuned for success!

Become Their Assistant Buyer

Your New Sales Job Description

Rather than seeing your job as a salesperson, “selling to people”, start seeing the work you do differently. Stop selling to your customers and start representing them instead! Become their assistant buyer.

Becoming your customer’s assistant buyer fundamentally changes your job description. You are no longer responsible for bringing in revenue for your company. Instead, you now work for your customer. Your primary job description now reads: To help my customers select the products and services they need, at the best possible price, while always working to represent their best interest!

When you adopt the role of assistant buyer, you figuratively move around to the customer’s “side of the table” and become integral in the decision-making process. When you truly begin representing the best interest of your customers, the negative customer-salesperson polarization that typically develops when someone is “selling” something disappears, giving trust a chance to develop. And, when that happens, you’ll no longer be selling to your customers; you’ll be making decisions with them.

When you change your job description to that of an assistant buyer, you may be surprised at the sales results that follow. Everybody wins! The customer wins, your company wins, and you’ll win too!

The Likability Factor

“The Warm and Fuzzes”

Your customers buy you first, then your company, and lastly the products and services you sell. You are the most important factor that determines a sale. More specifically, although professionalism, experience and talent are all essential to sales success, the most important factor is, “Does the customer like you?” To put this point into greater perspective, think about this question: When was the last time you bought something from someone you didn’t like?

If the first image that popped into your mind was the time when you walked away from that obnoxious, pushy, fast-talking electronics sales guy and found someone else to help you (or a similar vision), then you get the point. It’s fairly clear that people buy things from people they like. Now, in the event that you’ve always thought that “people buy things from people they trust”, you’re also right. However, have you ever trusted someone you really didn’t like?

If you want to become instantly likeable in the eyes of your customers, simply listen more than you speak. It is human nature to like someone who is really willing to listen. So listen carefully to what your customers are saying. In return, you’ll be rewarded with many more sales as a result!

Just how important is the “likeability factor”? Well, considering the recent studies published by the Journal of the American Medical association and others, it’s quite important. What they have found suggests that doctors who are well liked by their patients may be statistically sued less often for malpractice than their equally skilled but less sociable colleagues.