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3 Sales Ethics and Transparency

       Charles Warner

        Sales Ethics in the Advertising‐Supported Media

        What Are Ethics?

        Why Are Ethics and Rules Important?

        Five Ethical Responsibilities for Media Salespeople

        An Ethics Check

        Transparency

      The Sales Executive Council (SEC) is a private membership‐based research consortium serving approximately 300 of the world’s largest sales organizations, including IBM, Coca‐Cola, GE, McGraw‐Hill, Microsoft, and the Walt Disney Company. The SEC is a division of the Corporate Executive Board and its mission is to assist executives in enhancing the effectiveness of their sales strategy and operations, from sales productivity and strategic account management to sales training and compensation. The SEC’s primary tool is conducting research on sales problems its members face and producing case studies of best practices that companies use to solve these problems.

One of the SEC’s reports dealt with sales force retention and motivation. In one survey that was a part of this report, it asked 2,500 senior sales executives in major industries worldwide to rank the attributes, from most important to least important, that they felt were necessary to be successful as a salesperson and as a sales manager.¹

The most important attribute, by far (63 percent inclusion versus 50 percent inclusion for the second ranked attribute) was honesty/integrity.²

In 2016, Dr. Sunnie Giles, an organizational scientist and President of the Quantum Leadership Group surveyed 195 leaders in 15 countries in over 30 global organizations. Survey participants were asked to choose the 15 top leadership competencies from a list of 74. The number one competency, rated by 67 percent of the leaders, was “high ethical and moral standards.”³

No matter whether you are a salesperson or in a sales leadership position, the most important attribute or competency is ethical behavior – honesty and integrity.

      How does one know how to be ethical, honest, and act with integrity? What are the rules for honesty? In business the rules usually come from codes of standards or codes of ethics.

Sales Ethics in the Advertising‐Supported Media

      A ballad made famous in the late 1930s by Jack Teagarden, titled “A Hundred Years Today,” has been used by countless young men to woo their dates and to convince them not to wait to give out their kisses (and more), because who would ever know what they had done in a hundred years. It was a pitch for a one‐night stand, not a long‐term relationship. It was probably an effective short‐term tactic because two people were not going to live another hundred years and were more than likely able to keep their actions secret if they wanted to.

However, clever short‐term tactics are unwise for corporations for three reasons: (1) corporations, by charter, are immortal – they last forever – and, therefore, they want to do business a hundred years from today, (2) corporations have multiple relationships with customers and suppliers thus making it highly unlikely that they can keep details of these relationships secret for very long, and (3) in the age of transparency⁴ created by the Internet, “…Information is like a toddler: It goes everywhere, gets into everything, and you can’t always control it.”⁵ These reasons are especially important for large public corporations that file detailed reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Some of these reports contain information on contracts with key strategic partners and are available to the public from https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/webusers.htm – an example of transparency.

These three factors are magnified several times with media companies because their revenue depends on maintaining the long‐term trust of their advertisers, subscribers, and audiences. Major advertisers provide the lion’s share of revenue for most media businesses. Furthermore, major advertisers such as Proctor & Gamble (P&G), General Motors (GM), and AT&T not only have long memories, but they will also be around in a hundred years. As Warren Buffett, known as the country’s most astute investor, has said, “Trust is like the air we breathe. When it’s present, nobody really notices. But when it’s absent, everybody notices.”⁶ It is not smart business to undo a trusting relationship and bite the hand that will feed your company in future years. If media salespeople lie, cheat, gouge, or overpromise and underdeliver in order to make their short‐term numbers, they jeopardize revenue far into the future. Simply put, advertisers do not buy from someone they do not trust – they are not looking for one‐night stands; they prefer long‐term partnerships.

There is also a good chance that if you deceive any of these large customers, they will tell others, especially your competitors and the press. The press loves stories about corporate bullies, liars, and cheaters, and as Dov Seidman writes in his book How, “Corporate scandals, celebrity breakups, political corruption: Each day’s news – delivered instantly via television, radio, website, cell phone … exposes the transgressions of the icons of the day…once we’ve gotten a taste of scandal we can’t seem to get enough.”⁷ The public has become scandal addicted.

      It seems that many corporations, politicians, and people today either do not know about or care about rules, norms, standards, or ethics. Perhaps they go along with unethical behavior because of group pressure or peer pressure or perhaps they rationalize to themselves “everyone does it,” “it’s standard practice in this business (or political campaign),” or “no one will know; I won’t get caught.” Maybe they think, “My manager said to do what it takes to make the quarter,” or “If I don’t take their money, someone else will.” Such callous rationalization of lying, cheating, and stealing is typical sociopathic or malignant narcissistic behavior.

      Within the last several years, I know of a salesperson for

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