Mawuli Ocloo: The ethical salesperson; New breed of salespeople wanted
In last week’s article, we discussed some of the reasons why corporate sales fail in Ghana, including the preference for hiring salespeople with “high-pressure” personality traits: being eloquence, aggressive, militant-minded, persuasive etc.
Advertisement
This week let’s discuss one other important characteristic that is crucial to the success of a salesperson: being ethical, which I recently had the opportunity to speak about at an annual sales conference of a sales organisation.
Negative perception of the sales profession
Ethics has become a topical issue globally for many people, including customers, prospects and suppliers. A poll in 2,000 by the Gallup Organisation asked this question: “Please tell us how you would rate the honesty and ethical standards of people in these different fields?”
Four of the lowest rated were:
1. Lawyers
2. Newspaper Reporters
3. Insurance Salesmen
4. Advertising Executives
At the very bottom consistently for the last 20 years, and each time, are used-car salespeople. Noticeably, combining the ratings of both insurance and used-car salespeople paints a very negative picture about sales as a profession.
Unethical behaviour exhibited by salespeople
Two areas where unethical behaviour of a salesperson can be observed:
1. Relationship with prospects and customers
2. Relationship with employers.
Relationship with customers: In your interactions with salespeople, you can pick up the clues to the types who are unethical.
They are the ones who will sell you products and services you don’t need or which will not solve your problems; they hide critical information from you just to close the sale and achieve their sales target; they exaggerate benefits of the products and services; they abuse your trust; they misrepresent facts to you; they falsify your information to their advantage; and are experts in high-pressure selling.
Relationship with employers: As a sales manager responsible for leading a sales force, you are best placed to identify salespeople who are unethical.
They are the ones who can’t account for their full day’s work on the field; they fail consistently in submitting their weekly visit reports; they cook-up sales visit they never made and customer information; they conjure up sales forecasts and pipeline activities, what I call “voodoo forecasting”; they divert promotional items meant for customers for their personal use; they can’t account for their expense account; they misapply company resources; and finally they cheat sales goals and commissions.
What does it mean to be an ethical salesperson?
Well, being ethical means doing the right thing in a moral sense in the process of selling. It starts with your own personal moral values combined with the ethical principles of your organisation.
In your own experience with salespeople, you can always tell who the real professionals are. They are the ones who adhere to a strict code of selling ethics: based on truth, honesty, integrity and demonstrate moral judgement in their interactions with you. Indeed, if you’re an ethical salesperson you’re a professional salesperson.
Simply put, at the heart of ethical selling is the principle found in the Bible: “So in all things, do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Matthew 7:12. In other words, “Sell unto others as you would be sold to.”
Importance of ethical selling
In general, it is the customer who drives every organization’s results. Customers tend to buy consistently from salespeople and organizations that they trust.
Salespeople who consistently receive a high customer satisfaction score are assured of a higher customer retention rate, leading to a corresponding higher repeat business, resulting in the salesperson contributing higher sales, profits, and market share for their organisations.
The “How” of ethical selling
The “How” of Ethical Selling
Here are three things salespeople really have to learn how to do to sell ethically:
1. Consultative Selling
2. Build Partnership Relationships with Customers
3. Be of Help to Customers
Consultative Selling: Salespeople must adopt the consultative selling approach in their interaction with prospects and customers. What it does mean is to show an interest in your customers by asking questions and listening actively.
Advertisement
This is an ethical way to sell, because you are not forcing your opinions on to others but seeking to understand them first. Just think about your visits to your doctor’s consulting room.
How do they diagnose your health problems? First they listen to you intently and then ask you a series of probing questions to be able to make a diagnosis.
Even in instances where the doctor suspects what might be the problem, they still ask questions. As a patient, have you ever felt confident in a diagnosis made by a doctor who didn’t ask you enough questions nor listened to you?
Build partnership relationships with customers: It is hard to be unethical if you consider your prospect and customers as partners with long-term, mutually beneficial interests.
Advertisement
An empathetic and inclusive salesperson collaborates effectively with customers. Such salespeople have a typical mind-set and language which says to the prospect or customer: “How can we work together to resolve this particular problem regarding….?”
Be of help to customers: Selling is about helping prospects and customers to solve their problems. This area is rated the highest with respect to ethical selling.
Salespeople must therefore see their interaction with prospects and customers as providing help. The idea is to become to the customer, the trusted advisor who is relied on for your helpful and unselfish say.
Trusted advisor salespeople are always ahead of their peers, in that, even before the sales opportunity arises, they are the first to be invited to provide solutions.
Advertisement
Conclusion
Various factors affect success in selling, and several of those factors involve ethics. As salespeople, our personal principles that direct us to uphold a high ethical standard are important.
Honesty and integrity in a salespersons life provides trust that results in success. The success of a salesperson is in the relationship, not in the sales or the commission hence the importance of ethics. With a focus on ethics and impact (not commission), salespeople will be among the highest paid in the industry.
As Jeff Reeter, who built a hugely successful insurance and financial services sales organisation said “the bottom line is that ethical behaviour is just good business.” —GB
The writer is the C.E.O of Salesmark Services. He is also a sales consultant, trainer & coach
E-mail: mocloo@salesmarkservices.com
Whatsapp: 0244279368