Introduction
How to Use This Book
Everything that enables us to be truly competitive stems from the mind.
All of us are engaged in selling something to someone. It may be ideas, designs, solutions, options, or even our skills and ourselves. Whether you are an architect, an insurer, a bank clerk sitting at the counter, a new employee intervening at a meeting, a candidate at an interview, or even a mom trying to get her son to eat his vegetables you are attempting a sale. Even an account clerk, who sits eight hours a day in an office checking the books, is selling something to someone! Are you trying to convince your boss to give you a raise or your wife to let you watch a football game on TV? Like everybody, every day in your life, you are engaged in exchanges with the aim of gaining an edge. In all exchanges, the relationships and the forms of communication they involve are invested with a purpose, and hence, an objective. Sometimes these objectives may be unclear even to ourselves. Although the aim may be hidden in your subconscious, you can be sure it exists. Occasionally, we have so many different aims that they end up conflicting with each other and when, for example, we find ourselves in a sales situation that targets conflicting outcomes we end up getting into such a tangle that all our efforts are wasted. Imagine you want to persuade your girlfriend to let you watch the game in peace, but at the same time, you want to avoid being labeled as a selfish male interested in nothing but sports—you could be facing a difficult sale before you even open negotiations.
The fact that there is a purpose to a given exchange does not necessarily imply that the exchange pits our interests against those of the other party. Generally, we have a negative view of anyone pursuing a goal in a relationship, assuming that this person is either selfish or manipulative. Yet why do we automatically think there must be a conflict of interests? What if the other party is actually working in our interests and aims to benefit us more than herself or himself? Even if there is a hidden agenda to the exchange, it does not necessarily mean that the seller is trying to trick us. If we judged all exchanges that have an ulterior motive as negative, we would be forced to admit that we ourselves are rather shady characters, since—as mentioned earlier—everyone is selling something to someone else!
This book is for anyone who wants to develop awareness in his or her business interactions.
Sales professionals may find it slightly strange to hear a discussion on sales couched in the terms we will be using; they will have to abandon or remold some of the concepts by which they measure themselves every day and which many consider untouchable. In fact, as we advance through the pages of this book, concepts such as profit, product, and price will take on new and different meanings that we hope will be useful for your evolution.
Sales Ethics is a path of growth and self-learning that we developed through our experience, first as managers and entrepreneurs and later as consultants and trainers. It is based on theories and methodologies derived from our research at world-renowned universities and from the meetings with academics and experienced managers. We then went on to evaluate and test our approach through our daily practice in classroom and in companies.
Unlike most books dealing with selling, Sales Ethics does not promise any magic formula or shortcut solutions to achieve exceptional results. In all our years in business, we have never seen anyone who achieved success without committing to the development and exercise of his or her talents and expertise. Undoubtedly, many of the concepts presented in the book will not be new to you: in fact, our ambition is not to startle you with revolutionary ideas or break the mold at all costs. What we aim to do is to encourage you to reflect and develop your own awareness so you can go on to improve your work. If we manage to enhance even a single element in your approach to sales, then the book will have achieved its purpose; because we are sure that once you are started on your way, you will find the resources and motivation to progress further on your own.
Given that we wish to take a soft approach to development, avoiding sensationalist strategies, we would ask you to keep an open mind while reading. Eastern philosophy has provided us with an exceptionally beautiful image to illustrate the correct way to approach both listening and learning: an open hand. We can compare our mind to a clenched fist fiercely gripping its certainties, experience, and knowledge—this is very natural, because a firm grip allows us to exploit information acquired over time that guides us like a compass through our relationships and the events of our lives. Have you ever tried, however, to grasp something with a closed hand? It’s impossible. The only way is to open your mind and let go a few of your certainties, safe in the conviction that you will either strengthen them or discover new ones. Remember that an unbending approach is deleterious to interpersonal relationships and, inevitably, for sales. A good salesperson should be curious and flexible, that is, be ready to listen and adapt to the situation. If you choose to accompany us on the journey of learning described in this book, you will be grasping the opportunity to demonstrate and develop your flexibility.
Two extreme images are used to illustrate the adeptness, or ineptitude, of a salesperson: On the one hand, we talk about someone being able to sell ice to Eskimos, while on the other hand, we say a person cannot sell a life jacket to a drowning man.
We like neither of these metaphors as they reduce the dynamics of our profession to a simple victory or defeat, an approach we consider outdated. Together we will discover that good salespeople do not sell customers something they do not require—such as ice to Eskimos—however highly developed their negotiating skills may be. We will also find out that a sales deal is a means of generating shared value and that this is the true purpose of the exchange. Surely, should you ever find yourself face to face with a drowning man, your first thought would not be to sell him a life jacket. Awareness, ability to listen, and respect for yourself and others, these are the themes we deal with in Sales Ethics.
The main objectives that we aim to achieve through this book are:
• To explain what ethics in business dealings means for us;
• To clarify how ethics can become a powerful sales tool;
• To present examples and applications that explain how to use these tools and clarify the concepts;
• To develop abilities and skills that will be useful to act in an ethical manner, thereby improving your sales performance; and
• To check the progress you have achieved through this learning process.
We have split the book into two parts: The first part enables you to grasp the basic principles and theories behind Sales Ethics, while the second presents the negotiating tools and their proper use and permits you to verify your results. Sales Ethics does actually involve a longer learning path, spanning both this book and a program of specific courses.
The book has five chapters preceded by a preface and an introduction and followed by the conclusions and FAQ. You can download the “Covenant of the Ethical Salesperson” free from the site www.passodue.com. This document completes the new approach to selling that you will develop while reading these pages.
Figure 1.1 is a description of the chapters:
Figure 1.1 Structure of the book
Chapter 1: Why Read a Book on Sales Ethics? We present the challenges that this book aims to tackle. What does a salesperson’s job entail nowadays? What is their role in society and how can this role contribute to the economic changes taking place? We explain what we mean by Sales Ethics and how we think it may increase competitiveness in the current economic scenario. You will also discover why we went all the way to Boston to start writing our book.
Chapter 2: The Key Concepts in Sales Ethics. Value, information asymmetries, externalities, and well-being are some of the concepts with which you’ll need to become familiar as an ethical salesperson. We will create a shared vocabulary that will enable you to follow as the discussion develops. At the end of the chapter, you will find exercises that will help you to internalize the concepts.
Chapter 3: The Economic Theories Underlying Sales Ethics. In this chapter, we will update you on some of the economic theories that are changing the customer–seller relationship and transforming negotiation techniques. By reading this chapter, you will acquire the abilities necessary to use the skills developed later in the text with greater effectiveness and awareness. The theories that we present have been simplified and reinterpreted to make them more accessible for use in the sales profession. If you wish to study them in greater depth, consult the relevant section in the bibliography. The chapter includes some thought-provoking exercises.
Chapter 4: Preparing for Negotiations. The chapter addresses the following questions: How does negotiation change when we use the principles presented in the previous chapters? What are the stages that an ethical salesperson should take into account in negotiations with the customer? Also, we introduce the tools you will need to apply Sales Ethics to your work.
Chapter 5: The Phases of Sales Ethics. This Chapter focuses on training your negotiation skills according to the principles of Sales Ethics. To aid your approach to this section, we have set out each phase in paragraphs as follows:
a. Description of the goal: This will help you understand what topics the paragraph deals with, what the objectives are, and what you will learn.
b. Presentation of the ethical dilemmas: At the beginning of each phase, we will see Renato tackling doubts and difficulties that could undermine the relationship with his customers as well as his own self-confidence. We will provide tips and strategies for dealing ethically with such issues throughout the negotiations.
c. Operational tools and examples: We want to guide you through the development of abilities and skills related to the specific phase of sales presented in the paragraph. For each negotiating technique, we will refer to the economic theories that justify them, and learn how they combine with relational needs and daily practice to create a whole that generates well-being.
d. Exercises: These provide practice that will enable you to consolidate the concepts you have learned as well as the techniques you will be using in your work every day. We will stimulate you to make small but meaningful changes that—we are sure—will improve your relations with customers.
Conclusions and FAQ. This is the genuine happy ending that concludes the path we have followed through the book, circling back to where it started, with our personal story. Read this chapter to find out what happened to us and the rewards we are reaping thanks to Sales Ethics. This section also provides a series of answers to the questions and concerns that may arise while reading the book.
Bibliography. A list of some of the books that inspired us while writing this book. You would be advised to read some of these if you desire a more in-depth knowledge of ethics and want to round off to your training.
You are of course free to jump chapters as you please; but to obtain the best results, we advise you, in the words of Lewis Carroll’s King in Alice in Wonderland: “Begin at the beginning and go on until you come to the end.”1 There is a brief summary at the beginning of each chapter to help you find your way around more easily. We sincerely hope you enjoy the book.
1 Carroll (1865).