You bring up a couple of good points cbn42, First let me say that the pharmaceutical industry is notorious for kickbacks and unethical practices. I would never consider working in that industry. One of the latest examples is Costco. Prescription Drugs : The Costco Kickbacks - The Fifth Estate - CBC News

Regarding 'workshops', I have never worked in an industry that used that kind of thing but have worked with companies who held annual Golf Tournaments or had a 'company box' at a sporting venue. Customers (not prospective Customers, existing Customers) were invited to come and golf or attend a hockey game, etc. at our expense. The fine line there is in trying to determine if it is intended as a bribe or as a way to foster a relationship between business partners. Whether we like it or not, business is done between people, not machines. People being people, will always be influenced by many factors. You are correct that there is a fine line but I think the fine line is about intent, not whatever the specific 'thing' is. I would suggest to you that if you find yourself in that kind of situation all you have to do is ask yourself, 'what do I believe their intent is?' If you aren't sure, then that's all the answer you need. If you think they might be trying to bribe you rather than just trying to build a relationship with you as a person, then pass. Listen to your 'gut'. But don't pass on an opportunity to get to know the people you are or may do business with. You want to know you can trust them and that is something you decide based on factors other than the product they are offering you.

If two salespeople each offer you a product that will meet your needs, you will always use other factors to make your decision. One of those factors is simply 'who do I prefer to do business with' and often that means it comes down to the relationship you have as people. You can't avoid that.

I once closed a large sale while standing next to a buyer at the urinals! We had done an all-day presentation of our product and then we all went to dinner. Around the arrival of desert, I and one of the client's people happened to need the toilet at the same time. So there we were, standing at the urinals and the buyer said to me, 'you know, your presentation today was very good and your product looks good, but so do the other bidders products. How is someone supposed to choose?'

I kid you not, he came right out and said that. My response was, 'at the end of the day, they will all do the job for you. What you need to decide is who you trust the most and want to work with.' We got that order and it became something of a company legend. It was referred to obviously as the 'Urinal Order.' That dinner wasn't a 'bribe', it was an opportunity which the buyer took, to just talk as people outside of a work environment, in an informal environment and ask the question that had really been bothering him.

Incidently, I would not look to Walmart as an example of how to do business. Many of their business practices have been flagged as unethical. Just Google Walmart unethical and see what you find. Here is one such link: https://www.scribd.com/doc/42405057/...an-Org-Walmart

Well said, great example/lesson.

I don't believe it implies unethical. Perhaps you incorrectly inferred that.

To me, this is a textbook example of implicit bribery. There was no stated agreement that he would give you the order, but you gave him (not his company) something of significant value and he gave you the order soon after.

As you said in another post, it all has to do with intent. What was your intention in offering him this assistance? Do you normally offer personal favors worth thousands of dollars to random acquaintances? I'm guessing not. One would have to be incredibly naive to believe that you did this for him with no intention of increasing your chances of getting the order.

Since this is essentially a principal-agent problem, I think a good test is what the principal would have thought. Did his supervisors/managers, or the owners of the company (depending on the type of business) know that you did this for him? Did they approve?

In some countries, blatant bribery is common. You have to literally pay off the buyer to get them to take your order. In developed countries where this would be hard to do, people turn to implicit favors instead. You can't give someone money directly, but you can do other things for them that they find to be of value to themselves. This is harder to detect but no more ethical.

I don't mean any of this as a personal attack on you, dulciusexasperis. It's unfortunately the nature of business these days.

Nonsense. This is very standard salesmanship. I'm sure his superiors were delighted to get the order. I've worked closely with many sales people, and the good ones all have stories like this. The not-so-good ones don't have jobs in sales anymore. Taking clients and prospective clients to dinner is the most basic thing. I have a friend in financial services sales who takes people to his fancypants tennis club (and sometimes loses on purpose) to win business. In the end, it's all about who the client wants to do business with. Dinners, tennis, and the like are how people determine if you're a trustworthy person they want to work with, once they know your product will satisfy their needs.

A friend who used to describe his job as "I sell used aircraft parts" often told me his job mainly entailed taking airlines' maintenance directors to dinner. Now he's CEO.

I think people are leaping to the conclusion of "you're giving people a dinner so it must be unethical" without realizing that bribery implicitly assumes you wouldn't otherwise do business with this person if it weren't for the bribe. Also people seem to be forgetting that the original story with the $300 wine was a celebratory dinner after the business was won, and it seems only appropriate for the vendor to pay for it.

My travel bills usually goes through 2 different persons in accounting.Each one will take atleast a week to process and the overall process takes for ever:rolleyes:

I think the actual ethical gates are on the buyer's side of a salesman/customer relationship, especially in business where you should generally be dealing with informed buyers. The salesman is free to spend $300 on a bottle of wine, it's the buying party's corporate policies that decide the ethics of the situation. It's the customer that is spending the "real" money. Like many people I work for a corporation that can be either in a sales role or a customer role depending on the circumstance. As customers we're only allowed to be the recipients of items under $50, and dinners (not limited to $50) if we'd be in a position to reciprocate. Our sales organizations are not under those same restrictions.

Currently work for a small company, and my boss will give my expense reports a quick glance over and submit to finance for payment without questioning much. Once he said "Dude, McDonald's three times?? You should eat better" I usually do, was stuck in a place with not much available after 9 PM haha. Credit Card Statement screen shots are valid for expenses under $30, but I usually have a scan of every receipt using Genius Scan. I haven't used Google Drive for this, but Genius Scan does a pretty good job and then exports everything as a PDF to my Dropbox.

I love paying at places with Square, since I can look up my digital receipt later.

We're going to be moving to Concur soon. I've heard good things about their app and how things get tracked, so hopefully it will be good.

My previous company, LARGE multinational, was super picky and had very strict policies. Probably because of abuse by other employees. For example, no spouses could stay in the same hotel room, and no personal and business travel could be combined. My current company is very flexible about this, and I do not abuse this policy because I wouldn't want it taken away for those who respect the rules.

Obviously this issue of what constitutes 'bribery' or unethical behaviour is one that people are having difficulty understanding. We seem to have gone from 'getting something through expenses' which could be as simple as a higher than usual lunch for yourself, to the topic being only about 'bribery'. Fair enough, that seems to be the real issue people are wrestling with in this thread now.

I'm going to accept that no one arguing about examples I have given being 'bribery', are just being deliberately obtuse. I accept that you are all honestly saying you perceive these things as bribery. So let's try to stay away from personal insults. If I accept that you honestly perceive things as bribery, then in return I expect you to accept that I honestly do not perceive the examples I have given as bribery. Fair enough?

So we can then move on to two words. Perception and bribery and what they mean. Perception in regard to this topic is about how we interpret something. You can interpret my buying someone lunch as a bribe or you can interpret it as simply a more informal way of spending time with someone to get to know them better. That leads us to intent. I can intend that lunch to be a bribe or I can intend it as a way to better understand someone. Both are possible.

Cbn42 has asked the question, "As you said in another post, it all has to do with intent. What was your intention in offering him this assistance? Do you normally offer personal favors worth thousands of dollars to random acquaintances? I'm guessing not. One would have to be incredibly naive to believe that you did this for him with no intention of increasing your chances of getting the order."

Thank you for asking that cbn42. That is exactly the ethical dilemma I was talking about. First, yes, I do normally offer personal favours of whatever value to random acquaintances. If you have a flat tire and I offer to help you change it, am I bribing you? I'm sure you would say that I am just being a nice guy offering to help you. Now if I happen to know you as a buyer, did I suddenly move from being a nice guy to an unethical person attempting to bribe you?

The dilemma is in the fact that in helping the buyer with his mortgage, it is impossible for it not to influence him. My intent was simply to help him as I would have helped anyone who was in the same situation and confided that to me. I would have done the same for my next door neighbour or even for you as an online acquaintance cbn42. Do people here on FT not help 'random acquaintances' all the time and is some of that help they give not worth 'thousands of dollars'?

We also have to separate the words 'bribe' and 'unethical'. Bribe is a legal term with a legal definition. Something can be unethical while still being legal but the reverse is not possible. I think we should confine ourselves to ethical since it covers all types of influence, illegal and legal.

It is legal to pay for a customer and his wife to spend a week on a Caribbean island golfing. If you are also there, a good accountant can also make it legally deductible as a business expense. But it is never really going to be ethical, no matter how you go about it. So it's ethical that matters here, not bribery. Bribery is too limited in scope.

Back to the guy with the mortgage problem. You can perceive it as a textbook example of 'implicitly unethical' behaviour. Or you can perceive it as my taking the risk that our relationship was such that he would trust that I was simply attempting to help him as one person to another. You do not know what was going through my mind at that time or through his mind. But I can tell you what I was thinking. I knew that we had done business together for several years. His company and the company I represented, for even longer. I knew we were their preferred supplier for certain products, even though there were competitors. I also knew that he and I had a good relationship between us as people. Not personal best buddies or anything but a mutual respect and trust in each other. You can either take my word for that or not.

So my thinking was, 'he could take this the wrong way and think I am trying to influence his buying decision. 'Or if he trusts me, he could see it as simply me trying to help him personally. The personal help is separate from the business we do. I think he won't even think about it being a possible attempt to gain influence. We know and trust each other.' On that basis, I went ahead and offered him personal help. There was no 'bad intent' on my part.

The next question is, if I had a way to help him and did not do so because he might perceive it as an attempt to unduly influence his buying decision, would that be the ethical thing to do? Is it ethical to withhold help from someone because you think it might result in you losing business? I would say that would be unethical. You would be putting your company and personal gain ahead of helping someone you had the means to help.

When something is an obvious and outright 'bribe' or attempt to get a 'quid pro quo', that is one thing, just as an outright 'padding' of an expense report is. But not all such questions can be so easily answered with a 'it's black or it's white' response.

I did what was right in helping that buyer and he did what was right in making his buying decision for his company. Neither of us was unethical in any way. Our intent was never in question by either of us. It is only here on this thread that intent is being questioned and it is being questioned by people who know neither one of us. If someone here thinks they can prove what the intent was, I'd like to see them try to do so. Simply saying, 'implicit' bad intent was there is not an argument, it is simply an opinion based on very limited knowledge of the facts and reality of the situation. Nothing was 'implicit' cbn42, but you could choose to 'perceive' it as being implicit, which you apparently have. Try perceiving it as simply helping another human being when you have the means to do so.

Dulciusexasperis, thanks for providing further details about the incident. Can you please answer the questions I asked about the principal-agent problem?

1. Did this person's supervisors/managers, or the owners of the company (depending on the type of business) know that you did this for him? Did they approve?

2. Now put yourself in their shoes. Let's say you had authorized an employee to choose a supplier that your company will be spending a large amount of money with. One of the supplier's representatives gave your employee a personal favor that saved him thousands of dollars on his mortgage. Would you be okay with this? Even if you completely trusted your employee, would you not at least start to wonder whether his choice of supplier was made in the best interest of your company?

this gets to the heart of the matter

perception is 90% (or more) of reality: whether or not the individuals INTENDED that the assistance was completely based on their personal relationship/friendship/respect and completely independent of their business relationship, many others are likely to take the "you can't prove that it WASN'T business-related, so therefore it was, and therefore it was unethical"

I wonder if this side discussion around salesman ethics is partly a generational matter. I'm (technically) a millennial and recently managed a team of quite a bit older salesmen and found both their expectations from management (i.e. leave me alone if I hit targets) and of "ethical" behavior (compliance, incentives, hospitality, etc.) needed some updating to the 21st century. The days of the rainmaker outside field sales rep writing their own laws in return for renting out their golfing partners are thankfully almost over.
Bringing this back on topic, I think the same is increasingly true of expenses. In the days of my first jobs (~15 years ago), an afternoon drinking champagne on the company account was hardly unheard-of for people in teams directly led by someone with the right level of seniority, but increased competition and some difficult times have cut down on how much leverage below Board level executives generally have to unaccountably spend other people's money.

Another way for me to think about the distinction:

I have known a decently busy (as in lots of travelling and diplomacy involved) politician who had to think a lot about all that as he wanted to do the right thing. His view was that anything you could eat or consume in one sitting was acceptable, and anything you couldn't wasn't. (Except if refusing the gift would greatly offend a foreign important figure, in which case he would just keep them in storage, and definitely never sell or give them.)

By those standards, any dinner is acceptable, where a case of wine isn't. I think it's a pretty good rule to live by.

Lots of interesting perspectives, but the bottom line is that expenses and the report need to align with applicable laws relating to tax and corrupt practices. This is why the first rule in any corporate policy ought to be that expenses must comply with all applicable laws. There is then no debate about the issue.

The fact that there are those who believe that it is morally wrong to pay for so much as a cup of coffee for someone else is irrelevant to this discussion.

But, the key from the employee perspective is to let your people know that when there are what may appear to be odd limits, why those limits are there. People are then less likely to mess around with the rules because the sanctions can be a lot worse than whether someone simply refuses to approve them.

I will try to answer cbn42. I do not know whether his manager knew or not. That was between him and his manager obviously. I guess the question would be whether he felt any need to tell his manager about it. That is between him and his conscience. It really does depend on how he perceived it. If he perceived it as separate from any business decisions he would make, then he would not perceive any reason to mention it. If he perceived it as being impossible to not have an inordinate influence on his business decisions, then as an ethical person, he would probably have had to declare his 'bias' to his manager.

But let's not forget that everyone is influenced in their buying decisions in various ways. For example, he might give preference to a seller with a lower price; better payment terms; a track record of always delivering on time; a superior product; etc. Again, if there are 3 competitive products that will do the job, which one do you pick? There are always things that influence your choice somehow. People being people, you cannot eliminate those influences. The buyer is entrusted to make an unbiased choice, that is true. But in fact, it is also impossible. Should he declare to his manager every other influence on his decision making? 'Company A is better at delivering on time but is ruthless in charging us interest on a late payment. Company B gives us 60 days instead of 30 days to pay but has a poor delivery record. Company C has what I consider to be a slightly superior product but also a slightly higher price. Each of these factors influences the buying decision and it is inevitable that I would have a bias for or against each.'

If he perceived the help he got was going to have an inordinate influence then he should declare it. If he appreciated the help but felt he could still make as unbiased a decision as he ever did, then he might not feel any need to declare it. It would be just one more factor and influence in the decision. That's what he gets paid for, weighing all the factors and making the best decision he can.

The interesting question to me is the second one. First, no one 'gave' the buyer anything other than an introduction. He got the mortgage because he was a low risk individual in the eyes of the mortgage lender. I had no way of influencing that, I didn't 'get him' the mortgage. So he got very little from me. He might be grateful for the introduction but he was no doubt more grateful to the mortgage lender who did provide the mortgage. Let's not blow my 'contribution' to the transaction out of proportion.

So if I were his manager and he told me of the situation, I would weigh the factors available to me. First and foremost, do I trust my buyer? If I do, there is nothing more to be said. If I don't, why am I putting him in charge of making large $ decisions on the company's behalf? That reflects on me as a manager, not him as a buyer.

I don't see how you can say 'even if you trust' and then add 'would you not at least start to wonder'. They're contradictory. But OK, let's suppose you get a little niggle. There would be nothing to stop me as his manager from asking him to review with me the competitive bids he received and his rationale for his decision. If I did that, either I would find no reason to question his ethics or what? I would find he should have picked supplier B? The reality is he could have picked A, B or C if all were competitively priced and equally capable of doing the job. His decision was always going to come down to other factors like, 'A always delivers on time but B has been late with delivery a few times. This particular project is time critical which makes on time delivery a major factor in this specific case.

You can't assume that if his manager questioned whether he had been unduly influenced, he would find the buyer had made an 'obviously wrong' decision. It's never that simple. Which if you are his manager, brings you right back to 'do I trust his decision making?' If I do, end of story. If I question it, why am I still employing him? There is no question in the example of a 'smoking gun' like money exchanging hands or an order going to a supplier at twice the price for a vastly inferior product.

If I had been his manager and he told me about the mortgage situation I would most likely have been asking him for the phone number of the mortage lender. Should I then report myself to my superior as being unduly influenced by a supplier? ;)

Competition in sales often starts out on a relatively level playing field. Several potential suppliers all with competitive pricing and a product that will do the job. Sales is about what happens after you get on that field. My strategy and tactics throughout my sales career were based on two simple things. Showing my intent was win/win and gaining the buyer's trust as a person. You cannot over-rate those two things. They are far above both price and product in the buying decision, whether people realize it or not. You do not buy a used car from someone who you just 'feel' you cannot trust. It doesn't matter how good the price appears to be or how great he tells you the car is having been owned by only one little old lady, etc. you won't buy that car.

If you as a buyer perceive my intent is to have a win/win business relationship with you and you trust me, I'll get the order over the competition more often than not. I don't need to do anything unethical.

I agree jrl767. In fact I would go further and say perception is everything, not just 90%. At the end of the day it all comes down to whether you see me as coming from a win/win position and trust me or not. Don't forget, it is not how 'others' as in outsiders might perceive something, it is how the buyer making the decision perceives it.

It's like the example I gave earlier of the 'Urinal Order'. You can weigh all the factors you want and you can argue what is ethical or non-ethical till the cows come home but at the end of the day it still comes down to 'who do you trust'.

I once had a competitor go to a company after losing out on a contract and complain to the CEO of that company that they had the lowest price and should have received the order. The CEO did not ignore that complaint, he called the appropriate people in to his office and asked them to justify their decision in light of the complaint he had received. There were 4 people involved in that buying decision. One of them was quite smart. He simply said to the CEO, 'why don't you invite the person complaining, to meet with you and discuss his complaint'. So the CEO did.

Do I need to draw you a picture of what the CEO's perception of that person was by the end of their meeting? Do the words 'sore loser' conjur up any images for you? The CEO instructed his people to never do business with that company in the future. That CEO was human too and formed biases just like anyone else. I once knew a CEO who vetoed a promotion for someone who was perfectly capable of doing the job in question. His reason for the veto? 'He wears socks that are too short and every time he sits with his legs crossed, I can see bare skin above them. I hate that.' I kid you not.

Perception is indeed everything jrl767 and it is not necessarily logical or even fair.

I could easily argue that your assumptions about the 21st century being better in terms of standard practices is questionable EuropeanPete. I see more and more it being about win/lose rather than about win/win in every aspect. In terms of ethics, I don't think things have got better in the 21st century, I would argue that they have got worse.

To be fair to you EuropeanPete, if you were working with salespeople regardless of age, whose ethics you questioned, my question would be how did the company end up with a multiple number of such people? It is the previous management of those people who I would be calling to account, not just the salespeople. I don't think poor management is generational.

Regarding, 'leave me alone if I hit targets'. This is an often misunderstood topic. Simply put, people tend to fall into two camps when it comes to direct 'management oversight', otherwise known as 'hovering over your shoulder'. Some people welcome it and see it as taking an interest in them, helping them to do a good job and not make mistakes. They feel they are part of a team. Others see it as questioning their competence and showing a lack of trust in them or at the least, being 'micro-managed'. Those are two very different perceptions. You cannot manage or expect those two groups to act the same.

Sales by its very nature tends to require someone who is comfortable being left on their own to do what they are paid to do. They are out 'on the road' alone and expect to function that way most of the time. If they aren't comfortable with that, they aren't likely to work in sales. So which camp do you think they tend to fall into EuropeanPete? The 'I'm good with being micro-managed' or the 'leave me alone to get on with my job' camp?

Salespeople don't 'write their own laws', they just want to be told the 'laws' and then left to do their job. Of course if you try to impose a 'law' that they consider to be unreasonable, salespeople who tend to be more independent minded than the average, may well give you grief over it. They tend to be far more willing to speak up. Some managers and companies have difficulty dealing with that. The manager or company's dilemma then is what do you do with a salesperson who produces twice what anyone else does (without doing anything unethical) but won't go along with some petty expense 'law'?

LOL, they can be such a pain in the butt but you can't afford to fire them. Or as a millennial might say, 'Salespeole Rule.' Did you know many salespeople secretly wear a t-shirt under their shirt that is blue with a big red and yellow S on the front. Oops, cats out of the bag. :eek:

https://www.overallmotivation.com/wp...man-quotes.jpg

I don't think that a discussion on how best to manage sales teams is especially on topic, but I think it's pretty safe to say that the kind of culture dulciusexasperis highlights is rather rapidly on its way out. And, even in Europe, one can absolutely fire people who don't get on board!

As someone who investigates abuses of expense accounts, I can tell you that one of the biggest motivating factors is not dire need, but an inflated sense of entitlement. I work at a fortune 50 multi-national, so the people in leadership positions..even lower level ones..tend to have ego issues. "I am a director at ****!" "I am top of the pile, best of my industry!" As such, they think they live in a Mad Men era world of First Class travel and liquid lunches of Dom Perignon.

No matter that the polices at this company SPECIFICALLY forbid that kind of thing. There are limits on class of service, meals, hotels..itemized receipts are required for everything. Yet there are still people who shrug it off with "I am the western region DIRECTOR OF SALES!!!". We also have strict anti-bribery and corrpution policies. Imagine their faces when they get terminated.

I am not just talking about lavish travel and food. I have seen things like school tuition, cruises, online dating sites, jewelry, and day trips on boats. When finally called to the carpet, more than a few of them have claimed that they were entitled by some odd concept of fringe benefits and perks due to the importance and virtue of their jobs. Sales and marketing folks seem to be the biggest abusers.

Let's see who works in what roles as it is relevant to the debate.

Hands up if you are a salesperson.

Hands up if you are a bean counter.

Hands up for any other role.

I can't help but think that when someone writes something suggesting you must always play 100% by the rules or you are a despicable, unethical human being, it must be a bean counter writing it. So stand up and let's see who you are.

I am(was) a salesperson. You?

Agreed.

BTW, I'm an accountant. I've seen to many in my profession detached from the real world and how it functions.

I'll raise my hand as one of those three options!

In previous roles I managed a team of salespersons covering 20+ countries. Each had 8-digit USD targets. (Not that that is particularly impressive).

We had a guy who worked for a smaller company with a high level of responsibilities. It meant he was on track to senior/executive roles with accompanying equity.
For whatever reason, he never broke through ceiling to meet that level of personal expectation, so he decided to try it out with us - a behemoth.
Started at a mid-senior role, but stalled out quickly.

Unfortunately, this resentment fed into his sense of entitlement, and eroded his ethics. The abuses were nothing major in absolute terms, but they were serial, and more than anything was just a sad display of character.

I think it can be a generational matter, but more strongly it is dependent on what industry you're in. As a government employee, the ethical standards I am held to seem to be higher. I have had it drilled into me that any perceived conflict of interest is unacceptable. If I accept a small favor from a salesperson and that company later happens to get our order, people are going to jump to conclusions. It's very difficult to prove that there was no undue influence.

So you believe that his own perception is what matters? I have to disagree with that. Many people are biased without realizing it. Even if he is 100% an ethical person, bias can be subconscious and impossible to detect. That is why we have fixed standards for ethics, rather than going based on perception.

There is also the issue of the word "inordinate". You say that there should be no "inordinate" influence on the decision. So does that mean that if there is an influence, but it's not large or excessive (the definition of inordinate from the dictionary) then it is perfectly fine to you?

Delivery times, interest payments, and quality of product are all business concerns. They do not impact the salesperson personally. They can and should be considered in making a decision.

I am in sales. I follow all the rules. In 29 years with the same company I have NEVER once had to justify a single receipt. I follow the same rules as everyone else in the company. The downside for not following the rules would be dismissal, and I could never hold my head up if I allowed that to happen. Being in sales, my compensation is directly tied to my effort. My reward is not 'bending the rules' but a generous commission check for over-achieving. I have never considered expenses as a part of my remuneration, or something I can use to close a sale or say thank you to a customer. Customers in my industry would also never play by alternate rules, most of them are government employees or contractors who are not even permitted to accept so much as a free pen.....

My thank you comes from making the customer successful and most importantly, a repeat customer in the future. That's all I have to say.

My most recent expense report got audited for the first time ever (that I know of, anyway) and sent back to me because the PDF receipt that our travel agent sent for me to include only included the month and day of the transaction (instead of month/date/year). :rolleyes: I resorted to attaching a PDF printout of the Outlook email containing said receipt, so we'll see how that goes.

For initial approval, though, I feel like my group is fairly flexible as long as the spirit of the rules are followed. Then again, I don't think we've had any egregious abuses either.

I don't know what 'in previous role I managed a team of salespeople' is supposed to mean deniah. The question was are you a salesperson; bean counter; something else? In other words, what do you consider yourself to be based on your background? I have seen companies where someone who came up through the Engineering side or Accounting side of a company was put into a VP Sales position even though they had no actual sales experience themselves. So did you function at the pointy end of the Sales process or not? If you did not, then your perspective is not that of a salesperson regardless of how many actual salespeople you managed.

I went up through the ranks of Sales and first, last and always, think of myself as a Salesperson. So what are you deniah? A sales guy; production guy; accounting guy; engineering guy; etc.?

As for your anecdote, I fail to see what it has to do with anything. One person who did not do well for whatever reason means what? No one is suggesting that some individuals in whatever roles can act unethically. Office clerks regularly take home pens, pencils, staplers, etc. etc. and all of it is unethical. It also has no bearing whatsoever on a discussion of sales or expenses.

Not really true.

Salespersons who sell primarily to government must operate under more rigorous (I don't accept "higher") ethical standards than those who sell to most private company cohorts. The notion that purchasing decisions are made purely on objective bases, though, even in government purchasing, is naive. If they were, there would frankly be little use for salespersons.

Sales is a relationship business. To the extent enjoyable experiences can be shared, that helps build relationships. If legal constraints are in place, those obviously must be obeyed. But talking about enjoyable shared experiences as though they're synonymous with "bribes" smacks to me of a particularly unpleasant form of priggishness.

I can agree there are differences in terms of what kind of business people are in. We all know the image of 'used car salesman'. But I'm wondering if you kinda choked a little when suggesting government employees are held to a higher standard cbn42. There is hardly a day goes by that the media isn't reporting on some government employee (which includes every politician) having been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Government employees have as many unethical players as anywhere else.

What I hear you saying is that there is a culture of distrust that you find yourself having to work in. In your own words, "people are going to jump to conclusions. It's very difficult to prove that there was no undue influence." That indicates that you are deemed untrustworthy and deemed guilty until you prove your innocence. I would not want to operate in such a culture. By the way, you might want to use my term, 'inordinate influence' rather than 'undue influence'. Undue influence is a legal term that has to do with someone using position power to force a decision on another person. Not the same thing really.

Government employees are notorious in the private sector for having bad work habits and an ingrained expectation to be told what to do; watched while they do it and given no leeway to exercise judgement. In many companies, there is an unwritten rule that you don't hire ex-government employees. I can't imagine any circumstances under which I would hire an ex-government employee for a sales role. I'm not saying that government employees don't try to do their job as best they can, I'm saying they have an entirely different idea of what that means and how they are supposed to do it.

Regarding 'his own ethics', yes that is what I am saying. But I am also saying, although I may not have made it clear enough, that I know that everyone is biased in their perceptions and that cannot be avoided. You write, "That is why we have fixed standards for ethics, rather than going based on perception." You may believe that but even with all the rules regarding not accepting any favours etc. that you operate under, you are still biased and will act based on your own perceptions and no one else's if you can. The difference is you rarely get to exercise your bias and that is not a good thing.

The problem with government spending is that you operate with your hands tied or at least believe you do. John Glenn famously replied to a question about what he was thinking when he climbed into the space capsule, "I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of 2 million parts — all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract."Attributed to John Glenn

Don't imagine for a minute that having 'fixed standards' and 'not going based on perception' is necessarily a good thing. Nor was John Glenn necessarily right. I never particularly liked working with government departments because they were simply 'hard work'. Harder than the private sector. But there are ways around their 'rules'. A government buyer is putting together a specification to go out to 'tender'. He has 3 salespeople calling on him for months in advance, pitching their product for the job. He perceives one of them to be a 'snake oil salesman' and he does not trust that the product he is pitching is as good as the other 2 and will do as good a job. So what does the buyer do? He writes a specification that includes something the other 2 can do but the third can't. He does that based on his perception and subsequent bias. I have had government buyers ask me, 'how can I keep company X out of the running?' Simple, add a requirement they can't meet.

Now, if the government buyer does that, did he act unethically? Or did he act in the way he believed was best for the government and the public they serve? I say he acted ethically given the rules he is forced to act under. Would you buy a part for a space capsule you didn't trust to perform as required? 'Not my job to make sure it will work, just my job to accept the lowest bid.'

Regarding 'inordinate', again we all are influenced and act on our perceptions. They cannot be avoided. Therefore by definition, there is always an influence caused by our perceptions and yes, as long as it is not 'excessive' it is perfectly fine. As above, if you think a salesperson is going to sell you an inferior part if you let him, you have a choice to make and that choice has come about because of your perception of that person. It would only be if you let your perception of that person become an 'inordinate' influence in your buying decision that it would be wrong. If his product and every other measurable factor was as good as anyone else's but you simply didn't like him personally, that is not a reason to not buy the product. But not liking someone is not the same as not trusting someone is it.

As for delivery, interest and quality all being business concerns, that is correct. But they are not the only business concerns, they are simply some that are the more obvious and measurable more or less. There are other equally as important business concerns that are not necessarily as apparent and/or measurable. If you as a government buyer buy a product because it is the lowest bidder, how do you justify the ethics of that to yourself if they use child labour to attain that lower price? If your government puts a company on a 'blacklist' for political reasons, how do you ethically justify to yourself not buying their product if it is superior and at a lower price? And tell me, if someone (your boss/government) uses 'undue influence' to force you to make that kind of decision, does that not impact you personally? It should. Or should the buyer fall back on, 'well, that really wasn't my decision to make and my conscience is clear.'

Business Ethics as a subject is one that is not studied by many students before entering (or after) the workforce. Perhaps it should be. It is not a simple subject and certainly not 'black and white' as some here seem to think it is. There are plenty of links on the topic of Ethical Sales that can easily be found using Google. Here is one: https://open.lib.umn.edu/principlesm...es-management/

The first paragraph may surprise some people. As might this comment in the article, "Taking a customer to play may be a different story; such a game may be a time to strengthen a relationship, as long as the customer does not feel manipulated or obligated."

Note the 'customer does not feel' cbn42. His perception, no one else's.

I think you are avoiding the question I asked. But somehow, I'm not surprised by that.

I think what many posting here have difficulty understanding and may be naive about MaxBuck, is the 'relationship' part of the equation. They seem to think you just show up, show a product, quote a price and that's it.

I also think that in some cases of comments made here even by those who are in 'sales', they aren't even aware of the differences within the broader umbrella that 'sales' covers.

I have sometimes tried to explain the difference for example between a salesperson who is an 'order taker' vs. a 'real' salesperson. A pharmaceutical salesperson for example may travel around a given territory calling on a given number of buyers and 'taking their orders' on a regular basis. They don't actually 'sell' anything other than in the broad sense of the word, they just take 'orders'. I'm not suggesting all pharmaceutical salespeople work that way, I'm just giving an example of an 'order taker'.

A good example of a 'real' salesperson at at level many would not expect to encounter it, happened to me some years ago. I needed to take a client to see an example of a product working in the same environment as the client's situation. It happened that to do so we needed to fly to Dallas, Texas. I asked my secretary to book flights for the client and myself. She jokingly said to me, 'Oh, that's where Neiman Marcus is. You would put a big smile on my face if you brought me back a gift from there.'

So the client and I visited the site to see the product etc. and before catching the flight home, I had some extra time to kill. I remembered my secretary's little joke and thought to myself, 'why not visit Neiman Marcus and get her a little something. Play out her joke and have a little fun.' Off I went to Neiman Marcus. I had no idea what to get her of course. So I headed over by the perfume and cosmetics etc. area of the store and then thought, 'perfume, no too personal and too expensive. I just want something relatively small, inexpensive and fun.'

A saleswoman approached me and said the usual, 'can I help you?' I explained my secretary's little joking remark to me and my wish to play it out, as well as my criteria. She said, 'I think I may have the perfect answer. She then showed me a package with 3 tubes of toothpaste. Three different coloured tubes with different flavours, all in a flashy metallic finish and with the store's Neiman Marcus name written boldly along the length of the tubes. An 'exclusive' Neiman Marcus product priced at $25 for the package. She then said to me, 'if she is going to have a smile on her face, she'll want to show off her sparkling teeth.' I laughed and said, I'll take it.'

She then said to me, 'if you would like, I can have them put in a Neiman Marcus gift box and gift wrapped for you at no charge in our Gift Wrapping department. It will just take about a half hour if you have any other shopping to do or just want to look around.' So I agreed to that also.

So what did this salesperson really do? First, she ascertained what I wanted in terms of a problem to be solved. It was not a gift, it was to play out the joke. Then she took that joke and came up with an 'out of the box' solution that fit perfectly. Toothpaste for the smile. While doing this, she sold me 3 tubes of toothpaste for $25! But it was a win/win nevertheless. I got exactly what I wanted and when we get what we want, we do not mind the other party getting what they want. In this case, her company made a tidy profit no doubt on 3 tubes of toothpaste. How many people do you think could sell you 3 tubes of toothpaste for $25?

But then she took it even farther with her offer of free gift wrapping. She got me to stay in the store for an additional 30 minutes! Time in which while wandering around, there was a reasonable possibility that I would see and purchase something else. Again, a win/win. I got free gift wrapping and her company got an extra 30 minutes of my time in their store.

That young woman was a 'real' salesperson, not just an order taker.

Needless to say for anyone who wants to know the end of the story, my secretary loved her present and went around for at least a week with a big smile on her face. First because she appreciated the joke and second because she could tell all the other secretaries the story as if she was telling them about the 'joke' when in reality she was letting them know how she was treated vs. how they were treated. Jealousy or making someone else jealous is a great motivator. Do you think I didn't know what she would do with the story and that I wasn't consciously 'selling' her on my own behalf as being 'a great boss'? But that was just another win/win. She won, I won.

Of course it didn't make me too popular with the bosses of the other secretaries. LOL

I love the story about the toothpaste!

Here's an example: I recently issued an RFP for construction services for a town that has won federal funding for its telecom project. Our government contact for the funding told us we couldn't specify any brand names as being required, but another company that has already won the service contract for the project really wants a specific brand of equipment installed. The government told us that their preferred way around this was to write the requirements such that only the preferred brand would fit them. Which is what I did.

In my experience, bureaucracy is an organization's defense mechanism that evolves where the organization determines average employees can't be trusted. I agree with @dulciusexasperis on this: sales is about relationships, and taking people to dinner, tennis, golf, etc are perfectly valid ways of building those relationships.

You highlighted a point I was trying to make earlier. It is the person spending the "real" money, i.e. the customer, that sets the ethics of the situation.

If ABC sales corporation wants to spend $500/person trying to woo reps from company XYZ, let them. They're accountable to their shareholders. Shareholders who would be absolutely ecstatic if that few thousand dollars help land a multi-million dollar contract.

Now, if the shareholders of company XYZ catch wind that a few thousand dollars worth of extras spent on some mid-level manager is what swung the decision to spend a few million dollars of their money, they may be pissed. But, it's up to the managers and employees of XYZ to manage that. In fact, company XYZ will probably set rules on what can be received as entertainment - as part of their obligation to their shareholders. Violation of those rules will get you in trouble with the company, not the law. Of course, the training on these rules fit in with all other 'ethics' type discussions that actually do have legal implications (don't bribe officials in Western countries, don't fill in quality data you don't actually know the values for, etc...), but entertainment and relationships with sales?

XYZ will set the policies on what employees can receive, and how high up in the organization you need to be to bypass them (the reason all sports stadiums have skyboxes - mostly for corporate entertainment). But this has to do with controlling the actions of lower-level employees, under the name of 'ethics' more than anything.

Now, if company XYZ is a government agency this becomes a problem. Because now the shareholders are the entire taxpaying public, who don't really have the choice to sell off shares of their government if they don't like how business is conducted. Also, since this is government, things that are just a matter of policy at private company XYZ, are in fact laws at government agency XYZ - just be definition.

And you have avoided it yet again. It is not off topic at all. Someone's perspective is based on the world they live in and see things from. My perspective comes from my background in Sales. Where does your perspective come from Eltham? Are you concerned that if you say what your background is it will affect your credibility? If so, you're right, it will. But so does being unwilling to disclose it.

My bolding above.

Back in the days of desktop computers (laptops were not common yet), I put together a Word Doc. that was titled 'Typical Specification'. I called on many consulting engineering companies and in-house Engineering Departments of major companies in fields like Pulp and Paper; Oil Refining; Steel Manufacturing and others in the Process Industries. Many of the individuals I called on were required to write Specifications to be used when going out for bids on control systems for their processes. Many of them would be starting from scratch as the technology being used was transitioning from Electronic to Digital technology.

So I would often offer to give them a 'floppy disc' with the 'Typical Specification' on it and tell them that as it was a Word Doc. they could use it as a beginning template to edit to fit their own requirements. It was indeed a 'typical' document which saved them the time of figuring out layout etc. and let them get right to specific requirements. They just had to slot them in to the appropriate places and/or edit what was already there. For example, it might include 'all data is to be transmitted and constantly updated to the operator at no less than .5 seconds.' More often than not, they would leave that in their final Specification. It eliminated some major players systems.

It didn't mean they couldn't bid, it simply meant they had to take 'exception' to that criteria and provide their alternative answer. So in their bid under Exceptions, they had to write something like, 'Section 4.10, data transmission to be provided at a speed of 2 seconds per update.' Or, 'updates will be transmitted to the Operator when a change in reading occurs.' Thus highlighting their lower update speed or lack of constant updates. It would be up to the Customer then to decide if that was acceptable or not to them. It also provided the Customer with an easy way to justify a choice of one Supplier over another.

Needless to say, the 'Typical Specification' had quite a few of these kinds of things included in it. Served me well for a couple of years until most potential users of it had got up to speed on having a 'boilerplate' cut and paste Specification of their own. Of course, some people might consider this a 'dirty trick'. But it did help the Customer and any of my competitors was free to do the same. It did not in any way result in a Specification that would not get the Customer a system designed to do what they wanted it to do. It was indeed a win/win for the Customer and for the company I worked with. The only 'losers' were our competitors. That's part of what my job was. Never confuse win/win as including competitors. Win/win is between a buyer and a seller only. LOL

Speaking of Specifications, I once had to respond to a Specification that included a requirement that no system could meet. Not ours, not any competitor's system. The Engineer who wrote the Specification simply didn't realize he was asking for something that did not exist. That meant that all those bidding on the project would have to take exception to the requirement. It isn't easy to write an exception to a requirement in a way that can be made to sound positive or acceptable obviously. But if you know none of your competitors can meet that requirement any more than you can, it's easy to not worry about it too much and just go ahead and write something simple like, 'Item 4.10 not included in this proposal.'

Before taking exception, I phoned the engineer who wrote the Specification and asked for clarification. I asked, 'when do you require this part of the system to be implemented?' His answer was, 'we will need to collect data for a year and then begin this reporting function.'

I went to our R&D Department and asked, 'how long would it take you to develop an answer to this requirement. Could you have it available in a year'? As it happened, this requirement was in fact a sensible next step in the evolution of the product line and they were already working on it.

In our bid, under Exceptions, I wrote, '4.10 to be provided not later than X date and at an additional cost of $Y.' I had to leave the addtional cost out of our base bid as it would obviously have put our price considerably higher than the competitors bids. But we were the only bidder to include the requirement at all rather than just saying, 'don't have it, can't do it.' We got that order and delivered the additional requirement on time, one year later. That order was known in company lore as, 'The product we didn't have Order'.

After the bids were in, the Engineer who wrote the Specification called me to arrange for me to come to a meeting and expand on our response, to the people involved in the buying decision. Large ticket items are usually decided not by one person but by several people in a company. At that meeting I told them quite honestly that we did not have that functionality in our system 'on the shelf' at present. But we were already working on adding it and were confident we would have it within a year. They would be the first to use it, putting them ahead of their competition in that regard and as our first user, we would expect to provide support above and beyond the norm to insure we got anybugs out of it as quickly as possible. That additional support would be provided by us at no additional charge as we would view it as being our responsibility under 'Beta Testing.' We got the order and not only got the order but if you think about it, we got a larger order with no competitive bids for the addition! We also got a test platform for a new product. It is often hard to get a company to agree to be the 'guinea pig' for a new product.

Here is the key point though gfunkdave. They would not have given us the order if they did not trust us to deliver as promised. Sales is as you say, about relationships. Decisions are made by people and if they do not see you as playing win/win and trust you, they do not buy from you. Developing those kinds of relationships is often done at lunch or on the golf course etc. and not in more formal business meetings.