The more I look at sales, the more deceptive practices seem to be everywhere.
We look down on sports people that take drugs and cheat and yet if we want to employ someone in sales, we seem pretty keen on selecting those that cut corners and maybe cheat.
I was recently reading a sales book that was advocating the use of false reviews on the web to build business. Sure it may increase business, but is it ethical?
The review may be written to be totally truthful but I still can't help thinking this is cheating. It's like taking drugs or cutting corners on that marathon race.
One sales practice is the switch and bait. Grab their attention with one thing to create an expectation then switch to another for the sale. I've had doorstep sellers use this approach - their opening line is "I'm not selling anything" when in reality the offer of a free survey is to sell something later. Winner or cheater?
So why are these practices everywhere? What is driving people to cheat?
Unfortunately it seem that sales is the answer. Buyers have become so conditioned to sales tactics that sales people are adopting more and more extreme practices in order to gain the buyers scarce attention.
How can we stop all this deception and cheating?
Sadly that seems to be far from easy. It's hardly possible to get all sales people to switch to ethical selling tomorrow. Even if they did, buyers would still have preconditioned behaviours to block amorous sales advances and would still have distrust of the sales process.
I don't have thee answers but would be interested to hear how we can drum out deceptive and cheating sales practices. It would be great to get back to a time when sales is honest and trusting.
