As a guy who’s spent 10+ years in the sales field, I definitely wasn’t aware when I went into this line of work, about the sheer amount of shit that would befall me…
Sorry if you’re not a fan of the word ‘shit’ in the first sentence, but I felt the opening gambit should be poignant, otherwise whats the point, you may not read on…
My ‘mother didn’t raise no fool’ but it’s safe to say that she did try to instil ethics early on, and that may as well be the same thing in our society today.
I’m definitely losing faith in being human…
I’ve always tried to be honest in my approach to anything I’ve done, more specifically any form of business relationship or working role. But it appears to me that I’m a bit like a magnet for deceit.
I don’t want to suggest here that I’ve not been flippant on occasion, rude and obnoxious in the wrong circumstance from time to time and I’ve definitely had some dark moments I’d rather never dwell on again, but I will not sell you up the river for the betterment of myself as an individual, I do care and I do try to help all those I see that I might, often to my own detriment…
The societal issue here is that we’re actually allowing those who have a bit of power or credibility to feed on those less fortunate and it’s all absolutely fine, as long as the top of the food chain remain in favour, or fed and the little man keeps their mouth shut.
On the other end of the spectrum we’ve got criminals and arrogant youth quoting legalities to our law enforcement, while their powers are slowly stripped away so there’s less and less they can do to affect any change in the world that’s becoming just a bit too ‘PC’.
You can’t even hug a child when they fall and cut their knee at school without something reading into it… How about… The child is crying, and I don’t want the child to feel sad, or hurt, or to cry… You know, old school!
We see in the press every day, people who’ve sold their story surrounding a sordid situation with a celebrity in some form or another. Tabloids and journalists greasing the palms of the underprivileged, as the Roman’s once did, to slight their societal rivals with knowledge of their indiscretions.
Safe to say Operation Yewtree should have taught us that there’s probably more going on than we thought in a range of areas…
There’s also the people who feed on this; sex, drugs, scandal, fraud, it’s all so rife through our visual media that we become numb to it and we’d probably barely notice if someone flashed us on the street.
In my time I’ve worked with multi millionaires, celebrities, blue chip companies and beyond and in every single field without exception, there’s been twisted elements that are simply unethical.
My opinion of the world is that we have a responsibility to our fellow man, just to be good and true to what we know to be moral and right.
There is no band width for wavering in this… There’s no grey area… If it feels wrong then it probably is wrong…
If someone sets you up with a deal that makes you a shed load of money, then you should support them and reward them in kind… But that’s not how sales works… In reality if someone made you a serious revenue stream then it seems people would rather do their best to keep as much in their pocket as possible.
The logic from my perspective is:
- Sales guy brings in big money/opportunity
- Rather than keep it all, the company genuinely looks after that sales guy and gives them a fair proportion
- Sales guy, feels supported, respected and gratified in his success
- Sales guy becomes loyal and devotes himself to more of the same
That’s how an ethical sales process works… Very simple if you’re not greedy!
And companies the world over would make more money if they considered every level of their businesses and the general well-being of the individuals surrounding them.
If we just afforded respect and reward where due, instead of trying to cling on to the scraps of every element then perhaps things may change.
But I don’t know if they will… I don’t know if they can… Because people only want whats best for them and rarely consider how their actions could affect one another on an individual basis…
This is why it matters not, how commercially minded you are, how genuine, or honest, every element of what surrounds us is pushing us to close off, to let ‘dog eat dog’ and to ‘look after number 1’. Because if you wear your heart on your sleeve, if you’re human in what you do, people see that chink in the armour and they bastardise it…
Where do we go from here? How do we maintain that faith? That energy for human existence… That feeling that there’s more to life than bleeding what you can from the day to day…
I don’t think I’ve got all the answers…
But next time you have an opportunity to let the older lady in front of you in the queue during your lunch hour, hold the door with a smile for the admin girl at work, who no one pays heed to, pay the sales guy his commission on time, without shifting the boundaries when you think about your annual take home… Consider the ethics… Consider what one small act may do to change that persons world…
We’ve all got a story that the paper might pay for, but at the end of the day… Rome fell… So I’d argue that mentality is certainly not something I want in my epitaph…
SIDE NOTE: Since publishing this post, someone may have just changed my life… Maybe there is hope…
THE BIPOLAR BUSINESSMAN 