The importance of ethics in business continues to be a focus on companies around the world. The unfortunate and all-too frequent examples of ethical lapses by individuals in many different organizations continue to be in the headlines almost every week. Among the challenges is the difficult problem of hiring individuals with sufficient ethical judgment that aligns with company ethical values. However, once an individual is hired what happens next?
Companies today are spending more resources (time and money) on ethical training than ever before. They realize that while it is almost impossible to fundamentally change someone’s ethical value system, it is possible; indeed, it is essential that everyone in the organization understand the company ‘s ethical values, the code of conduct expected of employees, and the consequences of violating the code.
Perhaps it is not surprising to know that one of the areas in an organization that experiences the greatest number of ethical challenges is personal selling. The ethical pressure on salespeople is profound and, as a result, companies understand the need to offer salespeople a great deal of ethical training . Almost every sales organization spends time working through the ethical challenges and scenarios with their salesforce to help prepare them for the difficult ethical decisions they face every day.
Question to Ponder:
Identify one ethical challenge a salesperson might face. Then create a sales training exercise to help the salesperson deal with the issue more effectively,