Why Ethical Sales Part 1: It’s hard to be unethical and happy

by | Jan 29, 2019

Transcript: Hi, it’s Ben Lai from Sales Ethos. Today’s topic is “Why Ethical Sales?” You may have noticed that my company name “Sales Ethos” actually translates to “the way that we do things.” The word ethos actually has very strong ties to the word ethics. One of my visions is that the sales culture of our generation will change to one where ethical practices are the norm. As a result, people are going to trust salespeople. Can you imagine that? Everybody will be better off as a result. But it has to start with people doing the right thing in the first place.

Now, the reason that I’m creating this topic or the audience that I’m addressing today is not so much for the people who already are trying to do the right thing on a day to day basis. I’m actually trying to speak to those of you who feel like you have no other choice. You feel like you have to do these dodgy tactics in order to be successful. There’s a saying out there that it’s a “dog eat dog world,” that if you don’t do these things, then you’re going to get left behind. Or as the other thing goes, “Nice guys come last.” So what I want to do is to provide you an alternative as well as the rationale so that you can do the right thing and you can be successful at the same time. This is a large topic, so I’m splitting it up into three segments. This is part one.

Why Ethical Sales? Reason #1: It’s hard to be unethical and happy

The number one reason for ethical sales is that it’s hard to be unethical and happy at the same time. You know, if you really think about the big picture about what you want in life, and then I ask you a follow up question, “Why do you want that?” So let’s just say you want to go to traveling as one of your life goals. Why do you want to travel? If you really boil it down, no matter what your goal is, usually it comes down to one thing. And that is that you want to be happy. So happiness is a major goal for a lot of us, if not everybody.

Now imagine trying to be happy on a day to day basis while not feeling good about yourself on the inside. If you’re practicing unethical tactics in sales, every day, it’s going to conflict big time with your moral compass on the inside. This is going to create a situation that psychologists call cognitive dissonance, where there is a conflict with the actions and your core values and your beliefs. If this is going on on an ongoing basis, the studies have found that it causes large amounts of stress. So therefore, doing unethical sales will cause a great deal of stress and decrease your happiness. If you want to sleep well at night then do things the right way.

Why Ethical Sales? Conclusion

So that’s part one of “Why Ethical Sales?” I look forward to seeing you in part two. Don’t forget to like and subscribe, leave a comment below and I’ll see you in the next section.

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Sales Ethos is the only provider of sales training for introverts. We also provide sales coaching, sales process consulting, and sales training in Melbourne & Adelaide.