Black Sales Journal

Sounds like a dumb advertisement doesn’t it?  Anyone who believes that a sales professional should work for free has a touch of a fever, but the actual situation plays out everyday.

Yet in reality, many sales professionals, and especially Black sales professionals find themselves in that situation, unintended of course.

It happens when you invest time and effort in making presentations to buyers who based on reasons beyond your control, take your presentation’s price, and your constructive ideas, and give them to your competition.  When that happens, they are actually saying you should work for free!

How It Happens

This can happen to anyone, any color, and any creed.  It is what happens when someone makes a decision to be courted and accepts the benefits of a relationship, yet not get married.  The problem arises when the fruit of your labor is used to better the position of the customer, even though they had no intention of making the move to you or your organization.

You come in with a ‘killer’ price, and a product offering that is exceptional.  You realize that based on the customer’s needs your organization can use a combination of products that are currently available on the market and couple it with some creative financing to make it palatable.   In the whole, your price and product offering is enhanced by your terms (financing, payment deferral, and other benefits) and you feel success is in the making.

As you know the customer can benefit financially and product-wise from the activities of the sales professional without ever making a real commitment to you, and certainly without putting any food on your table.  You may have felt this ‘sting’ several times before, and you do not have to be a ‘repeat’ victim.

You do all of the work, and the customer gets the benefit and any reward goes to the sales professional who followed your lead.  You have to ‘wait until next time or next year’.  Can’t buy much bacon with that! Objectively, this is part of the sales process, and a part of the process that you cannot avoid; yet you can manage.

Take Smart Precautions

To avoid this being your anthem, you have to develop your principles and rules and stick to them.  You also must work on gaining commitment before showing your complete arsenal of products and services during the process.  That commitment is based on the answers to the questions below.

When presenting, seek to get agreement on what you need to solve, and what level of price and program will “land the business”.  Logic would show that you could still be manipulated; yet this starts to get at some of the problem.  You will want to cover these bases:

Ask the all-important questions before the solicitation process.  These are the requisite questions that will define what it will take to separate them from the incumbent:

• Why are you looking for competitive quotes/bids?
• How will the quote/bid process be conducted?
• What pricing difference must be made? What will it take for you to change?
• How long have you been with the incumbent? Does the incumbent get the last shot?
• Is the playing field level with the others that are quoting (other than the incumbent)?

The purpose of these questions is clarity about the buying process and what definable difference that you must make.  Knowing the answers, if the buyer is honest, allows you to do what is necessary to be successful, whether with this customer, or another one.

An important point is that you cannot be hesitant to ask these questions.  They are part of what a true sales professional asks, and gets clarification of before the sales process.  What you learn about how the process is defined in the eyes of the customer will speak volumes.

I am sure that you sales veterans out there do this already, yet it bears mention for the new sales professionals

Don’t hesitate, ask!  Yes, the customer can still violate his/her own rules, but does so at the peril of alienating you and other sales professionals.

How Does this Affect The Black Sales Professional?

This affects all sales professionals, and it is part of the sales ‘game’.  It is what happens when customers must get competitive quotations of products and services because they want to check how they stand, or to satisfy a procedure that does the same.

Here is where it gets vexing.  Black sales professionals can easily be subject to working ‘without pay’ because of the complexities ofpreference and even prejudice (See Black Sales Journal 5/19 A Deep Dive into Preference, Perceptions, and Prejudice).  If a buyer has no intent on doing business with you as sales professional, or your organization, and is planning on taking your work and giving it to the incumbent, they are wasting your precious time and effort.   Issues regarding preference manifest themselves that way. The buyer strengthens his or her relationship with their current vendor, while at the same time improving their price and terms, thanks to your efforts.  Prolonged activities like this could obviously cost you your job.

In this way, being used is bad for your current employment health.  The above questions, if answered truthfully could save you some time, or at least help tip you off as to who the prospects are and who the ‘suspects’ are.

The Reality

You will always run the possibility of wasting time on good accounts that have no intention of moving their business because of their relationship with the incumbent.  They just want to use you for leverage to make sure they get a good price or program.  You have to make the decision of whether you want to be a willing participant, or should we call it a ‘not-for-profit sales professional’.

You have many choices that include not working with a prospect to contacting every few years to maintain the customer pending a personnel change of buyers.  The most important thing is that to increase your effectiveness, you don’t want to waste your time while you better someone else’s program.

You owe it to yourself, and it will make you more effective.

Always be effective!

Your comments are welcome. You can reach me at michael.parker@blacksalesjournal.com.

You are at the social hour of a business function and during the cocktail hour, and another sales professional takes an opportunity to give you, your manager, and the other individuals in your conversation group his “two cents”:

“I believe that this thing with Black athletes in the NBA is sickening. They are selfish, tattooed animals that make money from bouncing a ball and shooting it into a basket.”

You might not even like the NBA, but you immediately feel your temperature increasing because it was an overtly racist statement.  Statements like this do happen, and are not only offensive but also very revealing about the one who speaks them.

How should you react?  What actions should you take?  Are you in jeopardy when you make a complaint?  We will examine these issues in this post as you have probably heard comments that are offensive more than once.

Measured Reactions When it Comes from “the Side”

What do you do when these comments come from a coworker?  That is why I am referring to it as “the side” as opposed to “from the top” which would be management.

This may sound like a pretty simple question, yet it should be discussed.  Above is an example of an overt racist comment.  He specifically noted Black NBA athletes in his comments, and made a blanket statement about a league which is approximately 80% to 82% Black with an average annual income of $2.4M.  Regardless of his reasoning, he said it.  Additionally, whether he was right or wrong, the statement should not have been made.

Statements like this are “baiting” and designed to get you to move to the defense. In some situations they are clear indications that they forgot who was in the audience.  I aver that regardless of the reason, our response should be a simple and demonstrative as what I will describe shortly.

I certainly believe that any comment that disparages race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religion affiliation should be met with an immediate response.  Whether they are veiled or not, you have the right to remove yourself from that conversation, and by doing so you will send a clear signal to the individual and the rest of the group that you are a professional.

At the first utterance, my suggestion is to not legitimize the comment by engaging in conversation or argument.  Comments like this are offensive and designed to get a reaction.   Having a discussion or even a moment of argument about it gives them what they want.  Even if you are incensed, I urge you not to legitimize it, but to take the following actions after the comment:

Think about the comment briefly and if it is racist, or darn close to it then I suggest you state one of the following, or something you have crafted for this type of occasion:

• “I have no desire to discuss this issue”, then exit the conversation.
• “I will not legitimize your comments with discussion or my presence”, then exit the conversation.
• “I am as surprised that you have views like that and even more surprised that you would be insensitive enough to state them.  You will excuse me?”

Everyone in the group will know why you exited the conversation.  As a matter of fact this will give you a good chance to see how many of those individuals you work, including those you consider friends, have the intestinal fortitude (guts) to do the same thing.  These types of comments have no place in a work setting, and you cannot be selective about which ones to listen to, they need to all be met with the same response.

When someone makes comments like this in your presence, you can imagine what they say when you are not present.  Remember, you probably have the right to “go off” about the issue.  The problem is that you don’t want to give someone the power to be able to “push that button. “   They have shown their ignorance; now your demonstration of the fact that you will not listen to that garbage puts that individual’s action, as well as the actions of others that you work with in the spotlight.  Will they listen to these disparaging comments?  Will they partake of this type of racism (or sexism, or religious intolerance)?

If It Happens Again…

You must remember that everyone that you work with is not your friend.  You should show respect initially, yet that can change if they continually abuse it.  Note that if there is a second instance, then a discussion with Human Resources should be the action taken.

Any discussion with HR should be factual and clearly state the your objection to the comments as well as who was present as witness to the comments.   This is not “tattling” it is working to correct a wrong.  We know that sales people sometimes push the “envelope” in their comments and views.  Regardless, this type of scenario is unacceptable.  It should be clearly discussed that this is not the first time, and the date and time, and witnesses to the initial comment.  If you are truthful about what has happened you should not create any jeopardy for your job in this action.

I have seen jobs endangered, and terminated for comments that disparage racial groups, genders, and other items.  Your comfort should come in that you had the courage to speak up because chances are this is not the first time that a disparaging comment was made.

We appreciate your comments, I can be reached at Michael.Parker@BlackSalesJournal.com.