When a manager asks you to lie to a prospect

Published: Wed, 02/02/22

February 2, 2022

Good morning. It’s hard to believe we’re already in the second month of 2022 – time flies when you’re desperately prospecting for new business day and night. For now, take a quick break with this week’s edition of The Quota, where we’ll discover how the CEO of IBM changed sales forever, find out whether any reps have ever snapped at a prospect out of anger, and help an account rep whose manager is pressuring him to lie. Here we go.

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

The average number of calls it takes to actually connect with a buyer.

Source: Gartner

SALES ROUNDUP

Here’s what’s happening in the sales world this week

In a not-quite-rags to riches story, a bored salesman landed his dream job, playing a yoga teacher on Ricky Gervais’s show, After Life, after warm-messaging the comedian on Twitter. Cole Anderson-James, 24, was a full-time salesman at a “boring nine-to-five job,” when he decided to download TikTok and started recreating scenes from The Office and other comedies. Gervais, whose comedy Anderson-James loves, noticed the videos and followed Anderson-James on Twitter, prompting the salesman to reach out and (in true sales fashion) ask if there were any available roles. You can read the rest of the story here.
Digital media trade publication Digiday recently interviewed a self-described “burned-out salesperson” as part of their anonymous Confessions series. The unnamed rep criticized their former employer for what they believed to be hypocrisy surrounding mental health and burnout. According to the currently unemployed rep, the company’s words and actions didn’t align, and days spent in meetings left little time for actual productive work, to the detriment of the rep’s mental health and work-life-balance. You can read the anonymous interview here.

FEATURE

How Thomas Watson Sr., CEO of IBM, changed sales forever

While IBM (International Business Machines) is one of the most famous and successful companies of the 20th century, the impact it had on the world of sales under the leadership of its most famous CEO, Thomas Watson Sr., is lesser-known, despite almost single-handedly adding a sense of respectability to a profession which, until the early 1930’s, was considered disreputable, dishonest, and exclusively for the uneducated.

Early life and career

Thomas Watson Sr was born in 1974, and got into sales at a young age, giving up a teaching career after just one day, then serving a quick stint as an accountant before quitting to sell organs and pianos for a local hardware store. After realizing his $10 a week fixed income wasn’t comparable to what he would have made if he was earning commission, Watson quit and got a job in Buffalo, NY, selling sewing machines for a company called Wheeler and Wilson.

According to his son, Tom Watson, Jr.'s, autobiography:

“One day my dad went into a roadside saloon to celebrate a sale and had too much to drink. When the bar closed, he found that his entire rig—horse, buggy, and samples—had been stolen. Wheeler and Wilson fired him and dunned him for the lost property. Word got around, of course, and it took Dad more than a year to find another steady job” (Watson would later enforce strict rules at IBM against alcohol consumption, even off the job).

Selling for NCR (National Cash Register Company)

After a brief stint selling company shares for a shady huckster named C.B. Barron, Watson opened a butcher shop, which quickly failed, leaving him with no money, no job, and no prospects. However, the butcher shop had a cash register he’d bought from NCR, The National Cash Register Company, one of the leading sales organizations in the world.

Watson called on the Buffalo branch manager for NCR, and hounded him until the man finally relented and offered Watson a job. He quickly learned the ropes, and was promoted to run the struggling Rochester branch of NCR, which he turned into a near-monopoly, earning himself a job at NCR headquarters.

Joining IBM

After being prosecuted for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act along with 26 other NCR executives (the charges were eventually resolved on appeal), Watson joined the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) as a General Manager, eventually working his way up to CEO. He renamed the company IBM (International Business Machines) in 1924, and grew it into a powerhouse, as the company moved away from selling tabulating machines and into computers, dominating the market for the better part of the 20th century.

Sales philosophy

From IBM.com: “In the early twentieth century, salespeople were not considered to be professionals. But, as competition between companies increased, managers began to see well-educated, well-trained and knowledgeable salespeople as a source of competitive advantage. The Watsons were the ones who first stressed professionalism in sales. They set the standard and other companies started to follow them.”

Starting in the early days, Watson hired only the top-performing graduates from the top universities. He set up a sales school in the company’s headquarters in the town of Endicott, New York, in the 1920s—putting the trainees through six weeks of intensive training in selling and servicing IBM equipment.

“He insisted that IBM salesmen (they were only men in those days) wear conservative suits and conduct business to the highest ethical standards. Watson rewarded his top performers with bonuses and celebrations.”

“[IMB salespeople] were given up to 18 months of sales training—much more than other companies required. By the time they graduated and became quota-carrying sales people, they were experts not only in IBM’s products and services, but in the businesses of the companies and industries to which they sold. It was called “solution selling.” They were also known for going the extra mile for customers. Shelby H. Carter Jr., an IBM salesman for 14 years who went on to run sales for Xerox, recalls taking the train from his home in Baltimore to New York City on Christmas Eve in 1962 because retailer Abraham & Straus had a problem installing computers. One of the company’s top executives was so impressed with Carter’s response that he pitched in himself.”

Legacy

While IBM is no longer the dominant market force it once was, Watson’s legacy endures. And even though salespeople no longer wear suits to work, the role is considered as professional as any other, and tens of thousands of ambitious young men and women clamor for the opportunity to sell for any number of high-growth companies. Though he’s not around to see it, it’s a safe bet that Thomas Watson would look at today’s tech-focused world and smile.

MEME OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram-- Sales Humor

QUIZ

Which (other) movie is loosely based on the same story as The Wolf of Wall Street?

A. Glengarry Glen Ross
B. Diamond Men
C. Lord of War
D. Boiler Room

SALES FAILS

Each week, we bring you the most cringe-worthy sales moments from across the web. To submit your sales fail story for consideration, click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

“A few years ago, I was working a prospect who was taking a while to warm up to me. We’re in the wholesale apparel business, so there aren’t a ton of potential customers out there, so we need to really focus on building relationships.

Finally, I got this guy to agree to a meeting by inviting him out to dinner. I tell him to pick the spot, and he picks a Chinese restaurant on his side of the city. I tell him that sounds great, so we settle on a day and time, and everything is in motion.

The afternoon when I’m supposed to meet him, I get stuck on the phone with someone else and am running about fifteen minutes late. Making things even worse, there’s a ton of traffic on the way to the restaurant, so I call the guy on his cell phone and apologize profusely and tell him I’m about twenty minutes behind, which was being generous.

Finally, we pull up to the restaurant, and I hop out and sprint inside to meet the guy, but he’s nowhere to be seen. I’m totally confused, so I call him back and he says he’s sitting at a table right near the entrance. Still, I can’t see this guy.

After going back and forth, and talking to the bartender, an awful realization comes over me. This place we were supposed to meet was called Sichuan Gourmet, but I was at a restaurant called Sichuan Garden, halfway across town. I apologized over and over, and the prospect said it wasn’t a big deal, but he said he needed to head out, and never answered my calls or emails again.”

Anonymous, 46 Boston, MA

GRAPH OF THE WEEK

Source: LinkedIn Poll -- January 2022

ASK THE QUOTA

Want to submit a question and be featured in our advice column? Click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

Dear Quota Team,

I have a problem. I can’t say which industry I work in because I’m worried it might make my identity too obvious, since it’s not that big of an industry. But I am a third-year rep who is responsible for sourcing and closing new business in a fairly niche sector.

I’ve been working on a good-sized account for a few months now, and if it closes, it will practically make my next two quarters. My sales manager has been closely involved, but I’ve been the one dealing with the prospect, and have done a good job of building trust with them.

We sent over the contract for the prospect to review, and one of the big sticking points was the cancellation policy. It’s a five-year contract, and the prospect wants to make sure they have an out in case something goes wrong in the future. Without getting too specific, he asked about a very specific scenario, and whether that scenario would allow him to get out of the agreement (if it were to happen).

I had to search for the answer myself, and technically (legally) the answer is no. But my sales manager, who helped me look into this, said to tell the prospect that yes, they would be able to terminate the contract if this were to happen. When I pushed back, my manager said that we need to do whatever it takes to close new business, and that this scenario is so unlikely to actually happen that there’s virtually no risk of ever having to worry about it.

I like this prospect, and I feel guilty about misleading them. On the flip side, my sales manager is right, and this scenario that the prospect is asking about has like a one out of a thousand chance of actually happening. What should I do here? Lie and close the deal or tell the truth and risk getting on my sales manager’s bad side. I don’t believe the prospect will sign if they can’t get out of the contract for their hypothetical stated reason.

Conflicted Location withheld

Dear Conflicted,

The way we see it, the answer is pretty simple. You were concerned enough about the situation to write in and ask for advice, which means you’re feeling ethically conflicted about what to do.

This indicates that if you go ahead and lie to the prospect, then it’s something that’s likely to stay on your conscience for a long time. It’s a lot easier to avoid compromising our values than it is to try to absolve or rationalize our decisions later on.

Putting aside the fact that lying to people is almost always wrong, you should think about how going against your gut feeling for a little bit (and in the big scheme of things, it is a little bit) of money will affect you in the long run.

So do your future self a favor and don’t lie. Even if you don’t care that much about the prospect, do it for yourself. And if this is your sales manager’s MO, you might want to find somebody else to work for. If he has no problem lying to a prospect, he certainly won’t have any problem lying to you too. Good luck!

Quiz Answer: D

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Today's email was written by Ken Kupchik, Steve Rado, and Emily Hill.

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