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Charles Warner

  Sales Ethics in the Advertising‐Supported Media

  What Are Ethics?

  Why Are Ethics and Rules Important?

  Five Ethical Responsibilities for Media Salespeople

  An Ethics Check

  Transparency

The Sales Executive Council (SEC) is a private membership‐based research consortium serving approximately 300 of the world’s largest sales organizations, including IBM, Coca‐Cola, GE, McGraw‐Hill, Microsoft, and the Walt Disney Company. The SEC is a division of the Corporate Executive Board and its mission is to assist executives in enhancing the effectiveness of their sales strategy and operations, from sales productivity and strategic account management to sales training and compensation. The SEC’s primary tool is conducting research on sales problems its members face and producing case studies of best practices that companies use to solve these problems.

One of the SEC’s reports dealt with sales force retention and motivation. In one survey that was a part of this report, it asked 2,500 senior sales executives in major industries worldwide to rank the attributes, from most important to least important, that they felt were necessary to be successful as a salesperson and as a sales manager.¹

The most important attribute, by far (63 percent inclusion versus 50 percent inclusion for the second ranked attribute) was honesty/integrity.²

In 2016, Dr. Sunnie Giles, an organizational scientist and President of the Quantum Leadership Group surveyed 195 leaders in 15 countries in over 30 global organizations. Survey participants were asked to choose the 15 top leadership competencies from a list of 74. The number one competency, rated by 67 percent of the leaders, was “high ethical and moral standards.”³

No matter whether you are a salesperson or in a sales leadership position, the most important attribute or competency is ethical behavior – honesty and integrity.

How does one know how to be ethical, honest, and act with integrity? What are the rules for honesty? In business the rules usually come from codes of standards or codes of ethics.