login
Business Ethics
-
No new posts
 2013-05-21 9:52 AM |
Elite  4564    Boise |  Subject: Business EthicsBackstory here, I work in distribution/sales. My job is to quote new projects. I mainly quote two types of items. One of them I work up myself, the other I get a quote from a sales rep. For the last 30 years one particular sales rep has dominated our market (~80% of the business). They pull out all the stops in order to win everything. I'm firmly convinced they bribe(various forms i.e. discounts, material, etc.) customers/distributors/engineers/etc., they threaten people with lawsuits, etc. in order to get the orders. We've been tired of using them for a long time. About a year and a half ago we decided to team up with one of their competitors. The large rep has been doing everything they can to undermine every job we get. They are definitely making life very difficult for us, so you can see how they keep their market dominance. I'm just curious how far would you go in order to win some business. Personally, I'm not willing to go as far as they do. The items they are selling are fairly lucrative ('m sure the owner of the rep agency is probably worth 8 digits). |
| 2013-05-21 10:52 AM in reply to: JoshR |
Expert 1215  Austin, TX | Subject: RE: Business Ethics I own a business that is distribution based. I've found that the customers that trend towards questionable ethics are not as profitable for me as compared to customers who share my ethics. I would rather make a reasonable margin adn not compromise my ethics rather than dominate the market with sales, lower margins, and questionable ethics. If you have a rep verifiably underming the projects you have, is there any legal action you can take? |
| 2013-05-21 11:11 AM in reply to: Hugh in TX |
Elite 4564 Boise | Subject: RE: Business Ethics I'm not sure we could produce adequate evidence unless we went all out to bring legal measures against them. We're not really interested in doing that. One of the things they are doing right now to us: I won a job that had a couple of items that were spec'd no equals. The rep I dislike rep's one of them. I looked online and I can buy it at thousands of websites. I plugged in the internet pricing when I bid it. Now they have pitched a fit and apparently have somehow blocked all of these websites from selling the items into the Boise market, so I have no choice but to buy it from the rep. I don't know how that is even possible, but they did. The good news is we have a sympathetic ear in the engineer on this one so when he fins out what they are going to do (they haven't priced it for us yet) if it's outrageous he will allow us to sub it and if they no quote us he will allow us to sub it. |
| 2013-05-22 7:15 AM in reply to: JoshR |
Champion 7558 Albuquerque, New Mexico | Subject: RE: Business Ethics Originally posted by JoshR I'm not sure we could produce adequate evidence unless we went all out to bring legal measures against them. We're not really interested in doing that. One of the things they are doing right now to us: I won a job that had a couple of items that were spec'd no equals. The rep I dislike rep's one of them. I looked online and I can buy it at thousands of websites. I plugged in the internet pricing when I bid it. Now they have pitched a fit and apparently have somehow blocked all of these websites from selling the items into the Boise market, so I have no choice but to buy it from the rep. I don't know how that is even possible, but they did. The good news is we have a sympathetic ear in the engineer on this one so when he fins out what they are going to do (they haven't priced it for us yet) if it's outrageous he will allow us to sub it and if they no quote us he will allow us to sub it. Call the manufacturer directly and ask whether this distributor has an exclusivity clause or not. (And ask to see the clause.) For now, just find out if they do, and if so, yea, you need to work through them. If not, you should be able to work with any distributor, local or online. |
| 2013-05-22 7:28 AM in reply to: JoshR |
Pro 9391 Omaha, NE | Subject: RE: Business Ethics It's hard to say what to do exactly without all the information, but I'm a strong proponent of shining the light on unethical behavior with my competitors. The cockroaches always scurry when you turn the lights on. I had a situation where one of my competitors started doing some unethical things to disparage my company to our customers. I have one of the best lawyers in town and it's amazing what kind of power a well crafted legal letter to the CEO of a company has. Just the threat of subpoena can be a powerful leveraging tool. I got a nice letter of apology from their CEO and have had no incidences since. I had another incident where I suspected (OK, knew) a Vendor rep was blatantly taking my customers to one of my competitors. My suspicion was they were paying him on the back end or something, because it was pretty blatant. I simply called my vendor rep personally and explained all the evidence I had compiled and said he had 7 days to make it right or a personal and corporate lawsuit would be filed. It's amazing how much his attitude has changed since that conversation. Money corrupts, and it's sad to see people take advantage of their positions to do things in business. I try to run a moral and ethical business and it's hard. I've had potential customers flat out tell me that if I gave them a $1000 gift card they would make sure I got the business. I won't lie and say I was tempted, but I do find it as a great opportunity to teach them about running my business by the book. (that book being the Bible) |
| 2013-05-22 8:43 AM in reply to: McFuzz |
Elite 4564 Boise | Subject: RE: Business Ethics Originally posted by McFuzz Originally posted by JoshR I'm not sure we could produce adequate evidence unless we went all out to bring legal measures against them. We're not really interested in doing that. One of the things they are doing right now to us: I won a job that had a couple of items that were spec'd no equals. The rep I dislike rep's one of them. I looked online and I can buy it at thousands of websites. I plugged in the internet pricing when I bid it. Now they have pitched a fit and apparently have somehow blocked all of these websites from selling the items into the Boise market, so I have no choice but to buy it from the rep. I don't know how that is even possible, but they did. The good news is we have a sympathetic ear in the engineer on this one so when he fins out what they are going to do (they haven't priced it for us yet) if it's outrageous he will allow us to sub it and if they no quote us he will allow us to sub it. Call the manufacturer directly and ask whether this distributor has an exclusivity clause or not. (And ask to see the clause.) For now, just find out if they do, and if so, yea, you need to work through them. If not, you should be able to work with any distributor, local or online. We were contacted by the manufacturer yesterday and I think that actually helped us out. We told him his rep wouldn't quote me and then he told the rep to send us over a quote. So now we are in the drivers seat. These items are $320 online. If he sends us a quote that is higher than that the engineer will let us sub them out. So he either has to sell his items to us at a reasonable price or lose out on the sale. I fully expect him to try and come back to us with a $600 price. |
|
|
|
| |||
| |||
| |||
| |||
|
View profile
Add to friends
Go to training log
Go to race log
Send a message
View album
CONNECT WITH FACEBOOK