A huge scandal has broken out in the world of professional selling. An insidious practice known as ‘Call Tampering’

The ‘win at all costs’ attitude of many in business today has led to panicked, impatient and dare I say, evil people in head offices around the world, who are inflicting their canned marketing messages on clients in every sales call.

One unfortunate sales guy, ‘Cameron’ told me exclusively. ‘I just wanted to have a natural conversation with my client about their issues, but I was told to ignore that, sandpaper over the cracks of our solution and just show them the new product range’.

Cameron’s client has reportedly said ‘We always trusted Cameron to discuss our needs and negotiate fairly for both parties, but this ‘show up and throw up’ stuff leaves me cold.

It is believed the entire leadership team is behind this push to ignore clients’ individual preferences but they have refused to stand down at the time of writing and in fact, have doubled down on spending even more money on internal technical presentations and boring product launches.

The entire client community has known of the problem of call tampering for some time and has often gathered at the pub with other industry colleagues, lamenting the lack of authenticity from suppliers.

Now that it is front page news and exposed for all to see, my hope is that the outrage lasts long enough for the perpetrators to be held accountable and kept far away from sales engagement activity in the future.

This may indeed herald a new dawn, where the players who thrive will be those with integrity, heart, empathy and fairness.

If the lazy cheats who tamper with calls win through their ‘it’s-all-about-us, one size fits all’ approach, well, it’s just not cricket.

Elliot Epstein is a leading Pitch Consultant, Keynote Speaker, Corporate Sales, Negotiation and Presentation trainer who gets sales results rapidly. He has coached and trained high profile corporates globally in presenting, selling, negotiating and pitching. He has spoken at over 1500 conferences and workshops for leading companies such as HP, SEEK, Avaya, Hitachi , Australia Post, Samsung, Deloitte and Lend Lease.

He is internationally renowned for ensuring sessions are engaging, interactive and relevant to winning business in competitive markets.

Elliot is based in Melbourne where he took over 500 wickets as a leg spinner.