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The Challenge of Monitoring Ethics in B2B Marketing

The Challenge of Monitoring Ethics in B2B Marketing

Photo of Banana Republic storefront. In foreground, partial view of a large red shopping bag, with the word SALE printed in white.Imagine that Banana Republic, the retail clothing store, wants to launch a new promotion with a significant price discount. Banana Republic sells to consumers, which makes it a B2C company. Before the promotion is announced, the corporate marketing team will analyze the pricing discount. The Web site design for the promotion will be throughly reviewed. If this is a new promotion, the legal team will evaluate and approve the official language. The display materials that are sent to stores go through the same review. The marketing team will craft communications for the sales associates in stores around the country, explaining the promotion and scripting how it should be presented to shoppers. It is possible that the marketing team at Gap Inc., Banana Republic’s parent company, will also review the promotion—or they may have provided a “promotion template” that’s been reviewed and approved. For a B2C company selling to a large consumer audience, pricing is fairly uniform for all buyers, and the marketing and legal teams typically review the pricing strategies and communications.

In a B2B sales environment this process is very different. Imagine that a sales representative from Microsoft comes to your college campus to meet with technology leaders about a new software package for student communications. She might meet with the college’s chief information officer over lunch and discuss the college’s current products, as well as the new software package she is hoping to sell. When the discussion turns to price, the sales rep will try to present the right price to close the sale. She will be thinking about what the college has already purchased, what else she hopes to sell to the college, and how she might “bundle” this product to drive the largest total sale. She will also care about the timing of the sale. Does she want the college to buy the product this year or this quarter in order to maximize her commission? That will make a difference in whether she presents more aggressive pricing now or tries to create a larger deal that may take longer to close. The individual sales rep has significant discretion in crafting the right deal. Often the company’s sales leadership will not have visibility into the details of this deal until she is well into the sales process, and the legal team will not review it until it is in a formal contract that the company is preparing to sign.

B2B sales processes generally have fewer controls than B2C processes for a number of reasons:

  1. Personal sales are relationship based, requiring the seller to tailor the process according to the buyer’s personality and approach
  2. B2B sales are often large and complex, which necessitates personalizing the marketing mix to the individual buyer
  3. Pricing is negotiated between the buyer and seller, rather than being set and uniform across all customers
  4. Communication about the product and pricing takes place mainly through informal or formal verbal presentations and discussions

The B2B sales process is difficult to monitor and control. It is also very high stakes. There are approximately 320 million potential consumers in the United States. There are just over 5.7 million firms doing business in the United States.[1] B2B firms market to a much smaller number of customers and are often selling products with a higher total cost.

Structural Challenges in Personal Selling

The challenges of creating appropriate controls in the B2B sales process places special pressure on the individual sales representatives to make good judgment calls in a very flexible environment. In addition, personal selling almost always uses an incentive structure, which puts immense pressure on the sales rep to close large deals.

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