[whatshisface]

We can write whatever story we want in between the details we were told... Maybe the salesman was secretly an FSB agent. Maybe he was an alien. Maybe he was Superman's alter-ego.

It's not really conducive to communication to fill in the blanks like that, even though any person in someone else's work story could be one of Them walking among us... ;)

[yaboy]

I don’t think it’s really relevant to the story, he was ethical but did schmooze prospects at dinners. Which is standard operating procedure for multi-million dollar database sales. The acquirer did the same.

He was incentivized to hustle harder, until incentives were stripped, out of spite.

[ryukafalz]

No aliens required, just sales tactics that seem to be endemic in this industry.

Just about every week I comb through my inbox unsubscribing from all the companies' mailing lists that I most certainly did not subscribe to.

[tpxl]

Sending those mails to the spam folder to reduce their reputation is a hobby of mine.

[MajorBee]

Or maybe he employed more run-of-the-mill unsavoury techniques like low-level bribery (gifts, expensive wine-and-dine), plenty of shmoozing and the like. These techniques are not exactly useless in getting new business; however, most modern workplace rulebooks will consider them illegal/unethical.

[saiya-jin]

You are joking right? It in the rulebook of most sales folks... everywhere. Companies have special budgets for this.

I don't mean some trading-only companies like Cargill who have extra prostitues budgets (at least 5 years ago that was true, and with expensive alcohol parties was the only way to do any business in places like Russia or most 3rd world countries). I mean any kind of bigger corporation. Banks have it. Any kind of finance business does. You won't get far without it.

There are obviously rules, but often they go the other way - employees shouldn't accept bribes in forms of these gifts. But getting clients, that's a free for all, the winner takes all (and biggest bonus).

[MajorBee]

Hmm my company's anti-corruption training material states very explicitly that the only gifts allowed are very minor ones (probably things like company-branded T-shirts or something) and dinners need to be on a modest budget, definitely no paid vacations and the like. Of course, this is just training material which I'm sure they make mandatory primarily to avoid liability, and I'm pretty far removed from the actual sales people in the company. It's entirely possible the training is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules, to paraphrase Hector Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean.

[smabie]

how are gifts corruption? It's a business and if you need to spend tons of money to close a high value deal, then that is what is required.

[JumpCrisscross]

> expensive wine-and-dine

Just want to call out that the multi-million dollar salespeople I know wine and dine their spouses and friends far more lavishly than their clients. The people being sold to, similarly, aren’t alien to fine dining. For two people who enjoy that (versus a baseball game), it can be a genuine way to bond far from bribery. Gifts, on the other hand, yes.

[smabie]

Not sure where you work, but they definitely don't. It's all part of the game. Just make the sale, that's what matters.