You’ve been poached. What can you do?

Dear Bob …

I’m writing this at 3am. I’m totally unable to focus or sleep.

My question: What can I do when another sales rep, knowingly

sells a job that you have already quoted, and management tries to cover it up?

Can I sue the employee for interfering with my livelihood? Or for interfering with an ongoing sales process, or for malicious interference with my ability to earn an income?

– Poached

Dear Boiled …

Before anything else, let’s take the idea of legal remedies off the table. I don’t know employment law, nor the quality of your evidence well enough to judge whether you have a case. Imagine you do. Unless you think you can win a settlement big enough to retire on, you’ll lose more than you win, even if you win.

Who would hire someone who sued because he was on the wrong end of some dirty office politics? That’s how an average sales manager would interpret your lawsuit, regardless of the justice of the situation.

Here are your alternatives. None are particularly good; some are better than others:

• Have a heart-to-heart talk with your manager; maybe with your manager and your manager’s manager. The subject: Clearly, you missed a step in the company’s procedures. What do you need to do differently next time to make sure you get proper credit for sales you’ve generated?

  It isn’t particularly subtle. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that it introduces the subject in a way that blames no one else and is forward-looking rather than complaining. If either denies the facts of the situation, show them your documentation and say, “When I asked for this meeting I guessed there might be some uncertainty as to what actually happened. Here’s the documentation. It clearly shows I quoted the job days before someone else took credit for the sale. Now … let’s get back to the question, if you don’t mind. What do I need to do differently next time?”

• File a formal complaint with Human Resources. HR organizations vary widely in how they approach this sort of thing. Some are by-the-book, enforce-the-policies departments. These will investigate your claim objectively and reach a fair result. Others are more political, and exist to keep troublemakers like you from rocking the boat. If yours is the former, it’s probably worth a try. If it’s the latter, going to HR is probably a career-limiting move.

• Spread dirt about the rep who stole your sale to anyone and everyone who will listen. The outcome: You’ll look like a whiny idiot, while the thief will emerge unscathed.

  You probably won’t be able to preserve your commission. You can preserve your dignity. And anyway, you’ve already told me the thief is better at company politics than you are. When you do battle with someone, make sure you choose a game and playing field that give you the advantage.

• Punch the goniff in the kisser. Tempting, isn’t it? Don’t even think about it. No, I take that back. Think about it. Imagine it. Daydream that it happened. Don’t, however, under any circumstances turn your daydream into reality, and don’t allow yourself the luxury of continuing to daydream about it longer than a couple of days at the most. For two days it’s fun. After that you’ll just be poisoning yourself.

• Contact the prospect you had been working with to inform them you won’t be representing your company to them anymore. Any and all inquiries should go to the rep who got credit for the sale. If your prospect asks why, express surprise: Since they closed the sale with the other rep, it seemed clear to you that this was their preference.

  This is a risky ploy to say the least. If you have exceptional rapport with the client, you might induce them to contact your company’s sales manager to ask why they switched sales reps at the last minute, especially since they like working with you and didn’t like the other person as well.

  More likely, you’ll annoy them for involving them in internal company politics, and even if you don’t annoy them they’ll let it slip that their call was triggered by your contact.

• Suck it up, say nothing to anyone about it, and from here on in play your cards much closer to the vest, figuring that since you spent a large amount of money to receive an education in How Things Work at your company, you ought to get the benefit.

• Decide that from here on in your attitude about your current employer has been irretrievably damaged, which will unavoidably affect your future performance on the job.

  This doesn’t mean you should resign. It does mean you should divert some of your personal energy to finding new employment. Do so covertly — you have nothing to gain and everything do lose if your employer figures out you’re trying to move on to greener pastures. But if you decide you can no longer give your full commitment to your current situation, it’s time to find a better alternative.

I wish I had a good alternative for you. The fact of the matter is that sales poaching happens all the time, and unless sales management cares about it enough to take strong steps to prevent it, you’ve learned something important about them: They care a lot about whether sales get made, and not at all about fairly treating the people who make the sales.

– Bob