Cheating: Six Things I Learned about cheating in SaaS, Sports, Tech, & Live Events
Cheating.
Cheating is defined in Webster's Dictionary as "to violate rules or regulations to gain an advantage."
Whether it's business or competition, you will have to navigate cheaters. I see them every day.
Only it isn’t as clear and straightforward as I thought.
Here are six things I've learned about cheaters while running TicketManager:
Where there is scarcity, there will be cheating. Guaranteed.
When I worked at the LA Kings, there were 11 sales reps in my department. One of them crushed the rest of us in sales. We couldn’t figure out how. He didn't work very hard, was barely on the phone, and was always looking for a shortcut.
Eventually, my boss’s boss looked into it.
Every morning, the sales secretary would check the voicemails to the sales line from the night or weekend before and assign the leads to reps.
He was paying her to give him the lion's share of the opportunities.
Worse yet, he was a ‘good crook.’ Marc (yes, that’s his name. Sorry, not sorry for naming cheaters) would make sure not to take all the opportunities, or else he’d get caught.
Cheaters will deny they cheated. Always.
Being in ticket sales in the early 2000s was challenging work. We hammered the phones with cold calls all day trying to sell the last place local hockey team with one exception: Every day, we got two hours where we could log into the inbound queue and take inbound calls.
There were only supposed to be two people in the queue at a time.
We could see the number of people in the queue. People cheated all the time.
One day, Kate (Again, no, sorry, her name was Kate Issel) saw a call on hold, and I watched her log into the queue, take the call, and make the sale. A cool $1500 in commission. In 2003, that was real money for my 24-year-old roommate, from whom the sale was stolen.
When confronted, she denied she did it intentionally. It probably still does. They all do.
There is rarely justice.
She paid no penalty. Neither did Marc.
None of us were made whole on the opportunities we were cheated out of.
Nobody did anything.
The numbers stayed where they were in the sales standings, and they were both paid their full commissions for what they did.
Cheaters always justify it.
In Southern California, we have a high school football powerhouse that is notorious for playing old kids. Our local star quarterback at Newbury Park High School was 16…as a freshman.
My son plays on a hoops team that plays against "double holdbacks." His beach volleyball tournaments are almost 50% kids who are held back. Like the queue, we can see it. It's right on the player’s profile. 15U but playing in the 14U division b/c “there’s an exception for older kids who are still in the eighth grade.
The justification is always the same: everyone else is doing it, so we did, too. Or if my kid is so close, why should I have to follow the rules?
Never mind, this is why we have rules in the first place.
Which leads me to….
If you have the courage to speak up about it, and we should, many will turn on you.
I spoke up about Kate.
Her boss needed to stand up for Matt. He didn't, and I got a lecture to mind my business.
I spoke up when my co-workers at StubHub were stealing from the company.
I openly and vocally lament holdbacks who take opportunities from other kids.
And I get crushed for it. Almost always by the cheaters.
When Lance Armstrong cheated, he ruined the lives of anyone who questioned it. Few of those whistleblowers got any redemption in the eyes of their peers. Everyone who questioned him was also called a sore loser.
They'll call us that, too.
And I am one. I hate losing. But losing to a cheat? There’s not much worse than that.
But
It's worth it.
At TicketManager, we have zero tolerance for cheating. And our staff loves it.
Have the courage to stand up for what's right and suffer the blowback for it.
"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" - Gal 6:9