Sales managers don't often applaud salespeople for walking away from business. But Joan Hoppock of General Industrial Tool & Supply knew her salesman did the right thing when he told her he wouldn't be calling on a particular account any longer. The reason? The customer told the salesman that if he wanted his business, he had to supply him with tickets to basketball games.

That's not to say it's never appropriate to give gifts to a client. But a customer who demands kickbacks isn't the kind of person you want in a long-term business relationship.

Rather than continue to do business with someone who values personal gifts over quality products and services, the salesman quit calling on the customer. Since it wasn't a major customer, the decision was easy. But Hoppock believes her salesman would have done the same thing regardless of the size of the account.

"It's easy to have values when they're easy to follow," she says. "But they're not values until you can follow them even when it's hard to do so."

Most companies agree that the best approach to ethical dilemmas is to deal with

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