By Kristin Zhivago on Mar 5, 2006
A perfect example of the buyer being "fed a story" by a vendor.
I recently interviewed a network security manager while doing customer research for a client. His name is Alan. He works in the IT department of a large UK company. His story is similar to those I hear from countless others around the world who describe their buying process to me.
Alan's story shows quite clearly how vendors lose sales because they deceive their clients.
"I went to a seminar that included product pitches," Alan told me. "One sales guy made a presentation about his product, an appliance that lets people access the corporate network remotely."
The product was an SSL VPN appliance. SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer, the standard used for encrypting information sent out over the Internet. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, a private connection to a network. If an IT manager plugs one of these SSL VPN boxes into his corporate network, people using their PCs to access the network remotely can do so via a secure and private connection.
"As this sales guy was presenting," Alan said, "he kept saying, 'this appliance is completely clientless.'" In other words, the sales guy was telling the IT audience that you could install the appliance on your network and then people could access the network through this device, without having to load anything special on their PCs.
In a typical "client/server" network, remote PCs are the "clients" which access a server. In this case, the client PCs would be accessing the server through the virtual private network appliance. And, as any good IT manager knows, in order for a client PC to access a device of some kind, the PC has to contain some software that interacts with the device being accessed.
That client software has to be installed on the PC and maintained/updated by the IT manager. This just makes more work for the IT manager, which is why the vendor of this device was so determined to state that his product didn't require any software on the client PC.
Too bad it was a lie.
Alan said that everyone in the room knew it was a lie, as soon as the guy said it. As the salesperson kept talking, everyone was looking at each other and rolling their eyes. Someone finally interrupted the sales guy and shouted out a question.
"How can this be a clientless application? If there isn't any software on the client PC, how does the PC access the network, and how can the network recognize the person's PC when they log on?"
The sales guy responded, "When the user logs onto the appliance for the first time, a little piece of Java code is sent to the PC."
Gotcha!
The questioner in the audience shot back: "So what you're saying is there will, in fact, be software on the PC! That there is software on the client. That means this is not a 'clientless' device!'" Everyone nodded and harrumphed in agreement.
"Even when he was confronted with the truth, the sales guy refused to admit it," Alan told me. "He was adamant. He kept insisting that his product was 'clientless,' because that little piece of code didn't require a 'formal license' that you had to pay for or install separately."
Needless to say, no one in that room will ever buy anything from that vendor, and not just because the sales guy was lying through his teeth. There was a bigger issue involved.
What you don't know will hurt you.
We all know about computer viruses. They succeed by exploiting vulnerabilities in networks and the devices connected to those networks. Let's say you were the IT manager who installed this SSL VPN device in your network. As the sales guy said, whenever someone logged onto that device for the first time, the device would automatically load that little bit of Java code onto the person's PC.
Of course, that's exactly what many viruses do. They load a little bit of code onto the PCs of unsuspecting users, with the intent of sabotaging the PC or using the PC for nefarious purposes. The network security manager who allowed that little bit of Java code to travel through the lying vendor's "security" appliance and out to individual PCs would also be creating a pathway by which a virus could propagate. Yes, you could argue that the chances of this happening might be remote, but if something did go wrong, you wouldn't want to be the IT manager who bought and installed a device that introduced a vulnerability into the network.
After he told me his story, Alan wondered "how companies can be so arrogant, and think that they won't be called on the carpet for this kind of gross misrepresentation." In my experience, the arrogance comes from their belief that the customer is stupid.
In fact, customers - especially business-to-business customers - are incredibly experienced buyers. They don't have to take any vendor's word for anything anymore. They have access to other vendors' counter claims. They can post their questions on discussion groups and get relevant, helpful, immediate answers. They can buy and download buyers' guides in seconds.
Buyers have learned, through their own bitter experience, which questions need to be asked. They have also learned how to pick up on even the tiniest clues during the buying process. They think, "Ah, that's what's really going on," when the sales guy makes an offhand comment. And they pay close attention when one of their questions causes the sales guy to squirm slightly just before he launches into his well-rehearsed answer.
I call this squirm-inducer the Terrible Question.
The buyer's friend, the salesperson's nemesis: The Terrible Question
Salespeople who are not telling the whole truth live in daily fear of the Terrible Question (or Questions, if the product is seriously flawed). They hope against hope that no one will ask it.
Back in the days before Google and discussion threads, a salesperson could get through a whole day or even a whole week without being asked the Terrible Question. Not anymore. Now even the most clueless buyer can see the seller's dirty underwear in seconds, simply by typing [seller's product type] and the word "problem" into Google.
There are no ignorant buyers. Salespeople who bank on buyer ignorance will not make their quota.
When the Terrible Question is asked, the sales guy often does what the SSL VPN sales guy did. He will try to minimize the buyer's concern. You can see this "technique" in action when you try to say "NO" to a telemarketer, who has been taught to pretend to empathize with your concern, then proceed to tell you that your concerns are unfounded.
"Well, Mrs. 'Cheerago,' I can understand why you would be concerned, but honestly, all I'm proposing to do is…" Sales training "gurus" spend hours teaching salespeople how to minimize the buyer's concern. This is manipulation, pure and simple, and it does backfire.
What buyers want - and what they will gladly accept - is the truth. How refreshing would it be if the SSL VPN sales guy had just told the truth about that little bit of Java code, and also had a solution to the network security problem.
"We could have set up the device so it automatically downloaded a little bit of code to the client PC the first time the client PC logged onto the device," the sales guy would say. "That would have been more convenient for you in terms of network administration. But it would also have created a possible vulnerability in your network that someone could exploit. So instead, users who want to access the device for the first time will go to a website we've set up for you. The user will type in a security code you provide. The website will send a command to the device, which will then send the little bit of Java code and an installation wizard to the user's email. You will also get an email saying that has just happened. It will then take about 15 seconds for the user to install the code. Then they're ready to start communicating with the device."
If the sales guy had said this, the IT folks in the seminar would have nodded, and decided that the vendor was taking a prudent approach to the problem, while still providing the benefit of an "almost automatic" installation process. The sales guy would end up making friends instead of enemies. The marketer for the SSL VPN company could use an honest and comforting theme: "Automated installation, uncompromising security."
But the salesperson didn't say this. Instead, he lied.
Why do salespeople lie?
Here are some of the most common reasons why salespeople lie.
Developers make false assumptions because they have failed to do the appropriate pre-development customer research. When the product comes out, there are problems - problems that the customer notices right away. The customer starts asking Terrible Questions.
The sales guy out there in the field has to sell what he has, even if it has glaring problems. He will keep trying and trying, because that's what salespeople get paid to do. If he keeps encountering the same sales barrier, he will go back to his boss and say, "They aren't buying because of this glaring problem." The boss will usually reply: "Sell as many as you can anyway. If you sell enough, we'll be able to afford to fix the glaring problem."
The sales guy goes back out into the market, looking for stupid customers and lying when a customer asks the Terrible Question.
As I mentioned before, the big deal is this: If the IT department people bought that program and that program compromised the company's network, the IT department people would be fired. Fear of being fired is the main motivator behind all IT decisions now. I hear that from every single IT person I interview.
When you sit down to eat, the hamburger you expected and the hamburger you actually end up eating will be very similar. Sure, the bun will be a bit soggier than you would like, and the meat may have more gristle. But the secret sauce and the pickles and the bacon and cheese will be just as you imagined, and satisfying enough for you to overlook the other relatively small disappointments.
In other words, before going into any McDonald's restaurant, your brain knows exactly how the hamburger is going to taste and how you'll feel afterwards. That's the power of a well-known brand.
I was at the Baltimore airport recently, in a new terminal that has several eating establishments in a row. Most of the counters had only one or two people standing in line. But people were lined up ten deep at the McDonald's counter.
Your brand is the promise you keep. Anyone who has been to any McDonald's once has experienced the promise being kept, and can rightfully expect the same promise to be kept at any McDonald's anywhere in the world. The customer trusts McDonald's to deliver a specific experience, and is not disappointed.
Contrast this with the typical software sale. Better yet, imagine if McDonald's sold hamburgers in the same way that software vendors sell their software.
The menu board would either contain too-generic descriptions ("satisfying lunch"), or too-specific descriptions ("Meat, sauce, bread, pickles").
You'd have to ask the counter person questions. "Does the 'satisfying lunch' menu include hamburgers?" Or, "Does 'fresh ground meat, secret sauce, sesame seed bun, and pickles' really just mean hamburger - in other words, you will grill the meat, you will put secret sauce and pickles on the bun, and you will put the burger in the bun with the sauce and pickles?"
Software vendors seldom call a burger a burger. Instead, they talk about "benefits" that could be applied to any similar product ("satisfying lunch") or "features" - which are really just ingredients in the food world ("fresh ground meat," "secret sauce," etc.). No wonder they're having problems selling.
If burgers were sold and delivered like software, when your burger was prepared and ready for you, the counter person would just hand the burger to you. You would be expected to find a wrapper for it, so the secret sauce didn't ruin your clothes. As you started to eat, you'd realize that there were no pickles on your hamburger. You would have to go back to the counter and wait in line while your burger got cold. "I thought this burger was going to have pickles," you'd say. "Can I have some pickles?"
The counter person wouldn't say anything. She'd either suddenly disappear into the back room, or pretend she didn't hear you.
If you insisted that she acknowledge you, she'd loudly insist that there were, in fact, pickles in your burger - in spite of the evidence to the contrary ("This is a 'clientless' device!"). Or, she'd say, "We ran out of pickles two hours ago. We have no more pickles." This is how software companies tend to treat their customers as soon as the contract is signed.
If you had to return to that software burger joint some other day, because it was the only place open, you would expect the experience to be unpleasant.
"It's probably going to be difficult to order and get what we want," you'd say to your spouse. "And we'll have to remember to bring our own napkins, so we can eat without ruining our clothes."
When you went into the joint, you'd be careful how you ordered. You would ask specific questions. "You do have pickles today, right? Any other ingredients missing? Will there be meat in my burger?" When you got the burger, you'd double-check to make sure everything was there.
The entire experience would be dominated by mistrust. You wouldn't believe anything the person told you. You would view the information on the menu board with suspicion. You would expect the experience to be unpleasant; in fact, you'd assume that the person selling you the burger was just waiting to play you for a fool. You would also assume that if you didn't keep an eye on the person behind the counter, you would be disappointed or even harmed in some way.
Contrast this with the real-life McDonald's experience, where your trust is rewarded from the beginning of the experience to the end. You imagine it, you experience it, you appreciate it. You are served efficiently and with respect. You walk away thinking you will be happy to go through that experience again in the future.
Training salespeople to tell the truth.
No product is perfect. All products have their strengths and weaknesses. Buyers know this. Salespeople try to pretend that the product is perfect, when buyers know perfectly well that it is not. As customers make their buying decisions, they weigh the imperfections against the attributes that are important to them.
Salespeople don't have to lie to sell. They simply have to understand how their customers weigh the tradeoffs, and then help their customers make the best decision. Yes, this means that sometimes they will have to walk away from a sale, when it becomes obvious that their product is not the best solution for the customer. But as they do so, they'll be creating an invaluable reference. That customer will go out of his or her way to work with that trustworthy salesperson in the future, and to refer others to that salesperson. Over the course of a salesperson's career, if the salesperson always tells the truth, he can build a literal army of people who will look for opportunities to send business to him.
Here are the steps you need to take to increase your sales:
1. You must teach your salespeople how the customer makes buying decisions. It doesn't matter why you developed your product in the first place; as valid as your decisions might have been, customers always have other issues they consider more important. When I first start working with a client, I ask the managers to tell me what they think their customers want and what is important to them. Then I interview their customers. I always get a different story from the customers. The customer's story reveals tradeoffs, additional buying process participants, and critical issues that my client had either overlooked or dismissed as irrelevant.
If the salesperson is operating without respecting the customer's reality, the salesperson will fail.
2. You must teach your salespeople how to listen. Why? Because salespeople don't listen well. Most salespeople get into sales because they love to talk.
A recent Dilbert cartoon showed Alice explaining to a co-worker (in front of the pointy-haired boss, who was staring off into space as Alice was talking) that the pointy-haired boss only listens when he's talking. This is true of most salespeople.
Salespeople must be trained to listen while the customer is talking, and to hear what the customer is really saying. They must also be trained to observe the non-verbal signals that the customer is sending, because customers never tell the whole truth during the buying process. If the salesperson can observe the non-verbal clues the customer is sending, he can stop his pitch mid-sentence and say, "You look a little doubtful. Should we stop here and discuss this for a minute? Do you have a concern you want to talk about?" Nine times out of ten, the customer will think, "Wow - this guy is actually paying attention to my needs. Maybe this will work out all right after all." The customer will then admit that he does, in fact, have a problem, and will describe his concern to the sales guy. The sales guy will then be able to address that problem and work on the solution with the customer.
Here's what's really interesting about this approach. Customers will out of their way to give their business to a salesperson who does this - even if the product isn't the best product for the customer's needs - because they appreciate how the salesperson treated them. As I mentioned earlier, buyers always try to reward trustworthy salespeople with more business or referrals.
3. You must teach your salespeople to investigate before pitching. The best salespeople don't start talking until they have listened to everything the customer has to say. Then, as they make their pitch, they cover the issues that the customer wants them to cover. They omit the issues that aren't a big deal in the customer's mind. They make references to comments that the customer made while the customer was explaining his situation, his requirements, and his concerns. This builds trust. The customer will start to relax and realize that he is not going to regret buying from this salesperson.
4. You must convince your salespeople that you want them to tell the truth. It's not so much that salespeople are inherently dishonest (although they tend to be fast-talkers who grow up thinking they can talk their way out of anything). It's that they believe their bosses expect them to make the sale, no matter what. It is therefore the responsibility of their bosses to set the record straight. You simply can't send your salespeople out into the marketplace armed with deceptive claims such as "this is a clientless device."
Successful sales start with informed and honorable managers.
In your role as the head of the company, you need to be aware of how your customers make their buying decisions. You need to interview them, yourself. You need to find out what their tradeoffs are, and the situations where your product is either appropriate or inappropriate. You will then be able to direct your salespeople to the best opportunities, where your product is a good fit. You will also be able to help them identify situations where the product simply won't work, and tell them they will never get in trouble for walking away from an inappropriate sale. You must then keep this promise. And, of course, you must continually work on improving your product so it does a better job of meeting customer needs.
Every time your salesperson walks away from an inappropriate opportunity, three things will happen. The salesperson won't waste a single minute of his busy day trying to make a bad sale. The customer will remember that the salesperson was honest and helpful, and will be happy to refer others to you when they ask, "Do you know anyone who makes a good [your type of product]?" And all the sales you make will lead to more sales, because you will only be selling to the people who will be happy with your product.
This is how honesty increases your revenues.
As you well know, you are now doing business in a world where it's easier than ever to start a business, where you compete with people all over the world, where unique products become commodities overnight, and where buyers have access to all your dirty laundry. This is your current operating environment.
In order to succeed in this environment, your product has to meet real customer needs, and your salespeople have to be honest about your product's capabilities. If you're competing with four other companies for a customer's business, and your salesperson is the one who listened and responded courteously and truthfully, the customer will go out of his way to make sure his money ends up in your pocket. And your salespeople will be able tell their kids they do honorable work.
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A personal note: Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. My husband and I have been engaged in a battle against cancer. He was diagnosed with "head and neck cancer, unknown primary," shortly after Thanksgiving of 2005, and started treatment in January - 30 radiation treatments and 5 chemo treatments. It's been rough. Radiation to the neck area makes eating and swallowing virtually impossible. Thankfully, his prognosis is good. The lymph gland containing cancer cells, which had suddenly swollen to the size of a small cell phone, appears to be completely normal now. When Philip feels well enough to edit again, we'll get another "blessay" up on the site.
I never have been a daily blogger; I'm too busy doing client work, and I don't post until I have a "complete solution" edited and ready to share. Feel free to subscribe if you want to be alerted when I post something new. Your email address will be stored securely, and will never be used for any other purpose.
Thanks, and I wish you all good health.
- kz
By Kristin Zhivago on Aug 18, 2006
As I write my second book, in one chapter I'm describing how people think when they buy Light Scrutiny products (one of the four categories of products and services, characterized by the amount of scrutiny the buyer applies to the purchase). I'm listing the three questions people ask themselves when buying a Light Scrutiny product:
- Do I want this?
- Can I afford it?
- Is there any reason I shouldn't buy this?
I note in the book how the answer to the last question is usually related to self-discipline:
If I buy that bag of chips, I'm not going to lose any weight today.
If I take that trashy magazine home and read it, I probably won't get around to the more important things I need to do today.
If the buyer exercises her self-discipline, she won't buy that bag of chips or that trashy magazine. The company that sells chips will make one less sale. The publisher who crams his magazine with gossip about celebrities will sell one less magazine. And the buyer will go home, sticking to her diet resolutions and getting her projects finished.
The buyer wins, the seller loses.
One question that keeps popping into my mind as I work on this chapter is the struggle that all ethical marketers wrestle with: Is marketing evil? Is it wrong to sell potato chips and celebrity gossip - things that people only buy when their self-discipline fails them?
I wouldn't do it myself. But, this is a personal choice. I never have sold anything that didn't help someone in some way. I left the trashy products to others. I can't speak for anyone else.
What's been rewarding about my marketing and selling career is that there are plenty of products and services out there that really do help people. I'd even go so far as to say that the majority of products and services sold are beneficial to their buyers. One of my clients sells villa vacations in the Caribbean and Europe. I've interviewed the people who rent those villas, for $3000 a week and up, and have found most of them are self-made business people who are looking for a way to get away with the family and enjoy privacy in a beautiful setting. This is good. It's good for the person who rents the villa, for the person's family, for the villa owner and managers, and for the people who live and work in the community where the villa is located.
I've worked with thousands of entrepreneurs. Every single one got into their business because they believed they could solve a problem. In their own way, they are making the world a better place. If they are successful promoting that product or service, they contribute to the health and well-being of fellow human beings.
It's important to note that in a market-driven society, no one is being forced to buy a particular product or service (except for those purchases required by government regulation). The consumer holds all the power in the buying/selling relationship.
This is why I continue to feel good about marketing, and why I don't think that marketing is inherently evil.
I can't say the same for certain products, though.
By Kristin Zhivago on Feb 23, 2007
Marketing is a force. Like any other force, it can be used for good or ill. There are many people who say that marketing itself is evil. Not so.
Marketing is only evil when the power of marketing is used to misrepresent or hide the truth.
I supposed I could stop here, because that really is the essence of it. But I'll go a little further to and provide an example.
Let's say you're selling a pretty decent stereo headset, online, and that your headset has a 1/4" (6.3mm) plug - the kind they call a "phone plug," because it used to be used for those antique telephone switchboards, where there were ladies sitting in a row, connecting one party with another party by plugging plugs into jacks (holes). These "phone plug" connectors are too large to plug into today's circuit boards, so most headsets now use a 1/8" (3.5mm) or "mini-phone" plug. Your 1/4" plug is behind the times, and you know it.
Your headsets are also ergonomically designed and very comfortable. This is a product advantage.
There are a number of ways you could present the product. We'll start with the most dishonest - the darkest - and progress to the most honest.
Most companies operate at the #5 level, which means that you have plenty of opportunities to be more helpful - and make more sales - than your competitors. By simply adding helpful content, you can establish yourself as an honest vendor. When your customer buys those headphones and can plug them in and use them right out of the box - because you were up front about the connector - your company will end up on their "trusted vendor" list.
Next time they need something similar, or a friend asks for a recommendation, you will get the business.
By Kristin Zhivago on Mar 21, 2008
You manage others. What do they depend on you for - more than anything else?
The truth.
You sell a product or a service. What do your customers depend on you for, more than anything else?
Yep. The truth.
Nothing is more valued in the business world, nothing matters as much, as the truth.
Employees eat it up when it's given to them, and, when it isn't, conspire amongst themselves to find out what it is.
Customers demand it, and stomp out (warning others to stay away), if they don't get it.
Those you report to - other managers, a board of directors, investors - expect the truth from you. If you deliver something else, they will find out sooner or later, and they will never trust you again.
Truth and the supply chain.
Business owners and managers, whose products are often made from components that come from other companies, demand the truth from their vendors. These practitioners have to orchestrate a very complex sequence of activities performed by a lot of people in multiple organizations. The practitioner needs to be able to depend on each person and each company to do their part.
The practitioner places a high value on people and companies he can trust - people who will do and deliver what they say, and will not BS him.
The practitioner doesn't want to hire a project manager who will make up delivery dates, based on what he thinks the practitioner wants to hear: "Hey, no problem, we'll have those parts done by May 1."
All the planning downstream from that event depends on that date. If the project manager is just making up the date, disaster will follow.
What the practitioner needs is someone who says, "I might be able to get it out by May 1, but realistically it's more like May 15, and if things go down the tubes, it will be even worse - it could be June 1. So use those dates for your planning."
If there is a problem, practitioners expect the vendor to own up to it and work with them to solve it, rather than slyly shipping them a defective product. One hidden defect can create a disaster for the receiving company, which either catches the problem before incorporating the item into the product (in which case, all the downstream delivery dates will be missed), or doesn't catch the problem and incorporates the flawed part into the finished product. That one decision could then result in injuries, lawsuits, and ruin - due to loss of reputation. All because someone decided to do something that they knew wasn't honest.
We all know why people are dishonest. They figure they can get away with it. They tell themselves it won't matter, because "everybody does it." They decide it's not their problem. They think they will lose money, time, or reputation (ha!) if they own up to the truth. They don't want to look stupid. They want to look smart. There are dozens of reasons why people lie, and only one reason why they don't: Because they have made a personal decision to always tell the truth, no matter how painful.
The truth is, truth drives trust. Trust drives revenue.
This simple truth - the relationship between truth, trust, and revenue - is missing from most business books and articles. I think that's because the reporter or professor had a couple of jobs once, hasn't had personal experience as an orchestrator of complex activities, or hasn't suffered through a disaster due to a deception. It is not a part of their world. They are critics, commentators, and bystanders.
The truth is especially missing from the "get rich quick" books, because these authors want you to think you can get rich quick if you buy their book, so they can get rich quick.
The reality is that it takes time to build trust, and it takes even more time for lots of people to trust you. Those "they were telling the truth" experiences - and the subsequent referrals - happen over time.
I recently interviewed a candidate for a client, a very creative and dedicated young man. At one point in the conversation, when we were discussing compensation incentive based on profits, he said, "Well, profit is relative, right?" - implying that all business people basically lie about their profits, to avoid paying taxes.
Well, I set him straight. Most business owners I know don't play games. They buy things and sell things, and report those activities to the government truthfully. As I said to the candidate, being honest is a choice. It's something you decide to do, and then you do it.
Truth in management.
All day long, employees turn to you for answers to questions. They want to know what's happening with the business. They want to know what's driving you, what you care about, what you will be happy about, what will make you cross, what you want them to do, and what you don't want them to do. They want to know how to solve certain problems. They want to know what you've decided to do - regarding company strategy, product strategy, systems, business infrastructure, policies, and processes.
They don't want mushy, rah-rah management talk. They don't want to be treated like 5-year-olds, whose parents say, "Johnny, this doesn't concern you. Go to bed." They want the truth. If you're having a problem trying to decide what to do, tell them. If you need more data before you can decide, tell them. If you're working on it, but it's not done yet, tell them.
If they come to you with a problem, before you can begin to solve it, you have to get the truth from them. Their version of the truth will only be as reliable as their commitment to being truthful with themselves and with others. A person who lies to herself about what she's doing and what others are doing, will not be telling you the truth. You'll have to get the facts from some other source, confront her with the truth, then solve the problem.
The company leader who neglects his duty to tell employees the truth is going to end up with a mess on his hands. In the absence of truth from above, the employees will substitute their own narrative, which is always wrong - because they don't have all the facts. They make up a narrative because they need something to cling to, some way of perceiving reality, that guides their behavior, decisions, performance, and morale.
If the company's leader doesn't tell them the truth, they will assume that the company leader doesn't care about them and respect them enough to be frank with them, or is hiding something really bad. So their version of the truth takes on a dark, depressing cast, like children at an orphanage run by an evil director.
On the other hand, if they are regularly told the truth, even if it is not a pleasant truth, they will still be loyal and productive. They will find a way to help solve the problems. They will feel as if they are part of the team, the team that knows what has to be done and is acting on it. This is the secret ingredient at the most successful companies.
Truth in marketing.
As buyers, we want to be told the truth. We want to know - what are the strengths of this item, and what are its weaknesses? What are the tradeoffs? Of course, marketing copywriters focus exclusively on the positive aspects of an item, and simply leave out the negative aspects. This is why so many buyers have come to depend on customer reviews. Real buyers, who have had real experiences with the item, share those experiences with others. After reading through several of those reviews, the buyer feels she can make a better decision. The other buyers discuss the pros and cons in a way that informs her. Even if the buyers talk negatively about an aspect of the item, she may decide that aspect doesn't matter very much to her, and she will buy the product anyway, for its other qualities.
It is possible to be positive and truthful at the same time. Jeff Bezos, in a recent letter on the home page of Amazon, manages to pull this off in his inimitable style.
(Click on the image to enlarge - clicking it again makes it more readable, for some reason...)
The first phrase in this letter makes you think he's going to say, "We had high hopes for Kindle before its launch, but we [have been disappointed, have decided it's too early for this product, etc.]." Instead, Jeff says they didn't expect the demand. This is a truthful admission of a mistake in planning. He then makes another confession: They've been "scrambling to increase our manufacturing capacity ever since." The rest of this letter continues on in a straightforward, truthful way to tell customers exactly where they are in the Kindle launch, and what customers can expect if they order one. And, there's a nice touch: a Kindle cake that someone made.
So refreshing.
When times get tough, people get desperate. Truth becomes even harder to find. If you are the business leader who always faces, then communicates, the truth, you are making big deposits in your Trust bank...which will pay off for you in the form of employee and customer loyalty.
Nothing pays like the truth.
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For a little about truth in marketing, and a great example of untruthful, but sophisticated communication, here's a clip from the "comic duo you can bank on," Clarke and Dawe. I especially love the part where he describes how junk loans are made appealing to buyers.
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