You’re Not Suitable for Sales: Part 1
“You tell the customers the truth so you’re not suitable for sales.”
“Lying comes with the nature of the job.”
“Selling is lying.”
“If you tell customers the truth, they will walk away.”
These are some of the statements I’ve heard over the years. Most people believe that an integral part of sales is lying to customers or that you cannot sell without including some lies into your sales pitch.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, the main purpose of selling is to propagate the truth. As I’ve stated before, you sell to maintain a relationship with the customer. If you lie, you may make the sale, but you will lose the customer. Telling the customer, the truth about your product and service will help them make more informed decisions about their purchase. It will enable them to gain more value. It will allow you to gain their trust. And finally, it will not only result in a sale, it will result in repeat sales.
Imagine a very simple scenario. You go to a seller of fruit and you look at the choices, make your decision and decide to purchase some fruit. You pay for your purchases and get home. When you unpack the parcels you discover that some rotten fruit has made its way into your parcels. You could return to the vendor and have a fight about it. But more likely than not you will mark the vendor as someone you will not buy from in the future. The vendor made the sale, but they have lost a customer.
Where this is true for low involvement products, it holds truer for high involvement products. The more time, energy and costs involved in buying a product, the more you would like the sales person to be truthful to you. A low involvement product will probably be bought, consumed and forgotten. A high involvement product is likely to be in use for a longer time. And if the sales person is not truthful, the product will be a constant reminder to the customer not to buy from the sales person and the company they represent for a long time.
Being truthful to the customer allows you to maintain a good relationship with the customer. It allows your product and your service to stand out in their minds for superior quality and service. It allows for repeat sales. It allows for greater profits. It ensures that your product and you company will continue to grow.