Stop Lying! It kills deals.

Have you ever said something and thought, “Duh, I’m pretty sure they already knew what I just told them.” Well I’m going to tell you something you already know. Don’t lie to your prospects. I know you want the deal. Yes, you’ve been chasing it for some time. I understand that this deal would be an amazing win for you and your company. But don’t lie to the prospect! Even what you may feel is an innocuous lie will come back to haunt you. And possibly kill the deal.  Consider this, for the most part we live in an age of transparency, frictionless information flow and connectedness. What does this mean? It means that whatever you’re telling your prospect, she can easily confirm whether it’s true or not by searching the web, requesting info from your customers by submitting a FOIA, or simply calling/emailing someone that is connected to you or has worked with you in the past. We’re all 1-2 degrees away from the ability to validate what we’re told by someone trying to sell us something.  And why is this important? Because if you’re caught lying you will have broken trust with you prospect. And our economy runs on trust. It’s not even about this one deal that you’re chasing. You will have forfeited future deals with this prospect. So, stop lying. It kills deals.

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