

Ask HN: are soft lies in sales okay? - paraschopra
http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/are-soft-lies-in-sales-okay.htm

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tokenadult
Nothing busts my trust faster than lies. Indeed, the company mentioned as an
example (Microsoft) lost my trust by overpromising and underdelivering with
some releases of Windows back in the day.

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mixmax
I think this community is special in that regard. I feel the exact same way,
and I'm sure a lot of other people here do as well. But the thing is that it
works and it works well. Microsoft are doing incredibly well.

Apparently there are a lot of people out there who are easily convinced by
lies, or marketing as some might want to call it.

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sharpn
But I'd suggest that the disappointment people felt with MS products was at
least part of what spurred open office & ubuntu (for example) - and open
source software certainly threatens MS's revenue stream.

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mmelin
... 20+ years later. Personally I couldn't live with doing business
dishonestly, but you can't really say that it didn't work out well for
Microsoft.

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sharpn
I agree - the point I was making was about damage to the long term franchise,
which I guess an individual salesperson wouldn't care about.

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param
In enterprise software, there is another angle to this problem. If you know
that the deployment process is going to take 3 years, should you tell your
customers that there are features in your product that are right now sitting
on your immedidate roadmap? what about medium term roadmap? How do you
determine where the line is?

Also, if you know the base feature is there; but you know there are
customizations and configurations that will need to be done on top for the
deployment, do you say its there out of the box? or do you say it can be done?
(Note that nothing really works out of the box in the enterprise; and if you
keep saying 'can be done' to everything, you are going to lose the sale to a
guy who says out of the box.)

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akeefer
As a guy who works at an enterprise vendor that works very, very hard to never
lie in the sales cycle . . . in the long run, having a reputation as a vendor
that delivers on their promises is a huge asset. Most enterprise software
vendors have terrible reputations, and 100% customer referencability is an
asset that's much, much harder to copy (or fake) than your product is. Protect
it at all costs. That might cost you sales in the short run, and it means you
have to walk away from deals if the customer isn't a fit, but your reputation
is probably the single most valuable asset that you have in that space.

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mixmax
It depends entirely on what your goal is. If you want to create a billion
dollar company it's probably essential. If you want to sleep well at night
it's a mistake.

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staunch
This is a very cynical way to view the world. I reject it completely. Being
dishonest might benefit you in the short term, but building a reputation for
honesty is a huge long term advantage.

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mixmax
You're right, it is very cynical. Unfortunately it's also true. I have seen
people rise to fame and fortune, and very few of them have done so by building
a reputation for honesty. It appears to me that 80% of the people that "make
it" financially have done so by lying or cheating at some point in the game.
The remaining 20% have made it by having an impeccable reputation that they
build on. It's not the norm though. There seems to be differences in these
numbers depending on what industry you're in. Construction appears at one end
of the spectrum to be thoroughly corrupt, Software appears at the other end to
be very trust and reputation based. That said, I know people in the software
industry that have lied and gamed their way to their fortune. I don't
particularly like it, I just observe the world I live in, and not the world I
would like to live in.

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staunch
You can effectively live in the world you want, by choosing how you do
business and who you do business with.

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swombat
As I understand it, "Ask HN" posts are supposed to be local, not on another
site. But perhaps that was a white lie in your perspective?

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kirubakaran
_"Ask HN" posts are supposed to be local_

Why? What if you want to include a chart or a picture in your 'Ask HN' post?

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swombat
I guess it's a convention that comes with the fact that people (in many cases)
look more kindly on "Ask HN" types of posts and upvote them more generously
than external articles.

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kirubakaran
Looks like you taking your opinion and extrapolating it into "... the fact
that people ...", then implying that hence it is immoral ( _"But perhaps that
was a white lie"_ ) to ask a non-local 'Ask HN'! Or may be you are just being
witty. If anything, local 'Ask HN' is discouraged here by displaying it as
gray on gray text.

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swombat
You may well be right. I didn't mean to be offensive, nor did I mean to be
witty. It was just an observation.

~~~
kirubakaran
Oh okay. Sorry if that sounded argumentative. :-)

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anigbrowl
If you make a sale, you've committed yourself to making the lie come true (or
at least hiding it's lack of truth). Say goodbye to your development schedule
and/or your tech support budget.

Of course, hardcore sales people who don't mind lying will cheerfully say
'all's fair in love and war, and no battle plan survives first contact with
the enemy!'. Lots of business people love war metaphors because competition
justifies all sorts of things, and when someone asks whether customers are the
bombed out civilians in this scenario they can say 'it's only a metaphor,
don't take it so seriously!'.

If it's a question about your product, don't, although it's OK to say 'were
looking at it - and that's all I can tell you'. If it's a question about your
company the answer is don't, but nor should be afraid to assert your privacy.
If it's output rather than response to a question (eg a whiff of bullshit in
your sales literature, I'd say avoid anything more specific than 'our product
is the most awesome' that can't be justified.

~~~
anigbrowl
tl;dr it's ok to lie to competitors, but not to your customers.

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michael_nielsen
Run your question through the argument in "Be Good":
<http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html> Quite apart from your self-respect
(value: priceless), telling soft lies is not going to help you be good, and
there's a reasonable argument it may harm your company.

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sgibson12
I happened to write an article about this a few weeks back. My answer is a
concessional yes. But in my limited sales experience I don't do it myself.
Thus making me a poor salesperson. See excerpt:

"These tactics are part of all sales. To large degree, it’s accepted and
understood to be part of the game. It usually works out in the end since many
if not most companies provide valuable services to their customers. At times
customers just need a little encouragement to get over their hesitation to
commit to buying. For better or worse, these little lies and half truths keep
the economy churning."

<http://stephenegibson.com/2009/05/25/when-is-wrong-wrong/>

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nimrody
Depends on the definition of "soft".

Sometimes you have to be very optimistic (better term: aggressive) regard
product features and schedule. This will drive you further and faster towards
your goals.

You can't always make all deadlines and keep all promises. And in business (at
least in the technology business) nobody expects you to.

If, on the other hand, you make this into a habit -- you will loose trust and
customers will be looking elsewhere.

However, I do not necessarily agree with others regarding "long-term" loss of
trust. Companies exist to make money and when/if you have a good product that
will save them money, you will be able to regain that lost trust.

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spooneybarger
If you have to ask if its okay, it isn't for you.

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zackattack
I don't think that this sort of blanket statement is universal in the way that
your tone implies.

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spooneybarger
If you question the ethics of something, you have an ethical problem with it,
after that it is all justification of why you can allow yourself to do
something you find at the very least, morally ambiguous.

purely personal; there was no universal 'you' intended.

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edw519
Never. Trust lost is trust lost forever.

Reminds me of the parable of a man who sometimes stretched the truth in
business. He went to a guru for help with his "problem".

The guru's advice: "Take these 10 feather pillows, slash them open, and
release the feathers to the wind. Then come back tomorrow."

The next day the man returned for more advice, "Now go get the feathers."

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swombat
I don't get the story at all. Could you explain?

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edw519
The feathers are a metaphor for words you wish you never said. It's pretty
hard to take them back.

~~~
swombat
d'oh. Thanks.

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niyazpk
No. (fullstop)

