The Unbearably High Price of Duplicity

It’s not often, but occasionally you stumble upon someone offering salespeople really bad advice. I mean dangerously bad advice. Any recommendations that would violate the building of trust, that would indicate that you lack integrity, or that would prove that you are dishonest is simply awful advice.

Blowing Up the Foundation

Listen; getting in is difficult. It’s never been easy, and it isn’t getting any easier. Your dream client’s time is too precious, and they can’t afford to waste it.

But there is no tactical approach worth taking if it means you have lost the ability to build your relationship on the foundation of trust, honesty, and integrity. Period! The last thing you ever want to do is blow up what should be the foundation of your relationship with your dream client.

When you read sales advice that suggests that you do anything contrary to building your relationship on the foundation of trust, ignore that advice and do what is right. This is true even when the tactical advice is a supposedly clever trick to get an appointment or to have a voice mail returned.

This includes leaving a voice mail message for your dream client that you need to speak with them, leaving only your name and not telling them who you are and why you are calling.

It also includes leaving messages where you share some information with your dream client and require them to call you to discover the rest of what you may or may not know.

These are trust-destroying tactics. If they have any place in your repertoire, abolish them now!

Not Tactical, Foundational

If you want your dream clients to take your call, be someone from whom they would want to take a call. Have all of the business acumen and situational knowledge that makes it clear that you can help, and make it known that you care enough to help. Nurture the relationship.

If you want your dream clients to return your calls, be someone who is worth calling back. Share ideas about how you can help, and make known what your dream client stands to gain by calling you back. Make it about them, and make it worth their while.

Who you are matters a great deal. Dishonest tactical approaches mean you are someone that cannot be trusted; it will make you someone who is to be avoided.

Don’t Do the Crime. You Can’t Pay the Time.

If you are duplicitous, if you stretch the truth, if you tell little white lies—even lies of omission—then you aren’t someone worth considering.

Once your dream client discovers that you were anything less than honest, the opportunity to have the relationship that you need is destroyed. Anything you say after it is discovered that you were less than honest is now suspect.

The price of dishonesty is unbearably high. You can’t afford to take dishonest tactics, even if they seem harmless, and even if the tactics proffered by some make for funny stories and anecdotes.

Questions

What message do you telegraph to your dream clients when you try dishonest tactical approaches?

How do you build your dream client relationship on the foundation of trust?

How valuable to winning your dream client opportunity is your ability to be trusted?

What destroys trust?

Can trust be regained? How?