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Charles finally made partner and propped his feet on the desk in his new corner office. He was dreaming of all the perks that accompanied his promotion when a knock on the door snapped him out of his reverie. He picked up the phone so he would look busy as a young staffer came into
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Often, the hardest language to speak is the truth.Finally, the impact of truth on business success. “To be successful, almost every organization needs to sell – be it a product, a service, a story or a promise. But much of that selling is done without truthful disclosure of what it will take to fulfill the sale,” he maintains. “The wiser course in many cases is to limit the truth and figure out how to ‘deliver’ later.” While his first two points are recognizable to most of us, I find his third concern very troubling. As a lifelong salesman and businessman, I cringe to think that a sale based on partial truth would be OK in any forum. I certainly wouldn’t appreciate a supplier promising me a product without knowing exactly what I would be receiving, and I absolutely do not want a reputation that I didn’t deliver what I promised and then some. Customers find out quickly that promises made and kept are worth their weight in gold. A tarnished reputation is mighty difficult to polish. I constantly preach that trust is the most important word in business. Of course, the most important part of establishing trust is being truthful. If we are not upfront with our customers at MackayMitchell Envelope Co. as soon as a problem arises, we deserve to lose that customer. And I really, really hate to lose a customer. The good news is if we can find a way to fix a problem our customers appreciate our honesty and efforts to turn lemons into lemonade. But that happens only when we tell the truth. Abraham Lincoln once said of a man who was attacking him, “He’s the biggest liar in Washington.” Honest Abe said the man reminded him of an old fisherman who had the reputation for stretching the truth. The fisherman bought a pair of scales and insisted on weighing every fish he caught in the presence of witnesses. One day a doctor borrowed the fisherman’s scales to weigh a newborn baby. The baby weighed 47 pounds. Now that’s what I call a whopper! Mackay’s Moral: Even when the truth hurts, it’s more painful to hurt your reputation. n Harvey Mackay is the author of the New York Times best-seller “Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive.” He can be reached through his website, www.harveymackay.com.
