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                                                Lesson/Discussion 1- Broken Promises

Said Mark Twain …"a lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

Said Helen Rowland … "telling lies is a fault in a boy, an art in a lover, an accomplishment in a bachelor, and second-nature in a married man."

Said Samuel Butler … "the best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way."

Discussion 1- Broken Promises

So you are sitting at your desk one day, praying for the telephone to ring with a million dollar order and of all things to happen … the telephone rings.

Whether you’re working at a Sales Counter selling to the public, on the road, or if you’re working in a little cubical like a pet mouse in a maze, heck even if you have your own office, if you are functioning in “Sales” then you have a great deal of responsibility regarding the reputation of your company. It doesn’t matter where you sit.

Customers who telephone your company do so because they have a need. They are seeking a solution to a problem. At the most basic level, they are first placing their trust in you, and second placing their trust in your company. The product comes third. But you are the first point of contact. You make the impression.

The customer didn’t call you because they were bored, or to yuk it up because they were lonely, or to chat, or to find out the latest football scores, or the weather report, or the price of tea in China. They called with a genuine problem and a valid need. They telephoned you because they trust that you can help them. They have somehow heard of you and believe in you. They have possibly sought you out over others.

The problem will not seem a big one. It could be as insignificant as wanting to purchase the little rubber gasket which fits into the end of a garden hose. You’re laughing. I wouldn’t laugh too hard just yet.   Remember, he who laughs last, laughs the longest. And this story is a long ways from over.

Ok, so it’s not life threatening. It’s nothing. It’s inconsequential to life, it’s mundane, it’s small, it’s black or green rubber and it’s round. It’s boring and sells about ten for a dollar. Big deal.

Wrong. It’s no big deal to you.

It’s no big deal unless it’s YOU who are getting sprayed and soaked every morning when you try to water the garden, unless it is YOU who gets run through the car wash or thoroughly peed upon each time you turn on your garden hose. That teensy weensy rubber washer gains some serious importance. After a near drowning or two, or after going into cardiac arrest a few times from freezing cold water blasting up your blouse or up the crotch of your pants like a bandy Labrador retriever, that teeny tiny, inconsequential rubber washer has accrued some very prominent status on your list of things to do that day.

So when the person telephones a sales individual inquiring if these washers are available there to purchase, it is not, let me repeat, not a mundane thing. To that customer, that teeny bag of silly rubber washers could be extremely serious. It may be dumb and foolish to you but you aren’t the person at work walking around with a wet crotch or the one holding your purse at chest level because your pretty white blouse and bra just happens to be see-through when wet and you look like you are competing in a wet T-shirt contest. Gee, I wonder what the guys and gals are talking about hanging around the water cooler today?

Are you getting the picture of just how important that little washer is to that customer on this day? So, when you, the sales “expert”, flippantly assures the caller with “yes, we have them” without checking the inventory first, you have in fact just told a big, fat lie. Not a little white lie but a big, fat, ugly lie and I‘ll tell you why.

What you’ve accomplished with your deceit (it’s deceit whether you have the washers or not) is you have set the pattern for a very likely series of events having the potential to harm present and future business dealings with that customer. You’ve already categorized the customer as a domestic user, a walk-in customer, and you’ve put them at the bottom of your importance scale. That’s another mistake. If they were a domestic type customer they would have walked into a big box store or the local hardware store and picked them up.

You have ignored their need, their situation, their rights as a customer and your responsibility to him or her. You haven’t thought about anything or anyone ... but you. Had you allocated ten seconds of deliberation you would have realized that because it will be a cash sale at the end of the day, both you and the customer would be pressed for time. (she said she would pick them up on the way home)

That being the case and already having her credit card information, you would have conscientiously put a bag on the counter or your desk awaiting her arrival. But did you do that? Of course you didn’t! How could you? You don’t have any!

Now at four fifteen in the afternoon, you’ve stumbled upon the fact that there are no more washers in stock. This forced you to check to see if any were already on order and there are not. New orders take 3 days. What are you going to do when the customer learns that the washers are unavailable and never were, even though you said they were? You said they were here in stock but now you know they were not.   How do you pacify a customer after they have wasted their time and effort dealing with a lazy and deceitful Sales Rep? You had better be related to the boss or the owner, that’s all I can say. But because you are irresponsible, you shrug your shoulders and turn away. After all, they are only rubber washers selling for a dollar ….

The Consequences

Oh but it was such a teeny white lie. Don’t tell me you’re upset! C’mon give me a break!

Did you think about the possibility that the man or woman with the wet crotch or blouse and bra may be a Buyer or Purchasing agent for a large manufacturer who just happens to purchase a hundred or so thousand dollars of product from your company annually?   They could very well be. They don’t always advertise it when they call.

Maybe it’s the business down the block who only buy $500.00 a year.   Heck, it doesn’t matter if they only spend ten dollars. If they called you, chances are they have dealt with you previously. How much of any future business will be coming YOUR way ever again do you suppose? Let’s do a little experiment. If you think they’ll come back again after this, shake your head vigorously back and forth and listen for the rattle. You’ve heard it before, right? Entertaining on a slow day, but you already know that.

And what if that caller happens to be an existing customer or a customer’s wife with a quarter million dollar account? Do you suppose after learning of your little deception they will continue to be? Again follow the procedure in step one and listen for the rattle.

OK we’ll go back to the premise that the person is not a Buyer or Purchasing agent for any large firm. Are you off of the hook?

Statistically, any angry or dissatisfied customer will tell between 8 and 10 people about the problem they experienced with XYZ company or product. This is according to a US Government Information Library document on Best Practices and Benchmarking. govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/papers/benchmrk/bstprac

Approximately 80 % of these people will never complain to your Complaints Department, they will simply take their business elsewhere without a word. This is actually worse for the company than receiving a complaint. Companies need to know where their weakest links are. Hey buddy, great news! We found your category!

So of the 8-10 person told about your abysmal service, what do you suppose the chances are that out of those 8-10 listeners, they won’t tell another 8-10 people and so on and so on? And how many Buyers, businessmen and businesswomen might be in that mix? Don’t ever kid yourself. They will hear. Remember, professional Buyers are listening for this kind of stuff. They seek out reliable and reputable suppliers. They can't afford to do otherwise. Think risk.

Do you have any idea how fickle customers are? Well, how fickle are you? How many times do you return to a store or restaurant giving you bad service? Right. Just what I thought.

Making it Right

First of all, the easiest way to make it right; is not to lie in the first place. Turn your brain on first thing in the morning and leave it on. Actually you can have a bad day and not think properly. For instance you might have a migraine headache and wander around in a stupor all day. It can happen. So maybe if you start by turning your heart on first thing in the morning and leave THAT on all day, you will never be caught in a lie or a mess like this. You can always operate with half a brain. At least half the world does on any given day anyway. Remember, no matter your religion, your God HATES a liar but he doesn’t mind a dummy.    We all have our dumb days.

And yes, there is a right and a wrong way to make it right. Did I say that right?

This is the wrong way.

The most-used, knee jerk reaction (and this is very well named because you are definitely a jerk if you use it) is to immediately go into defensive mode and take defensive action.

Guilty people will leap small buildings attempting to defuse a lie and to deflect the blame from themselves onto someone else or some thing else.   That’s how it works … and here’s how it goes.

The irate customer is now standing at the sales counter looking for these washers which you told her were in stock. Her car is running because she’s in a hurry. So are you, you want to get home. The difference is, you are not running, you never run. It’s four thirty in the afternoon and traffic is getting worse by the second. The customer has to pick up her laundry at the dry cleaners, pick up her teen age daughter at a friend’s house, buy supper at the grocery store and be on time for a PTA meeting at seven thirty. Besides all of this, she has a ton of work to do at home for the office the next day.

The lady is irritated and she’s tired. She doesn’t have time for this. She also recognizes your voice from your conversation that morning. She’s been listening to you stammer and evade the issue for ten minutes. Now she wants to speak with the manager who is ten feet away on the telephone but within earshot.

So what do you do? Your options are as follows.

·You can lie and tell her that you are so sorry but someone came in and bought the last washer only an hour ago.

·You can lie and say you are sorry but there must have been a computer glitch this morning and there are none of the style she needs on hand now.

·You can lie and say you are sorry but the computer records must not have been updated this morning when you checked stock.

·You can lie and say that the computer showed 20 in the safety stock this morning but when you checked the bin after you hung up the phone there were none there.

·You can lie and say that you expected a delivery today but the washer truck didn’t show up yet but and you are expecting it at any time.

·You can lie and say that you were mistakenly looking at the wrong washer this morning.

·You can lie and you can say that she must have been speaking to the other Larry who works there.

·You can pretend not to remember.

You can dance around and prance around and tie yourself up into every sort of liars knot trying to get yourself out of this mess … but the bottom line is, that if you do not have the washers, you cannot satisfy the customer. In fact even if you did find a washer now, it would be too late for future sales. And by the way, her husband IS a Buyer for a large manufacturer in the city.

In all likelihood, you have just lost one very valuable customer. That customer will tell 8-10 people how angry she is. She will recite the ridiculous lie you chose to tell because you didn’t have the professionalism to either physically count the washers that morning or own up to your shortfall when confronted this afternoon. The company could then lose up to 8 more customers. Her husband (for one) will be influenced by his wife’s trauma. Don’t believe otherwise. Read my lips.   He won’t dare mention your company name in front of her again so maybe he will move on to the next supplier on the list. It's been nice knowing you.

My question is this.   “How many more customers did you “help” that day?”

Oh, and the other option? You could tell the TRUTH and do your job!

Summary.

On a business level:

·1 You have generated negative publicity to 1-8 customers or potential customers. (you’ll never know how many)

·2 You have driven away present and possible future sales.

·3 You have failed to carry out the duties expected of you and for which you are paid.

·4 You have tarnished the reputation of the department you work for.

·5 You have compromised corporate integrity.

·6 You have deviated from company policy and broken department procedures.

·7 You have negatively impacted company profits.

On a personal level:

·1 You have lied.

·2 By your actions you have embarrassed your colleagues, your manager and yourself.

·3 You have tarnished the company reputation

·4 You have compromised your own integrity .

·5 You have fallen short of company and department expectations.

·6 You have failed to own up to your lie and have compounded it by adding a second.

·7 Your protests and excuses indicate that your attitude is below standard and unacceptable.

·8 You have compromised or negated your own future pay raises or advancement opportunities for an undetermined period.

·9 You have added to the personal stress level of that customer.

Conclusion
There are never valid excuses for lying. There are never valid excuses for deliberately failing to do your job properly. There are never valid excuses for not considering your customers needs no matter how small. There are never any excuses for giving false or inaccurate information to anyone possessing the authority to ask.

You can beat around the bush all day but these are irrefutable truths.

Now here’s another truth that you may or may not have thought of but which some of you have already experienced in one way or another.

After leaving university, for whatever reason, you may end up on a Sales Counter or on a Sales Team in a Sales Office or in a Procurement Department or in an Accounting Department or in a warehouse or on a plant floor.   It happens. But wherever you find yourself, the principle won’t have changed. Truth remains truth in any department. It’s multi-dimensional. Truth is truth is truth. You can’t beat it and you can’t beat around it.

The person in the illustration who answered the telephone made fundamental mistakes which a mature person would never make. He didn’t realize the impact that one single seemingly innocent lie could make upon his day, the company reputation, lost customers, lost sales and personal reputation. He didn’t look at the impact on the customer either. He may or may be a compulsive liar but he lied very easily. Will he make a good manager? Now no, later, possibly. But not unless he changes radically.

Without even considering the impact on the company or the customer, he belted out a lie. He may have told the same lie a hundred times before and gotten away with it. After all, a rubber washer for a garden hose is purchased by the gross or by the thousand or by the pound. What are the chances of running out of washers that day, of all days?

Perhaps it was a “running lie” and it didn’t even seem wrong to tell it any more. Always before his backside had been covered. So why worry? Until today …that’s why. Today he was found out. Today his honesty and reputation was tarnished. Today his character and work ethic was put on display on the stadium game board for all to see.

This is not what company presidents are looking for when they are molding team managers.

We protect ourselves from a myriad of problem situations every day by remaining honest at all times. Never be ashamed of your true values. In the end they are all that matters. You’re the one who has to look in the mirror every day.

Another Viewpoint:

The best measure of a man (or woman's ) honesty hasn't anything to do with his or her income tax return. It's the zero adjustment on their bathroom scales ....

Questions and Answers

Question 1:
How do we know if a customer calls with a query if they are serious about the purchase or just price checking?

Answer:
You don’t. The key to any situation is having enough information with which you can make an intelligent decision. In the first place, you always assume the caller to be genuinely wanting to buy and you proceed on that assumption until they advise you differently or you deduce correctly. If they are hesitant to give out information that is a clue. You are better off to work on the assumption that the caller genuinely wants to buy.

The sales guy in the illustration, had everything including the credit card number. No excuse there. Before the customer was off the phone he should have had those washers in his grubby, little fist.

Question 2:
It can get pretty hectic at a Sales counter or on the phones. You don’t always have time to physically check the bin. Why can’t you rely on the computer to tell you what is in stock?

Answer.
There are ways of cross checking to see if the stock is actually in the bin before you tell a customer it is stock (without checking the bin). You can backtrack the orders and see how many arrived in the warehouse and when. You can review recent sales and balance what the computer says with what you have seen and heard happening around the warehouse since the stock arrived, you can run a part “history” and see if there are any in Receiving not yet entered into stock. You can perform many checks but they take time.

The computer is only as accurate as the people entering the information. Stock is sometimes transferred from one location to another physically but not electronically (or vise versa). Orders are entered then cancelled and not reversed. Material can be received and then rejected by Quality Control. Mistakes are made or information misunderstood in the electronic process.

The easiest and safest way is to physically check stock.

Question 3:
When do you not need to physically check the bin?

Answer
You don’t need to check the bin when the customer doesn’t need the material for a few weeks. As long as it is on order or there is a way to allocate those parts to the customer order, you don’t need a physical check. (until the day the order arrives)

If the customer is only price shopping, you don’t need a physical check.

If you happen to have been in the warehouse and seen the stock in question being received, you don’t need a physical check. Just make sure that the whole order hasn’t been allocated elsewhere. Small orders require more diligence.
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Whatever you do, tell the customer what you are doing so as they understand why you are saying what you say. Elicit the information out of them as to when they need the material and when they will pick it up and how they will pay for it. If it’s a cash sale double check the availability and process the order. Make sure that you have a contact telephone number to call them if there arises a problem of any sort.

No matter where you work in a company or corporation, first and foremost we must establish a reputation for being truthful and accurate. Managers need and seek out people whom they can trust in things both big and small.

Telling customers the truth will safeguard you. Build that reputation because one day the customer will lie to you or your manager and that's when your reputation will protect you. They may just see it differently than you but the trouble will be yours unless you are known to be honest and diligent at our job.

Circumstances and Perspective

So, what about truth? Is it relevant in business? Is it relevant today in this so called modern age? Isn’t it ironic how every age called themselves the “modern age”? Can’t you just hear a Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic) man talking to his buddy about how pathetically backwards Paleolithic men were?

OK, so tell me … is it possible to prosper in business these days by telling the truth? Do your company policies and procedures advocate telling the truth? Of course they do! So do it!

Truth must come first. Everything else follows truth. In fact, if your motives are anything but truthful, you are doomed to failure. It may take a while to catch up but it will. Grow up now and save yourself a lot of grief.

So what if you’ve been caught in the web of the lazy man’s lie? What if you have slipped up like Lackluster Larry in our example? You shouldn’t have messed up, but what if you did? What have you just done?

Anyone can falter. Anyone can slip up and in a busy environment and agree absent mindedly to something without thinking or without verifying something as absolutely true. Don’t beat yourself up too badly for an honest mistake. Honest mistakes are easily rectified by owning up to them. There isn’t any shame in honest mistakes. There is great shame however in covering up a mistake, honest or otherwise. Even if you fool the customer and your manager, did you fool yourself? How do you feel inside? Was it worth it?

From a business perspective, from an economic perspective, from a logical perspective, from a personal perspective, lies are bad business.

Better yourself today by elevating truth to it’s proper status in your life, as your new business manager.

Resolution
One way to resolve any conflict situation is by attempting to look at the issue through the eyes of your opponent. In this case the opponents are the other persons within scope of your damage. Your own personal war zone. The casualties you are responsible for.

It’s not an easy trick because we tend to be biased towards justifying our own cause … but at least we gain a partial perspective of what another person is thinking or dealing with.

For instance; Larry the Liar needs to give some serious thought to either peeing or getting off the pot. Either he wants to work there or not.   Professionals don’t deliberately lie for ANY reason.    If it’s a compulsive problem then address it Larry! Get some medical help some psychiatric assistance. Go to your manager or a friend. You cannot continue this way.   Don’t ruin yourself and your company along with you.

If it was just a slip, a mistake, a one time lapse in judgment, a moment of weakness or a touch of oops a daisy, then fix it Larry. Own up to the error and make recompense. That means to the customer you let down, to your team, to your manager, everyone involved.

Mrs. Doubtfire - no doubt you would dearly love to have Larry the Lump fired for wasting your time and then lying his face off. Believe me there would be a certain satisfaction in seeing the Larry the Blob on the unemployment line but what is that going to solve? How long will that prideful joy last? If Larry is going to stay Larry the Liar, then he will be caught up and disposed of soon enough. Why not let justice run it’s course? You don’t have to shop there anymore.

The Manager- What kind of a worker is Larry? Is he really Larry the Loser? Or is this just a case of Larry losing control of good business practice? Is this the Larry you know?

And what if the customer Doubtfire is suffering from a case of King Herod complex and insists upon Larry’s head served on a platter with an apple in his mouth? What then?

No matter what, Larry needs a dressing down. (not to be confused with being served with a “dressing”). Push your feelings aside. Push your indignation aside. Push your “customer is always right” philosophy aside and rise to a higher plane than to acquiesce to the customer demands like a trembling pawn. You are still in command and you must be fair both to the customer and to Lackluster Larry.

Does this mean that Larry shouldn’t’ be sacked if he deserves it? No. But he shouldn’t be sacked if he doesn’t deserve it either.    Has Larry been on probation? Does he deserve to go on probation? As a Manager do you know Larry at all besides his name and hair color? sales people come and go quite frequently these days, so many managers won't take a personal interest in their workers.

They should. Don’t become one of the staff, just know something about them. That way you are well prepared when something like this comes along.

We’ll say this a lot. Look at the bigger picture.

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Discussions - Questions and Answers