Behind the Sales Curtain
The Powerful Difference between Honesty and Transparency
My reps would sometimes run promotions that are inside sales only, meaning they cannot be purchased online. They’re often discounted offers, hence why we don’t want them publicized and sometimes they are only targeted to certain segments of clients. They can sometimes be “flash sales,” meaning we run them for a very short amount of time.
It’s always a red flag to me when a rep puts a client on hold and asks “how long are we doing this promotion for?” That tells me they’re allowing the buyer to hold all the power, rather than leveraging the urgency that the entire promo is built around. My advice is to simply tell the buyer the truth, as in “It’s a short term sale only; we simply sell them until we run out. I could come in tomorrow and it’s out of the system. Plus the early buyers are the ones that will get the best seats.”
Some sales reps get caught up in feeling the need to be completely honest and transparent in every discussion with every client. You should be honest, because this helps your conviction come through, but you don’t need to be transparent. The inner workings of the deal is your business, that’s your magic formula and you should use it to bolster the value of the offer so the client realizes how valuable it really is.
This is honesty at work:
“If it were my money, I would take the seats on the main floor. Even though it’s less money than the balcony, I’ve sat there before and it’s just a better vantage point for this type of act. If you want to grab those now, I’ve got a promo today I can apply.”
This is unnecessary transparency:
“There are a lot of seats available for this concert. I can get you a promotional price that we’ll probably be running for a couple of weeks if you decide you want to go.” The buyer won’t even like this because it signals that the product they have interest in is in low demand, causing them to question their preferences.
No one wants to see how their steak is made, they just want it to taste great, look nice when it comes out, be served promptly and with a smile. That makes me feel like it was worth the money and that’s a restaurant I’ll go back to every time.