"Honesty and integrity are by far the most important assets of an entrepreneur." - Zig Ziglar sales trainer.
I have spent a lot of my life in sales. The lying manipulating salesman gets all the attention, the honest guy makes all the money. Why? Customers will figure out if they were lied to, and not buy from that person again. The honest salesperson gets repeat business, and he gets word-of-mouth, and the time to close gets much shorter with repeat customers.
Think of your own life. Do you return to the scammy guy? Probably not. Do you have favorite places to spend money? Those places are staffed with the honest people. You probably go back over and over, spending money for years. I have purchased a new car a dozen times. The last three from Joe at Precision Toyota because he treats me well and he gives me great pricing in 5 minutes with no haggling. So Joe has got about $$100,000 in sales out of me.
I understand the anger people have about manipulative salespeople. I get angry when I see it too, but mostly because I can see bad technique the way most of the readers on HN see bad code. There are plenty of honest salespeople. You just think of them as "My friend at the store, I always get it from him" and that's ok. Your friend at the store is using his honest nature to build a business.
I have spent a lot of my life in sales. The lying manipulating salesman gets all the attention, the honest guy makes all the money. Why? Customers will figure out if they were lied to, and not buy from that person again. The honest salesperson gets repeat business, and he gets word-of-mouth, and the time to close gets much shorter with repeat customers.
Think of your own life. Do you return to the scammy guy? Probably not. Do you have favorite places to spend money? Those places are staffed with the honest people. You probably go back over and over, spending money for years. I have purchased a new car a dozen times. The last three from Joe at Precision Toyota because he treats me well and he gives me great pricing in 5 minutes with no haggling. So Joe has got about $$100,000 in sales out of me.
I understand the anger people have about manipulative salespeople. I get angry when I see it too, but mostly because I can see bad technique the way most of the readers on HN see bad code. There are plenty of honest salespeople. You just think of them as "My friend at the store, I always get it from him" and that's ok. Your friend at the store is using his honest nature to build a business.