Sales and Lying

Can Sales and Lying Not Be Mutually Exclusive? 

Us salespeople have a saying: buyers are liars.


Salespeople are known to lie or so the myth goes. Since the dawn of the used car lot, the sentiment of salespeople is trickery, deception, and lying, utmost. Customers would rather self-serve than to deal with a sales person. Whether it's substituting to a competitor like Carmax instead of buying from a conventional car lot or buying online instead of going back and worth with a sales person through email, salespeople are annoying and untrustworthy. They will force you to buy something you don't need and make false promises such as, "this product will solve all of your problems," or, "you will receive THIS much more value by switching to our product!" Salespeople are money hungry, evil, soulless robots. Their career has the lowest prestige of any career, and they don't care. Salespeople say whatever they have to to close the deal and at the largest amount possible, typically through lie ridden snake oil pitches. Lying is an essential tool to salespeople meeting their quota and competently doing their job.

To the contrary, the customers are the liars. 

I have no need to lie while selling. Understanding the advantage of lying to close the sale has eluded me since I starting selling a few years ago. Lies catch up to you. One lie turns into another, and another, and so on. Unless there's a CRM that tracks lying, I wonder how people keep track of their lies. Salesforce is already expensive, and I imagine this lying CRM to be even more expensive (you're welcome for the idea, salesforce.com). The product I sell is one of the best in its industry. Its brand is well-known, and people love it the product. Not only do they love the product for its seamless UI, affordability, and wealth of data, our customer service and level of service is unmatched for what you pay for. Customers feel as if they bought an enterprise solution at a fraction of the cost. Because of these product attributes the product sells itself. All I have to do is inform the customer and negotiate a deal.


What's sad are the people who start conversations with negative intentions because of their ill-mannered preconceived notions about salespeople. I believe people view salespeople as bottom feeders who need to be treated as such. After all, we are people, too. As my mother always says, treat others the way you want to be treated. Perhaps these people who hold salespeople in a dark light, who were tricked once before and seek justice. Maybe these people do not like interacting with others. Either way, when salespeople are treated with hostility, arrogance, and disrespect do not feel entitled to a converse response reciprocation is the only logical response according to the golden rule.


Salespeople won't cure cancer. Well, maybe the one who sells the chemicals to the laboratory that discovers a cure, so indirectly at least. The prestige from sell long is not well known. Those who do are owner(s) and or managers who run the business which employs the salespeople. Whiteout them the company will not have enough revenue to stay operational. The owners have enough to do. Salespeople find, qualify, and manage customers from hello to sign on the line that is dotted (insert glen gray link). But no matter. Salespeople are some of the highest earners in the United States. Though the value of a sale person work is not evident intrinsically they deliver much value not only to their organization but the economy.


Do salespeople lie? Of course. What I'm saying is not every sales person lies, and the customers are not innocent either. Anecdote after anecdote comes to mind about customers who take advantage of my service and not buy or make up excuses to receive something free or make a promise to me and not keep it. The fact of the matter is people, sales and customers alike, are people, and they're irrational.


Honesty is essential to successful selling. To paraphrase Clif Reichard or the Harvard Business Review, If success is achieved with even the slightest use of dishonesty than success was not authentically achieved. Honesty with the customer is important not only for sale, for the company and its reputation. Ever product has a downside in addition to the upside. Forgoing the latter is not right for the customer, the salesperson, and the company.

-Tyler

The AHCRA, ACA, and the Single-Payer System

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formerly known as Obamacare, is here to stay, for now.

The American Health Care Reform Act (AHCRA), otherwise known as Obamacare lite, was a bad piece of legislation. Under the proposed bill 24 million Americans would lose heath insurance. If Congress repealed the ACA, then 23 million Americans would lose health care. This does not make sense. How can Congress, people voted to represent US citizens, propose such a bill? Fortunately, moderate Republicans and the Freedom Caucus revolted against their own party, and the bill was withdrawn.

Why can't the US come with a bill that will cover all of its citizens like Canada and the United Kingdom?

Simple -- it's called the single-payer health care is a system. Republicans, insurance companies, and pharmacies despise this system for it will wipe out these industries, which means no more jobs.

A single-payer system places the government as the only health care insurer in the country. Taxes would replace insurance premiums thus eliminating the need for insurance companies and hospital billing departments. Insurance companies would become nonessential secondary insurance providers, and private pharmacies would disintegrate. Yet again private businesses have more say in what legislation is and aren't passed in Congress over the voices of constituents.

Basically, every American would be on Medicare, something Congress has proposed several times in the past. Technically Medicare in its current form is a single-payer system. The 111th Congress expanded Medicaid and Medicare through the ACA, but only to those who cannot afford insurance.

The United States is one of the few countries left not on a single-payer system or a hybrid of the sort.

One of Senator Bernie Sanders' platforms while running for the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016 was expanding Medicare for all under a single-payer system.

Trick is a lot of Americans do not know what or understand the significance of the single-payer system. According to a poll by Yahoo/AP, most Americans are for Medicare expansion, but against a health care system like Canada's.

Republicans argue that the single-payer system is socialist. Need they be reminded that the Department of Veterans Affairs is a pure form of socialized medicine and President Trump has proposed increased funding in his budget proposal. When the ACA was passed the original plan was to expand Medicare to all, but the Democrats did not have the votes to withstand a Philabuster.

One argument is private insurance companies are pulling plans from the mandated marketplaces, so the ACA has to go away. Plans are being pulled but some remain. No doubt has premiums increased so drastically that middle-America cannot afford to use their plan. But more Americans are covered than ever before. If Medicare were expanded to all, then this problem would not exist.

The withdrawal of the AHCRA sets a clear precedent that the ACA is here to stay. No American will give up their health care in exchange for nothing or less coverage. The ACA has turned health care into an entitlement. As a result, no legislation will be passed to relinquished, repeal, and or replace the ACA. Congress might as well expand Medicare for all and save budget from increased efficiencies.



-Tyler

Hate

Why Use the Word Hate and Not Another Word? 

Image courtesy of allposters.com and the New Yorker Magazine

While at work I overheard a co-worker mention hating an inanimate object. Then that person went on to declare hatred towards a work related activity followed by a complaint about a meal that person brought to work for lunch. In the course of five minutes, I heard this person use the word hate three different times, three different ways. Why would someone say that? Why blatantly use a word that can start a conflict, big or small, and darken the soul? Hearing people around me use the word hate makes me cringe. No matter who says hate, strangers, co-workers, or family members I become irked.

I get it. Hate is an overused word. Picking on someone who freely uses the word hate like a pronoun is easier than using someone's name or saying "I will have what he's having," because you trust the other person to make the right decision, using the word hate is simple, easy, and sometimes fun. Why take the time to think of the right word to describe your displeasure like disgusted, irked, repulsed, or unpleased? That takes too much effort and with how much work and information that needs to be done and consumed in a day no one has time for something micro-anal like proper word choice. Hell, people already prevention decision fatigue with the words they choice by resorting to one's like hate while Mark Zuckerberg takes this kind of prevention to an entirely new and higher level by wearing the same t-shirt every day thus lowering his decision fatigue.

Hate is only a word after all -- a simple to say, short, and versatile word. To hate something is a bold statement of feeling. Those who abuse it misunderstand the power of the word hate. Overuse of the word will strip it of its meaning. Sapient abstainers of the word respect its impact. Ones who do so and hear its utterance in passing or conversation will receive the converse of what the nonchalant orator intended. Expressing feeling is not an easy task. Knowing the correct word, in a sea of beautiful and extravagant words that make up the English language, is tough in the moment of vehement expression. Hate is a crutch word. Like umm, anyway, like, or literally, these words are used as a pause while the speaker or writer thinks of a new idea. Pause brings no value to the conversation. Dislodging the habit of injecting pauses is hard for it's implanted in our brains. Worst of all a pause is not necessary. People who use hate, typically, do not know of a better word to use to describe how they feel, which is a shame.

Webster's Thesaurus has much better words than hate: abominate (snowman!), abhorrence, abhor, detest, despite, disfavor, loathe.

Hate is a strong, freely used word and should only be used when absolutely necessary and sparingly. Though I am no different from people who express themselves through this powerful word. You will hear me say it on occasion, admittedly. The need to declare superiority over a person, idea, or object is what hate means and it does not have to be that way. My Grandmother taught me a lesson on using this offensive word. On top of words like shut-up or using God's name in vain, upon hearing utterance, she would stop and address me as if I said it to her and remind me never to use that word unless absolutely, positively necessary.

Hating something reinforces a negative feeling held inside one's self. As a result, much energy is wasted to maintain this feeling. After a while that wasted energy cannot sustain the weight of one's conscious and, as a result, one because bogged and fatigued, which can drastically diminish one's quality of life, slowly, but surely. Not only will this word hurt you it will hurt those around you. So let it go, whatever you hate. Dwelling on hatred will only make you more upset. Forget about it. This is an ambitious goal: replace hatred with positivity. Happiness cannot be achieved if hate is the primary word to describe displeasure. Perhaps is this negative word is removed from one's vocabulary then one will become happier, uprooted from fatigue, and have more energy to live life to its fullest. THAT would be nice.

When one uses the four-letter word that does not start with F then people ought to gasp like the four-letter f-word is used. Then and only then when the word hate is used so few is when its utterance will provoke such a reaction. I mean it. Using that word is very powerful not only for the sake of other peoples' feeling, the impact on yourself is just as bad if not worse. Hating something is hating yourself. People who hate hate themselves. No one hates themselves. Hating yourself is no way to live and no one will admit it openly. So why do it?

I am not saying this word should be banned. No word should be banned. Like many other words such as very and the seven dirty words, hate should be pushed to the side for redirection of others words. No doubt will the word hate be used when there is no time for reflection like waking up the day after the 2017 presidential election or finding out those responsible for the attack on September, 11. Cleaning one's vocabulary is much easier to do than totally replacing a fundamental word like hate. Feelings need to be validated and sometimes hate is the only word to use, yet it shouldn't be the ONLY word.



-Tyler