Lies From A Boss

 

You’ve told a lie sometime in your life.

-No, you don’t look fat in those jeans
-I have a headache
-I forgot

While the examples above are indeed lies by the definition of the 8^th commandment, “Thou shall not lie.”
we call them “little white lies.”
They don’t hurt anyone.
They help us avoid conflict with each other.
Some would say they are not lies or sins but rather “polite responses” that show good manners.

What about telling lies in the work place?
If your boss tells you to say something to a customer, and the boss has no malicious intent, and it later turns out that statement wasn’t true, did you tell a lie?

If your boss tells you to say something that they know it isn’t true, and you say it but didn't know what you were told was false, did you tell a lie?

What would you do if a boss told you to lie to a customer?

My first sale in radio was on my third day on the job. A prospect called in and the sales manager gave it to me and said it was time for me to try out what I had learned over the previous two days of training. He gave me the commercial package I was supposed to sell and sent me on my way. I met the prospect and he bought the package after some convincing. Proudly I came back to the sales manager with contract in hand. The manager looked at the contract and told me he couldn’t accept the deal because the price per spot (a.k.a. commercial) was too low. I pointed out that 90 minutes earlier he gave me this exact package and I sold it to the customer for the exact price he told me to sell it at. He said I had to go back to the customer and tell him that I sold him the wrong package and he had to buy this new package that had a higher price and fewer spots. I asked him to go with me since it was my third day and I didn’t understand why the package he told me to sell, and that I sold, was suddenly no good.
He said he didn’t have time and I should go and tell the customer “I made a mistake because it was my third day  and I sold him the wrong package.”
On the drive down I was upset and mad.
Why do I have to talk the fall and look bad for someone else’s mistake?
I did what I was told to do by the manager at the original meeting.
I was taught that rule number one of sales was “never lie to a client.”
I believed that then and practice it to this day.

I decided that I was going to tell the customer the truth.
If I lost the deal or made the manager look bad I would still be able to sleep guilt free, and maybe the customer would appreciate my honesty and use us again.
The customer was surprised to see me and more surprised when I told him that we needed to redo the deal.
I told him the exact reason and words my sales manager used.
The client said he appreciated my honesty and signed the new deal.
He asked for my sales managers name and phone number.
He said he was going to call him and tell him what a lousy manager he was for sending me down with a stupid excuse why he had to buy the new package and should have honored the terms of the original package.
I’m not 100% sure the customer called my manager, but the manager never asked me to do anything that dishonest again.
I kept my integrity and got the deal. In fact this customer exclusively bought from me for the next several years.

I was right to handle this situation this way.
On the way down to the second appointment I knew I was right to handle it that way. In the appointment I knew I was right. After the appointment I knew I was right. To this day I know I handled that situation right and have handled similar situations the same way. I was taught my first day of my sales career the number one rule was to never lie to a client. 
Over the years I have stedfastly followed that rule.

I have had managers over the years tell me I should outright lie to a customer in circumstances where I don’t know the answer and to “make one up” because of the belief that if you give the client an answer it is better than having no answer at that moment. I disagree.
How would you have handled the situation with the customer I described above?

Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy