Today I got an email from a friend, a real estate gun who has just switched his agency after a highly successful career with his past employer. His move would have come as a shock to many people but instead of trying to keep quiet about it, he just sent a short video to his people explaining his reasons for the move. He was completely transparent about his reasons which makes him very likable and trustworthy. Plus he had a reason to get in touch with his list (clever!).
Honesty, integrity and transparency are truly important character traits for an entrepreneur (and every other human being) and people tend to develop trust much faster with a business if they sense truth.
The other day I was looking for a travel bag and the lady in the shop told me that the one I was looking at was 50% off. When I asked her why she didn‘t make up some story, her reply was that she gets a lot of these bags in and just wants to move her stock. I bought it.
Even though marketing is a lot about story telling, it‘s never about telling stories. In fact, I highly recommend being completely open and honest when interacting with clients and prospects. Your prospects are not dumb and with increased transparency thanks to the internet, they can usually smell a rat.
The honesty approach applies to everything, when writing an email to your database, when recommending a product or service, when giving feedback to your team members, when promoting a special deal.
I‘ve had a few prospects I didn‘t think would be suitable for our marketing program and told them so, giving them the exact reasons why (generally either their business just wasn‘t at the level to get the most out of the Clever Bunch or their attitude was not suitable). Prospects love that. They will come back and tell others about you.
Unfortunately some people are still believing that the good old ‘let‘s tell them a little white lie‘ approach works and unfortunately sometimes it might, but it doesn‘t have longevity and it also doesn‘t earn them any karma points.
So let‘s all be merry and make honesty, integrity and transparency part of our values, I bet you‘ll see your bank balance and happiness levels go up!
#honestlyhonest
Franziska Iseli-Hall