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PROGRAM D-8178
Here’s a real-life business issue that some of you have faced: You’re in sales and your manager has asked you to talk only about the good aspects of a product while ignoring, or seriously downplaying, the negatives. You feel uncomfortable because this seems so close to lying. What do you do?
My career began in sales, so I understand the dilemma. One thing to remember is that all products have their strengths and weaknesses. The sales job is to emphasize the benefits of the strengths and overcome the objections to the weaknesses. That is marketing and, done correctly, it is not dishonest.
Hopefully you have a product which you believe in and which you can honestly sell as a benefit to your customers. If that is not the case and instead you feel you have an inferior product which is misleading and/or faulty, then you have to decide if you’re working for the right company. A prerequisite for a Christian in sales, in my opinion, is to have a product or service that brings benefits to your customers.
While your sales pitch does not have to include the negatives, you must be prepared—as a good sales person and, more importantly, as an honest one—to discuss your product’s deficiencies. If the prospect asks questions that expose those deficiencies, you should be very honest about it. In no way would it be right for you to deny or cover-up the weaknesses of your product deliberately.
Of course, you should be prepared to offset the deficiency with a benefit. This is the skill of selling: it’s called “handling objections,” and good sales people learn how to do that. However, as a Christian, you should never do that at the cost of honesty.
If you feel that you are being asked to do something which is dishonest and this bothers your conscience, then you need to take action. Romans 14:14 tells us that if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. Verse 23 says the person who partakes of something which he thinks is wrong is condemned, because he is not acting in faith.
Give it prayer. If it continues to bother you, God will show you what action to take. Don’t go against your conscience. You’ll be miserable, and you won’t be able to sell very well, either.