Hypocrisy in Sales and Business

Are you a hypocrite? Are you sure? This morning I was on a call and I told the person that I was talking with, "Please don't be upset with me, but you are a hypocrite." They were instantly upset and denied that they were. I explained that they didn't do what they expected their customers to do. I gave them several examples and they understood why they were in fact a hypocrite. Now, they have to understand that it's killing their business.

Let me share a couple of positive examples.

Stock brokers used to call my Dad all the time pitching specific stocks. He always asked, "How much are you in for?" When they told him that they hadn't bought the stock, he always asked, "Why is it good enough for me to buy, but not you?" It wasn't his only criteria, but it was often a non-starter.

I heard David Sandler say many times, "If I'm not showing it to you, I'm doing it to you." He was always ready. Always on. A great example of practicing what you preach.

Compare those examples with an inbound marketing 'expert' that doesn't blog, doesn't read blogs and makes cold calls.

Compare that with the business owner that sends direct mail to paid lists of target prospects, but throws his junk mail away at the post office. Does that really make sense?

Compare that with a marketing agency that claims to be able to help you get qualified leads and convert them into buyers and happy customers, but doesn't have enough leads themselves and can't convert the ones that they do have.

If you talk to some of these 'pretenders', they'll tell you that "it's on their list of things to do", or "they're trying to make the time to change" or "do as I say, not as I do.". Seriously?

If you want to make a change, find people that are living the change.

Want some examples?

Check out John McTigue at Kuno Creative. I wrote the forward for his ebook, B2B Selling in the Age of the Customer. It's had hundreds of downloads. He finds time to do it for himself, do it for his customers, run the company and work his ranch.

Check out Pete Caputa at Hubspot. He was interviewed recently and spoke highly about me, but he also manages 200 salespeople, writes to his blog, comments on dozens of others and goes home every night to his family.

So, let's go back to the beginning?

Are you an example of what you purport to be able to fix?

Are you transparent?

Do you want to be?

Talk to me.