Decoding Sales

Episode 45: Lying to customers

Peter & Alex

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In this episode Alex and Peter ask, "Is it OK to lie to customers? And if so, when?"

They dive into: 

  • An experience Alex's friend had with a sales lie
  • What to do when a salesperson lies
  • How to spot lying salespeople before and after they join a team


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[00:00:00]

Alex Allain: Welcome to Decoding Sales. A podcast where An engineer. That's me, Alex, and a salesperson. 

Peter Ahn: That's me, Peter, 

Alex Allain: Dr. The Art and Science of Sales as relates to life and business. I'm excited for this episode because this is a real life scenario that came up recently. And Peter, I wanna hear your take on it.

Great. I was talking to, um, a friend of mine about their sales team at the company that they work for, and they were asking me. When is it okay for a salesperson to lie to their customers? Peter, I'm curious for your just snap reaction to that. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. I think it's unacceptable to lie to your customers. Okay.

'cause eventually they'll find out the answer. Or even if there's a 1% risk of them finding out you lied, that breaks a ton of trust. 

Alex Allain: Yeah. That's kind of how I think about it too. But let me, let me like. Give you a scenario that I'm curious about. Okay, super. The [00:01:00] scenario, super excited. The scenario here was salesperson is working with a customer.

, the customer wants a plan is asking, do you have a plan that has the following features? And the sales person, , says, basically no tries to keep them on the current plan. Look, this company actually has a plan , with that pricing structure that would be more advantageous to the customer, but they didn't tell them about it.

And I'm, I'm curious, like, it seems like that's like a, obviously a lie and like I would consider that unacceptable, but as a salesperson, you also wanna keep a deal on track. So how do you think about that? Like how would you handle that situation? 

Peter Ahn: , is there any more detail on what the plan structure looks like?

Is it like a billing plan or is it like there's feature differences as well? Billing plan. Billing plan, okay. Got it, got it, got it. Um, yeah, I think if there, there is a plan that the customer can move to that is currently on the table and active at the company, I think you should [00:02:00] mention it for sure. Now, usually there are consequences to that.

Right, like there should be trade-offs of moving to a specific plan. So let's say as an example, let's say they ask like, Hey, can we go from annual to quarterly billing because we have kind of like the cash flow issue as the buyer. Then I would say, yes, but if we're gonna go to quarterly billing, the pricing's gonna change.

Right? It's more expensive by this amount. And so that's how I would present it. I wouldn't say no, I would say. Yes, there are options because as a company that's building trust with customers, you should always give options to the customer. But that option, or exercising an alternative, let's say in a billing plan as an example, should come with trade-offs that the customer needs to think through.

And the other thing about, you mentioned something about keeping the deal on track, um, like I think that is. A fine thing and like [00:03:00] sure, if it's like you're under pressure to close a quarterly number, I can see that being an issue. But I think the trust building and transparency should always trump any sort of external pressure.

I. Because that relationship doesn't stop at that deal, right? It continues into implementation, into like even after the salesperson leaves the company, presumably they're gonna want to maintain a relationship with the sponsor champion they've worked with, and if they've lied in that instance, it's hard to maintain that long-term relationship because ultimately, eventually that customer will likely find out that they were lied to.

Alex Allain: So I agree with all of that seemed unethical to me as well, but I did wanna get that gut check from you. Now here's a question, another follow up question. Yeah. Is that a fireable offense? If a salesperson who worked for you did that, would you terminate them on the spot? 

Peter Ahn: Oof. That's a great question. So, um.

I think it's pretty close to a fireable offense. You know, [00:04:00] if not a fireable offense. If you were to make me choose, I'd have to think about it a little bit more, but since we're on the spot and I wanna be authentic to just reacting, I would say yes because I think that has, , compounding effects on the brand, right?

Like any little bit of word of mouth can sink your company. You think about like companies like CloudFlare. Like CloudFlare had an issue, I think where they had like a lot of bad press about their sales tactics, right? You hear this about salespeople like trying to double the price of a contract like two weeks before renewal.

You know, surprisingly, that somehow still happens. You know, these things get out into the press. So I do think, like if you were to tell me, . Are they gonna stay or not? It's pretty close to me, like losing trust with that rep. Mm-hmm. It's probably the beginning of more things that I'm not aware of.

Mm-hmm. If they're lying about this one thing, what else is happening? Right? Mm-hmm. So whether it's on the spot or over a period of time, it's probably indicative of how they [00:05:00] carry themselves, both with customers and maybe even internal teams too, and mm-hmm. I definitely wouldn't want that person on my team.

Alex Allain: That all resonates with me. I'm glad to hear you saying all of that. Um, now if somebody 

Peter Ahn: comes to me and is thinking about that, I wouldn't like ding them. At least they're coming to me for advice. Right. And I would try and set them straight to be like, Hey, listen, like this is not the way we should be thinking.

Mm-hmm. Um, if they're actually just doing that and not having any remorse or guilt or second thoughts, that's like a huge problem. 

Alex Allain: Yeah, I, well, I mean, my reactions, well, it tells you a lot about their character. Yeah. And their character is the best way to predict their behavior and Totally. You know, um, the one place I might have a little leniency here is like, I might wanna understand like, what they were thinking or what pressure they were under.

Like if this was some kind of like spot, like, you know, maybe they didn't actually know that this was something, or maybe they were like, kind of in the moment just like really frazzled and like, not great. , but yes, to me it also strikes me as like a, you know, you [00:06:00] don't want, you don't want this person setting the standard on your sales team.

You don't want this person in your company, uh, kind of situation. , so, okay. This is sort of like the exciting event, if you will, for this topic, and I'm glad to hear we're on the same page. I think that's great. I wonder, mm-hmm. Here's another question. What percentage of salespeople do you think agree with you on this?

I have a, I have a number in my head. 

Peter Ahn: That is such a good question. Um, I would say, maybe like 50% would agree with me about half. And the other half would be like, well, Peter, like the quota is number one. Right? Like trying to close deals and getting this across the finish line.

Like whatever it takes to close deals, you gotta have your sales team do, right? I can see like half the people thinking that as well. 

Alex Allain: I think. Are we talking about SaaS software sales or are we just talking about sales in general? 

Peter Ahn: I am thinking about like sales, like the U.S tar 

Alex Allain: salesperson, you know, that sort of thing.

Oh, I'm thinking 

Peter Ahn: about SaaS actually. 

Alex Allain: Okay. Yeah. You 

Peter Ahn: know, if, if [00:07:00] you, if you take like the entire population of salespeople, right? Like selling whatever I. , that would probably be a lot lower, if that makes sense. I think a lot more people would be willing to lie mm-hmm. To get the deal done. Especially if they're in a transactional sales space.

Right? Yeah. Like, especially if they make the sale and then that person really doesn't matter and you don't care if they keep in touch with you or not, and your reputation isn't as valued mm-hmm. As something like a recurring SaaS spend, then I, I'd say probably it's a lot higher of a percentage of people who are willing to lie.

Alex Allain: That was my instinct too. I was, I had 20% of salespeople would agree with you in my head. 

 So here's another question. How do you filter for this in the hiring process? 

Peter Ahn: Ooh, great question. So, , I think we've talked about doing a mock pitch mm-hmm. As part of the exercise where you make the candidate pitch your product even though they're not as familiar with your product as you are.

Mm-hmm. And I think this is a perfect place to test somebody's character and how they react on the spot, because I purposely [00:08:00] throw like two or three curve balls for questions that the. Candidates should not know how to answer clearly and see how they react. 

Alex Allain: Mm. Like do they fill in the blanks and make shit up?

Peter Ahn: Yes, exactly. And there's quite a bit of like, you know, let's say like 50% of candidates, even if they're senior candidates, like make shit up and. Where like, and it's like clearly, obviously even if they get the right answer, they're clearly not confident in their answer, Uhhuh in terms of their delivery.

And then it comes up in the feedback where it's like, Hey, like I wonder like why you made that up. Mm-hmm. Right? There was a better way to answer that. Mm. Which is, I don't know the answer to that, but let me find out for you. And then the really skilled salespeople say, I don't know the answer to that. Let me find out for you.

Can I ask why you're asking that question? 

Alex Allain: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Right? So, so, so I, you had a reason for your 50%? 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. I guess it was baked in that, yeah. That's great. Yeah, about half. About half the candidates, yeah. Do [00:09:00] make up answers, you know, and they're not always like horribly bad answers, if that makes sense.

Mm-hmm. Know it's not like a critical moment of the deal where you're like, oh, like that's so bad that they made up the answer, but the cringe. 

Alex Allain: Is that an instant no. On your hiring process? 

Peter Ahn: I don't think I've ever hired somebody who did that. Yeah. Yeah. So, but again, and like to your point, it's like,, it's, it's not just that that happened on the mock pitch either.

There's other things that went awry usually, you know, for a lot of, if, if you're doing, if 

Alex Allain: you're, if you're, it's sort of like the lying is character trait thing. Yeah. Like if you're doing that there like. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah, there's other parts of the pitch that aren't triggering. 

Alex Allain: Right? Yeah. It's not that 

Peter Ahn: you just like, I mean, that is a big indicator and another data point, a pretty big data point, 

Alex Allain: but you sort of see like a collection of data points that are all pointing in the same direction.

Peter Ahn: Exactly, yeah. And then the delivery is usually not great, right? Because they're not confident in themselves and they're making up [00:10:00] answers. , so it's, it's a whole collection of things that goes wrong at that point. 

Alex Allain: So I, I wanna like, push a little bit more on, there's one place where I'm really curious about how you think about , the art of the truth, if you will.

Mm-hmm. Which is negotiating, right? Mm-hmm. Um, , what if somebody comes to you and you give somebody a price and you're like, is that literally the best price you can give me? 

Peter Ahn: Yep. Yep. 

Alex Allain: Yeah. Like, I wanna know the truth. What is the lowest you can go. Yeah, and you might have to get some approvals, all this other stuff.

Just tell me the truth. What is the lowest you can go? Mm-hmm. Or like what is the lowest you've ever done this deal for? Or like those kind of things. Like what do you, how do you handle that kind of situation? 

Peter Ahn: Yeah, so whenever I'm put on the spotlight like that, the first thing I say is it depends on a lot of things.

For example, are you ready to sign the contract right now? You know, and then I laugh, right? Like, 'cause if you're literally ready to sign the contract right now, and there's no [00:11:00] legal process, there's no security process, that's a ton of value for me. And I could go to bat for you, right? Mm-hmm. Like if I go to my general counsel and say, this is gonna be a clean contract, just give me X percentage off, like depending on what that is, within reason, like I could probably do that, you know?

But it also depends on number of users you're committing upfront. It depends on. You know the terms, is it one or two year deal? It depends on a lot of different things. Are you willing to do a case study so we could start to unpack that, but let me ask you like, is there an ideal magic number you're looking for?

Is that why you're asking that? Because I'm also not gonna guess what's gonna work for. So that's what I would say. So you don't, you don't 

Alex Allain: answer the question, you turn it back on the other party. 

Peter Ahn: Exactly. Yeah, because I can't answer the question, right? Yeah. And I'm trying to tell the prospect I can't. And anybody who tells them , they can answer the question is lying, right?

Mm-hmm. , so basically what I'm saying is like, no, this is not the best deal I can give you, but it depends on a lot of things. There's like a lot of [00:12:00] deals I can give you. Right? That's why this is a collaboration, you know? I love it. I love it. There's no one size fits all. Mm-hmm. Within reason. Right.

And if they're like, for example, let's play this out. Let's say they're like, okay, fine, then gimme 90% off. I'll sign today. I'll give you a case study. No. Okay. Now that's impossible, right? Because it, it, and like I'll know from like the history of deals and like the different discount approvals that we've gone through, right?

Mm-hmm. This is where you should really think about some guardrails internally as well. Mm. Nothing's just scattershot, but there's been multiple times where I said, listen, like we gave that deal to our first customer. You know, , but we're now, we have 50 customers now, so that's why that's impossible.

Hmm. And then you have to stand by that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So like it's a discussion, right? So I think that's where, um, you can answer the question truthfully, but still with [00:13:00] confidence and with the nuance that, you know, has to play out. Mm-hmm. Because there's no straightforward answer in enterprise sales mm-hmm.

When it comes to like, pricing. 'cause it's not just pricing that is part of the negotiation. Yeah. Which we talked about in previous episode about, 

Alex Allain: we talked about a lot, but I, I love the way you talked about, you weave that back into handling this. Okay. So here's another, another question. I'm about.

Obviously, like we've sort of established that lying to customers is not okay. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. 

Alex Allain: Hopefully, hopefully people kind of have that intuition, um, already, but, , what, what do you do when you find out that you , have lied to a customer? Not intentionally. You just, you told them something that wasn't actually true.

Let's say it's, um. I mean, I, I imagine that when it's like a product feature, you probably just like go back and tell it. But let's say something like related to price where it's a little bit awkward, like maybe you told them that they, the lowest price you could go is X, but actually you found out later internally that you were willing to go lower.

What do you do in that situation? 

Peter Ahn: Is this a situation [00:14:00] where they've already signed the contract or is this before they signed the contract? 

Alex Allain: Uh, is there a difference? 

Peter Ahn: I think so. Well, yeah, I think there's a difference in how I would approach it. So if it was, if it's before they signed the contract, right, I would get on a call with them.

First of all, nothing over email because I, I think this is one of those things where there's a lot of nuance in terms of why you lie. Because, and I'd want to like explain the context. Mm-hmm. And include the emotional like. Guilt that I have and make sure they know that. Mm-hmm. I would say, Hey, listen Alex, like I know I said this and this was not intentional, but after the fact I found out we could go a little bit lower.

Mm-hmm. Because of these reasons, these factors I had just like not known Mm. When I was talking to you. Mm-hmm. So I just want you to know this was not something where I was trying to pull a fast one on you. Mm-hmm. But now I do wanna honor this new pricing. Mm-hmm. Approval from my VP on it. And I'd love to, like, the reason why I'm doing this is because I want to treat this as a [00:15:00] long-term relationship.

Mm-hmm. And I care about our personal relationship as well. Mm-hmm. And there's no, I don't think there's any world where that could go awry if this is like before signing the contract. Mm-hmm. Now after signing the contract, it gets a lot hairier. 

Alex Allain: Yeah. 

Peter Ahn: And so what I would do is I would talk to, let's say I'm the VP and I have to talk to my CFO.

You know, or like my CEO, I would say, Hey, listen, like I actually told this customer with a straight face that this was the best deal, but now I see we're approving this other deal. I think we need to make right by this customer. Mm-hmm. Right. It's a matter of like, whatever, 20,000, 30,000, $40,000. I'll take it off of my quota if you've paid me commission already.

Like I just want to make this right. Um, what can we do financially so that there's no rev rec issues, so that there's nothing like. You know, it doesn't look like we're doing anything shady with the books. Mm-hmm. Like what options do I have? Mm. Mm-hmm. And at that point, I'm guessing, I mean, there's probably [00:16:00] multiple options, right?

Maybe it's like a credit for renewal. Mm mm-hmm. Maybe it's something else, but I would, you know, have a similar flavor of conversation with the customer to say, Hey, at the time I didn't realize this. To make this right. Here's what we can do. You know, if they're paying quarterly invoices, we can credit them on the next invoice so they're not paying as much.

Mm-hmm. Right. We can amend the contract. Right. And sure it's a little bit of operational overhead, but you know, I think , it goes a long ways in terms of building positive reputation and like a good brand. Right. I love that. I love that. Becausecause, not many companies would go through that trouble.

But it would definitely weigh on me, you know, if I'm leading the sales team that like, yeah, we had gone through with it. 

Alex Allain: If a company came back and did that for me, I would be a customer for life. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah, exactly. Until a salesperson changed or, or you might write about it publicly. I might. 

Alex Allain: I might write a testimonial for sure.

Peter Ahn: Yeah. 

Alex Allain: Have you ever had to do that? 

Peter Ahn: Never had to do that. Actually. I can't think of anything. I'm trying to [00:17:00] think. But I don't remem I feel like this is the type of situation where I'd remember. 

Alex Allain: I feel like I would remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I really like this though. You know, it reminds me a little bit of like comp planning or something in, in companies where you, you wanna mace your comp on principles.

You want people to be paid the same amount for. Relative to like their place on the performance curves or whatever, you know? Totally, totally. So I've, 

Peter Ahn: I, I've had, I have had situations where we've had to give customers money, but those are for like, massive outages we've had. 

Alex Allain: Right? Yeah. 

Peter Ahn: And it was like in the contract, right.

So Right, right, right. Um, unfortunately I've been through that, like an apology tour on that, but, um, sounds fun. 

Alex Allain: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh, ooh, here's, here's a good one. 

Peter Ahn: Mm-hmm. 

Alex Allain: How do you handle a situation where, yeah, like for an outage, like mm-hmm. I, I don't think this is about lying per se, but I'm just curious, like sometimes outages can be, have very [00:18:00] embarrassing reasons.

Mm-hmm. And I'm curious how you explain that in a way that, you know, either owns the embarrassment or, you know, handles that in some way. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. That doesn't 

Alex Allain: just come across as like, you know, a clown show. 

Peter Ahn: Totally. Yeah. And if 

Alex Allain: it is a clown show, do you just tell them it was a clown show? Like what, what do you do?

Peter Ahn: Yeah, I think you need to do that professionally. If it was a clown show, you know, like you need to, so what we did when we had outages at Twingate is, and I think there's even blog posts written about the outages that we've had. 'cause we had some pretty massive ones in the early days. Um, we would go on this apology tour where we would, you know.

Obviously update folks on what happened, but we'd also get on a call to give the verbal color on the reasons and the remediation path for what happened. And so I think the best way to handle these situations is to make sure you [00:19:00] address why it won't happen again. Mm-hmm. You know, because defending why it happened, like usually there's no good defense because people will usually say, well, you should have thought about that.

Right, right. So, like, it, it, it's not really impactful to be like, this was less of a clown show than it could have been. Mm-hmm. You know, it's just like at the end of the day, the business impact was large. I don't care what happened. Mm-hmm. Or how intelligently you architected the system. Mm-hmm. Clearly it was, it.

Fell short. And so I think you explaining like what is changing in the investment areas and the resources you allocate to make sure this doesn't happen again to their business is important. And then you just have to say like, I understand this is unacceptable. And so, \ , , if you are kind of considering alternative paths, we completely understand, but we would like to keep you because X, Y, Z, right?

Mm-hmm. And so I think that's really, really impactful. To do. Mm-hmm. And then the last thing, I don't think, hopefully no company's thinking about this, but you don't, you don't treat that [00:20:00] opportunity as an opportunity to upsell or like sell them on more stuff. Right. To be like, well, it's like, that's not gonna 

Alex Allain: work.

Peter Ahn: Yeah. Well if you had this, if you had our backup plan, 

Alex Allain: all your data would've been fine. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, um, I think those are the things that come to, but yeah, outages are really sensitive because. Usually it like makes you look really, , JV in a lot of areas mm-hmm. With your infrastructure, but you have to be comfortable with that.

And most folks who are signing up for innovation, I think understand that this is part of the growing process of like, figuring things out. 

Alex Allain: Yeah. Oh, this is great. . 

Peter Ahn: Can I ask add one more thing about outages, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that is a question that comes up like in sales calls, right? Like, what, what assurances can you gimme that you'll never have an outage? You know, and like some salespeople will be like, we'll never have an outage because Right. 

Alex Allain: That's a, seems, seems like a failure. [00:21:00]

Peter Ahn: Yeah. It's it's a lie.

Right? 

Alex Allain: Yeah. 

Peter Ahn: And so you should start that by saying like, Hey, like I can never predict I'm, I, you know, I, I represent part of the business, but I can't predict whether or not our system will go down. Right. Like you could look at our status page, that's historical, but I can't predict the future. And no provider, whether they're AWS or Zscaler or CloudFlare can guarantee they'll never go down.

Mm-hmm. So that's just a risk that you need to be comfortable taking based off of the analysis you do on our infrastructure. Now I can explain to you kind of how our infrastructure is set up and you can poke holes. You know, head of infrastructure engineering team on the line mm-hmm. To go into the depths of our, of our, uh, insides.

Mm-hmm. But, um, I can never guarantee that we won't have outages. Can we address that through a deep dive infrastructure call and potentially the SLA we have in the contract? Mm-hmm. So [00:22:00] that that is, you know, I'm, I'm, it's interesting out of outages. 'cause that's an area I think where there's a lot of objections that you can handle in the right way.

Mm-hmm. Or in a very defensive way. 

Alex Allain: I really like that. And speaking as an engineering very much resonates. Like if you, if you knew all the ways that an outage could happen, you obviously would never have an outage, but like yeah. The point of the thing is that outages happen because you don't, so whatever it is you are doing to prevent outages, there's not a, there's no certainty in this world.

Peter Ahn: Exactly. Exactly. You know? Yeah. And that's why the. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. 

Alex Allain: Death, taxes and outages are, I think, all things you can anticipate happening at some point. I mean, out, just basically just the equivalent of like a, the death, the short term death of a system. 

Peter Ahn: Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's impossible to get around, right?

It's how you recover from those that will build the resilience and the brand of technical prowess you have, you know? 

Alex Allain: Yeah, I mean, just look at NASA like, [00:23:00] yeah, they work very, very hard to prevent. Fatal outages and sometimes it happens. Really, unfortunately. But like the amount of investment there is crazy high.

Peter Ahn: Yeah. Actually, one of my clients, we were talking about tiger beetle, , they have modeled their kind of way of approaching the system after NASA. 

Alex Allain: Oh wow. 

Peter Ahn: That's cool. Because they're dealing with like financial transactions mm-hmm. Which arguably like the, you know, the gold of a company, 

Alex Allain: right?

Yeah. That and their data. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. Totally. 

Alex Allain: Um, well that's great. 

 Peter, how many times have you had to fire a sales person on your team who let for lying to a customer?

Peter Ahn: Ooh. I, , I think it's similar to what I said before around like the lying wasn't the reason I fired them, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. It was just an indication of other things that weren't firing. Mm-hmm. Right. And so, um, I can't answer that question because there was never a call where somebody flat out like.

Lied and didn't [00:24:00] real or like, you know, usually they don't realize it or, mm-hmm. It wasn't like a hundred percent lie. So we talk about it and hopefully they improve, but then it happens if it happens repeatedly. I think that's where the issues came. 

Alex Allain: Peter, what's a, a? Not a hundred percent. What's a 50% lie?

Peter Ahn: , let's say it's like, hey, like, I think that's possible. Yes. Hmm. That's a 50% lie. Like sort 

Alex Allain: of a caveat. Like, I want, I wanna be able to say yes. Yes. And I wanna like be able to say that I don't know. So I'm gonna do both of those things. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. But they don't like take the, uh, time to say they'll follow up.

Mm. And and oddly, sometimes prospects don't push them on that. Mm. Because somebody's like, oh, I think that's possible. Yes. 

Alex Allain: Right. The prospect, it meet the wrong impression. It's like a functional lie, but sort of like psychologically doesn't quite feel the same. That's interesting. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Mm. But I've never had some, if, if I heard that on a call, which I have, I'm never like, Hey, you're fired.

Alex Allain: Right? 

Peter Ahn: Like that [00:25:00] doesn't happen. It's more like, hey, like why did you say it that way? Like was there a misunderstanding? Mm-hmm. Like we actually can't do that, so let's correct that in the email. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. And if there's learning from it, like I don't see that as necessary, like a company sinking moment, if that makes sense.

But yeah, the more and more that happens over time, it shows that they're not investing in product knowledge 

Alex Allain: and they're just unreliable. Yeah. Yeah, 

Peter Ahn: exactly. And then there are lies, like I have fired people because there's a trail of like, oh yeah, Peter, I did follow up with that prospect. Mm, yes. I like did do X, Y, and Z with the prospect, but they just didn't.

It's more like execution lies, right? So it's like, well if you sent, you know, if you're outbounding and you sent a hundred emails today, where are the a hundred emails? Like I don't see them log. Mm-hmm. Oh, I forgot to log them. Mm. Oh, sometimes they like actually never did the job. Right, 

Alex Allain: right. So you end up with like this trail of li and you, and there's no like one that you're like, ah, that's the like 

Peter Ahn: [00:26:00] yeah.

Alex Allain: The lie because like they had an excuse every time you're like, there's something wrong here. It's a, 

Peter Ahn: yeah. 

Alex Allain: Preponderance of evidence that there is, 

Peter Ahn: there's like a pattern that builds up, you know? So, so I, I'd say that's the case. And like I said, I've never had a situation where, where a salesperson has lied on like business terms.

I. Right. Kind of like what you mentioned in the beginning, which is kind of fascinating. That happened. 

Alex Allain: Yeah. Well, maybe my friend can listen to this episode and send it to the sales team at this company and, uh, make some change happen. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. Maybe, 

Alex Allain: Peter, this is really fun. , I can't wait to see what we titled this episode.

, thank you again to all of our, our listeners. We are so glad to have you. If this episode resonated with you, please. Like it, share it, subscribe post on LinkedIn or that Twittery thing or whatever. 

Peter Ahn: Blue sky. 

Alex Allain: Yeah, blue sky matched it. I don't know. Wherever, just, you know, get the word out.

Tell people we'll, appreciate it. Leave U.S a [00:27:00] podcast review. Tell U.S the truth in that podcast review. Uh, ideally a five star truth, but you know, you do, you let U.S know what's the real talk. And of course, we're at de podcasters decoding sales podcast.com. Um, please send U.S a message and, uh, with that we're signing off.


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