“Should I ask him (President Obama) if he liked DJANGO?”
Honesty is integral to successful selling. When that honesty comes into question, buyers become wary. There are many companies’ stock charts which reflect violations of trust. Even giants like Target experience security violations and lose customers’ personal information. Companies that acknowledge their mistakes usually make a comeback in sales. Companies that refuse to acknowledge their mistakes often do not recover.
Sony’s recent scandal is the perfect example. When a group of hackers revealed a large number of private emails, executive Amy Pascal was caught making a series of racially derogatory and generally offensive comments towards a variety of celebrities. She soon released a statement, saying “The content of my emails… were insensitive and inappropriate but are not an accurate reflection of who I am. Although this was a private communication that was stolen, I accept full responsibility for what I wrote and apologize to everyone who was offended.”
Authenticity and transparency are key in the selling process. Sony took a blow from this, and other leaked emails, costing them about $15 million to make reparations. Companies which fail to take action similar to Amy Pascal’s will be caught. Check out Amy’s Baking Company, for example; if your story is not true, you will be called out on social media or elsewhere. To put it simply, people want to buy from honest, trustworthy sellers.
testacr22
This was an interesting article. I found it particularly interesting that even though the negative comments from Sony were the result of a hack, the customers were still upset. This just goes to show that anything you do as an individual can affect business in a massive way. We are all representatives of our employers and our affiliations. In a sales position, personal mistakes and comments can have a large impact on your reputation as a sales person.
The news of all this hacking has to have several large companies and influential individuals scared. We all say and type things we don’t necessarily mean. Hackers are exposing people for things the might use in a joke or some type of confident boost.