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You are here: Home / Blog / Deception in Sales and Business

Deception in Sales and Business

June 16, 2024 By maurasf

Deception in Sales and Business

Honesty is the best policy, but unfortunately you’re not going to always find honesty in business and sales.  Being able to detect deception in sales is a useful skill. Knowing who can’t be trusted or relied on is important if your goals depend on others. Here are some deceptions in sales that I’ve seen.  

Non-answers are deceptive. 

Working in a group presents challenges that are different to when you work alone. Your work success depends on other people. Have you noticed some people participate in group discussions, but when it comes time to taking Action Items, you don’t hear from them? That’s only part of their deceptive practices. 

One group member I worked with actually thought it odd to assign due dates to the action items taken. This group member was asked, “And when will you complete the task?” This person said, “I’m a hard worker and I complete my tasks.” No due date was forthcoming. This person then followed my confused look with, “I’ll do it soon.”  Soon is a non-answer and is deceptive. 

I explained that misunderstandings in business come from words that mean different things to different people. Soon to some people means tomorrow. Soon to other people means some time at the end of the month. How do you know what that person means? You don’t.

Worse, often people hear what they want to hear. When you want something soon and it’s promised to be delivered soon, you might expect it tomorrow. You will probably be disappointed when it shows up in 2 weeks.  

Quantified words like a date, a time interval like 3 weeks, or a number of hours are all specific and cannot be misunderstood. Be wary when you hear too expensive, a lot, a little and other non-quantified words. I always ask the person first when they think they can complete the task. They give me a date or time. That quantified date or time is then attached to the assigned Action Item.   

Delayed responses can indicate deception.

Notice how long it takes for the listener to respond to your questions. You may find that when you ask a thoughtful question about information or topic, the listener often pauses to think before responding. That’s not deceptive. That’s thinking.  It’s only deceptive if the answer should have been a quick answer, not one requiring a lot of time to construct an answer.  Pay attention to the time delay if not warranted for deception.

Eye movements can indicate deception. 

Most people process information through a preferred sense: sight, hearing, or feelings.  Different eye movements will indicate which sense they prefer. Most people are visual (sight) processors.  These people will actually look up and right or up and left when answering questions.  Right handed people typically look up and to the right to answer a question about the future. They look up and to the left to answer a question about the past.  

It’s deception when you are asking about the past and the visual processor looks up and to the right, effectively creating the future answer.  Pay attention to the types of questions you are asking, whether they are future or past, and watch for the eye movements that should match a truthful answer. 

You’ve got a lot to pay attention to when you are selling. Deception just makes it difficult for you to do your job. When you are able to spot deception you now have another selling tool to use. You won’t take those deceptive answers as fact and will know you have more work to do to learn the truth.

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About the principal

Would you take auto mechanics classes when you buy a car? Maura did because she wanted to be able to work on her car. She takes that same approach to selling. She can show you how to get below the surface of selling to learn why and how different strategies work. She will show you which skills to implement that will shorten your sales cycle and increase your sales. She was Mobil Oil's first female Lubrication Engineer in the United States and one of Chevron's top 5 salespeople in the country. She knows what works for sales.

"I would recommend your work to other sales organizations who want to get better results from improved selling strategies."
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Selling is the easiest job in the world. Just ask anyone who is not in sales. Read Maura’s ideas on “more brain…less mouth” selling to make your selling easier and more successful.

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