The Importance of Honesty in Sales Conversations

The other day, a coaching client pointed out how difficult it is when buyers don’t share their budget.

You know how it goes. A potential client reaches out about a project, but they clam up when you ask about their budget. They want you to throw out a number first so they can shop around and compare prices.

This sets up a relationship built on half-truths from day one. When a buyer won’t share their budget (or even a rough range), they’re asking both of us to play a guessing game that helps no one.

When I have to guess at a budget, I play it safe. I hold back on suggesting certain resources. I build in extra cushions to protect myself. And the buyer holds back too, unsure how much they’re really willing to spend.

The client wants to get the most for their money, and I want to give the client the best value possible. But we can’t do either if we’re not honest about money from the start.

The best work happens when we can discuss what services cost and what’s possible. When both sides are open about money, we can focus on getting a great show done instead of playing pricing games.

I wrote a blog post about this back in 2022 when we were in a seller’s market. 2024 has seen the return of a buyer’s market, but the same principle applies: Honesty is the best policy.

The Importance of Honesty in Sales Conversations

I once had a client, an Air Force recruiter, who had a mobile theater with a blended video screen and three projectors. Things were never perfectly aligned because the setup traveled around in a trailer, which caused a lot of problems. They wanted a better solution.

Rather than going to an integration company, they came to a show company because they figured a show company would understand their issues better. They were right.

We proposed a solution: One projector with a single short-throw lens would eliminate all their problems. I then gave them a budget based on a projector that my supplier recommended. They agreed to the budget and wanted to see the projector in action, so we set up a demo.

The supplier’s salesperson showed up at the demo with the video projector, and we set it up in our theater. The Air Force guys were all nodding and smiling, impressed with how well the solution worked.

But about halfway through the demo, I found out that the projector my supplier brought was not the projector I had quoted.

The salesperson came to me and explained that the projector he’d brought was a little more expensive, and he hadn’t realized the clients already had pricing. Honest mistake.

Meanwhile, the clients were already talking about timelines and benefits and how this would change what they needed on site. I had to interrupt.

I said, “Guys, I’ve got to tell you, I just found out that this projector is different from the one I quoted you. The one I quoted you would work. This one clearly works extremely well, but it’s also about 10% more expensive. I apologize for the mistake.”

The clients were so happy with both my honesty about the mix-up AND the way the demo projector worked that they dismissed the mistake and ended up treating it as a benefit.

The poor, horrified salesperson had been expecting the deal to completely fall apart. Why? Because I wasn’t going to hide the mistake. He came up to me afterward and said, “I’ve never seen a sales technique like that before.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You just told him the honest truth.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And now everybody’s happy, and we’re moving forward.”

It was that simple. I spoke up and told the truth. Problem solved.

There were certainly other avenues I could have taken that would have covered up the mistake. For example, I could have:

• Found ways to increase the price of the overall sale through add-ons to make up the price difference
• Eaten the cost and accepted a much lower margin
• Split the difference with the supply salesperson so we made the sale but both took a lower margin
• Provided the original (lower-end) projector without acknowledging the mix-up to the client — but even mentioning this one makes me cringe

So why didn’t I do any of these?

Covering like this just isn’t sustainable. What if the recruiters had ten more trailers they wanted to switch over? Would I employ one of these unnecessarily complex solutions every time? And could I remember all the fibs that went with it?

It’s so much simpler just to tell the truth.

Benefits of Honesty in Sales Conversations

Everybody’s heard the old cliché, “Honesty is the best policy.” The thing is, clichés become clichés because they’re true. And this one is true all the way to the bone.

Here’s a partial list of reasons for being brutally honest in your sales conversations:

• The truth is easier to remember than all the fibs you could tell.
• If you need to use subterfuge to win a piece of business, then there’s something terribly wrong with either the buyer, the seller, or both.
• What you want in a customer is honesty, and that’s what they’re looking for in you as well.
• Honesty eliminates any guessing games.
• If you expect honesty, you’re obligated to give it.
• Honesty is a prerequisite for long-term relationships.

And my top reason:

• Honesty is the superhighway to best-fit customers.

Being brutally honest filters non-ideal customers out of your life and attracts those who are the right fit. The sooner you can determine an opportunity isn’t ideal, the sooner you can spend your time and energy on the right opportunity. Honesty is the best way to get there.

A Seller’s Market Makes Honesty Easy

In a seller’s market, demand exceeds supply, and you’re in the driver’s seat.

In a seller’s market, you can be a bit braver than in a buyer’s market. There’s no better environment to try out some brutal honesty. Because clients have fewer options, it’s much harder for you to lose business.

(If you’re worried about telling the truth and losing business in a seller’s market, it tells me it’s business you should lose.)

Then, when you find out what the payoff of being honest really is, your fear of being honest will fade away — fast.

A Buyer’s Market Makes Honesty Valuable

In a buyer’s market, honesty is still the best policy. It’s that breath of fresh air many customers want.

An honest conversation is a fast way to weed out bad-faith dealers: potential buyers who don’t want to be honest or deal in good faith. Either eliminate them from your life or convert them to a better way of doing business. It’s up to you.

3 Ways to Insist on Honest Sales Conversations

To get started in promoting honest sales conversations, here are a few tips:

1. Insist the customer give you a budget. If they can’t, help them define a budget range.
2. Insist on knowing where the customer is in their buying process. Respond appropriately to their stage of buying (i.e., don’t write a 25-page proposal if they’re just shopping prices).
3. Live by your scope of work. There should be limitations in what you sold. You sold at a finite price. There are only so many times you can say yes at that price.

Let’s just own it, cliché or not: Honesty is the best policy. It keeps things simple and makes everybody happy.

Give brutal honesty a try. You’ll be glad you did.