Summary: There's a phrase that's been popularized in sales which says "buyers are liars." It refers to those who say they want one thing but end up buying another. I've never liked the phrase, and even though it's occasionally true, I believe there's another group that deserves the title much more in my opinion. It's the non-buyers who are often the real liars!<br> <br> <br> <br> David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast! Today co-host Chris Templeton and I will debunk the notion that buyers are liars. Welcome back, Chris.<br> <br> Chris: Hi David. You know, it's likely that every salesperson has heard this phrase and even said at a time or two, especially when things weren't going well. So, what makes you think, David, that buyers aren't liars?<br> <br> David: Okay. They have to prove their veracity in this podcast!<br> <br> Chris: Are you a truth teller?<br> <br> David: Exactly, yeah. I think if they're buyers, then it means that they bought something from you. So even if they weren't telling you the entire truth the whole time, you were at least able to get past it. So I think the fact that they bought something, the idea of saying that buyers are liars is rather insulting to the people who actually spend money with us. I'm far less concerned about saying that non-buyers are liars because in my experience in sales over the years, that really seems to be the case that people who don't buy from you, the people who string you along, waste your time and do all that sort of thing. They're the ones who are most often telling you things that just aren't true. So with buyers, you know you're able to get past it. So to me that means that most of the liars are the ones who are not doing that. Who are not buying.<br> <br> Chris: And from your standpoint, what do non-buyers tend to lie about the most?<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Need Help with This?<br> <br> <br> <a href="https://www.topsecrets.com/call/" class="button-style-2 button-style-2-green">Schedule a Call</a><br> <br> <br> David: Well, there are a bunch of things and they're all familiar to anyone who's been in sales for any length of time. They say they're going to call you back and then they don't call you back. They say they want one particular thing and then they buy something completely different from someone else. They say they're the decision maker and they're not the decision maker. There are all kinds of things. They'll say they'll make a decision by a certain date and then they don't. What else? They say they'll think about it. Anyone ever said that to you Chris?<br> <br> Chris: No, I've never had that said to me, and I've certainly never said it to any salesperson.<br> <br> David: Exactly, "I'll think about it." Right? And the reality is that even if we've said it ourselves, we'll think about it. Are we really going to think about it? What are we going to think about? And so, very often, even if we've done these things, we didn't mean to lie to somebody. And maybe in our own heads we didn't think we were, but nine times out of 10 whenever we've done any of those things, we just weren't telling the truth.<br> <br> Chris: Right, right. And it's easy to go down that road without framing it up quite that way, isn't it?<br> <br> David: Yeah, and without thinking of it like that, really it's less about deliberately misleading somebody and more about thinking, "Oh, well, you know, I just need to toss this around in my head for a while." And in a lot of cases people convince themselves that they actually think it's true. It reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where George Costanza says, “Remember Jerry, it's not lying if you think it's true!”<br> <br>
