The economic crisis in the news is actually, underneath it all, a crisis of TRUST, not a crisis of money. Money is just the symptom.
Right now, banks do not even trust each other. That’s why boats full of perfectly good cargo are stopped cold in Singapore even though there are eager buyers and sellers on both sides of the ocean.
The chasm of distrust between sales people and marketers has never been deeper. People have such a strong expectation of sales people lying to them, they don’t even think twice about lying back to the sales people.
I believe that the marketers who do well in the next year or two will be those who earn (and genuinely deserve!) the trust of their customers. I am already seeing this clearly in the marketplace.
Those who see the earning of trust as merely the application of a technique or two will find themselves sliding downward, irreversibly. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all the time. When peoples’ BS detectors are on overdrive, sleaze doesn’t sell.
Ari Galper totally understands this.
Ari’s #1 principle, above all else he teaches, is:
—> GET TO THE TRUTH, NOT THE SALE. <—
The current economic mess happened because the motto in the financial industry was, “Screw the truth. Just get to the sale.”
There is nothing worse for you, for your career, for your life, or even the next sales you make, than being afraid of the truth.
Never fear the truth. The truth is ALWAYS your friend. Even if the truth is, your product is not a fit for the guy who’s talking to you right now. Smart bankers don’t give $500,000 homes to guys who have a credit score of 220. Smart governments don’t back those loans. Prudent lawmakers don’t throw more good money after bad.
In this video Ari Galper tells the story of how he came to this realization – when he accidentally caught a customer blatantly lying to him.
His entire approach to selling changed as a result, and he now applies these principles to both offline and online marketing.
This video gets to the core of the trust issues. Well worth watching:
http://www.perrymarshall.com/chatwise/
Perry Marshall
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
10 Comments on “This is a recession of TRUST.”
We’d all be a lot better educated if we hadn’t let government take over our childrens’ “education”.
My biggest mistake: sending my kids to public (most of time) schools.
We did, however, pick and choose among schools and offerings to suit our needs instead of the school’s.
Hi Perry,
Yes lies affect everyone…and are a form of violence.
I like what the philosopher (and direct response marketer in his own right) Jesus Christ said “Be in this world, not of it.”
Peace and profits to you.
I’m going to listen to your audio, Perry :) Let’s see what you have to say about ‘evolution.’ I know you’re as much excited about stuff as I am, and I’m more than keen to listen to your ‘pattern vs. design’ issue.
Um, I’m on the other side of the fence…just so you know. Which excites me to listen to what you have to say.
Then we can continue this discussion over coffee in Chicago in March :)
-Sean
I’m going to listen to your audio, Perry :) Let’s see what you have to say about ‘evolution.’ I know you’re as much excited about stuff as I am, and I’m more than keen to listen to your ‘pattern vs. design’ issue.
Um, I’m on the other side of the fence…just so you know. Which excites me to listen to what you have to say.
Then we can continue this discussion over coffee in Chicago in March :)
-Sean
I agree. When you think about it, the teacher must only appear when the student is ready. And often, it’s a bit premature to talk about business when the student is in school.
Their agenda is to ‘get rich.’ Of course, some dopes never work it out. That getting enough monetary resources are only part of the journey, but I fear that most people aren’t ready to learn these concepts in school.
I think the school system is adequate. Well I studied in India, and it was adequate there. And I don’t quite agree with the methods of teaching, I think the syllabus etc. is more than enough and that having other information such as direct mail will just confuse the issue.
Christian,
Teaching certain things in schools is not as beneficial as people often think.
If they had taught direct marketing in my high school or college I would have probably thought, “That’s dumb and boring”, not “Wow this is the coolest thing I have ever seen.”
I get a chuckle at the people who spend their lives fighting over whether creation and/or evolution should be taught in schools. I’m thinking hey pal, don’t you get it??? If some biology teacher who thinks Intelligent Design is really stupid is forced to present “both sides” to his students, you can be sure he’ll find a way to make the side he disagrees with look really DUMB.
If you support some form of creationism and/or disagree with Darwin, the best thing you can have in place is a law against talking about YOUR side of the argument in school.
Because what happens is, when you get a fair chance to *properly* present your pov, they’ve never heard it before. They haven’t been inoculated. (Inoculations are just weak versions of the rival organism, right?) Now you have the element of surprise on your side.
People say, “Wow, I never knew the standard explanation had so many problems. How come nobody ever told me THAT???”
Their discovery triggers an emotion that creates zealots and renegades. Which is what you’re looking for.
I for one am thankful that most people are ignorant of direct marketing, and that Claude Hopkins’ prediction of DM someday being pervasive was wrong.
The best kind of knowledge is a simple truth that is under everyone’s nose, and overlooked by all but a few.
Perry Marshall
P.S. On the topic of ID vs. Darwin, I think BOTH sides are amazingly right AND tragically wrong. The entire debate is misdirected. Go here for my own research on this topic. Many people, after listening to my 74 minute talk, say, “How come nobody ever told me THAT???”
Tia,
Telling the truth is NOT new. It’s considerably older than the Ten Commandments.
But it’s still new to a lot of people.
Malcolm Muggeridge said, “News is old things happening to new people.”
Scandals and financial impropriety have been happening for ten thousand years. The results are utterly predictable. They affect EVERYONE.
For me, getting to the Truth (of whether there’s a sale here or not…or the truth of anything for that matter) is a Universal principle that’s been in existence since the beginning of time.
That somehow this is new information does not ring true to me.
The reason relationships fail is because people get into them for the wrong reason(s).
There is another danger if trust among people reaches all-time lows.
It opens the door for abuse of our society by politicians by them applying a combination of “boiling a frog” and “divide and conquer”:
If groups A and B distrust each other, Mr politican sells to group A that group B has to sacrifice some little thing for the “good of the whole” and/or “because they have some priviledges they don’t deserve” and vice versa.
Then he goes to group C and says, groups A and B have done so and so much sacrifice and out of solidarity you have to sacrifice, too, plus with clever PR, groups A and B will support Mr politician to force sacrifices onto group C.
Rinse and Repeat until all groups in society are affected and then restart with group A for the next round.
For some politicians, the current economic crisis has a perfect timing: the terrorist threat does not work well anymore as a PR-vehicle to sell B.S. to the population, but the crisis is perfectly fittet as a replacement.
And it’s the same thing all over the planet. Every country seems to be affected by this…
In an online discussion group in my home country, somebody posted the following statement ( translated to English ):
“Slavery has not been abolished.
It has been modernized.
One group of slaves is pilloried due to alleged priviledges,
in order to evoke feelings of envy in other groups of slaves.
As soon as the conditions for one group have been worsened
“due to public pressure”,
it’s the next group’s turn.”
So much to the climate around here… And that’s a statement from one of the few who get it. Most people participate happily in bashing other groups…
***
So, if we stop to trust each other, somebody will take advantage of that.
It may be politicians who take advantage of that, but it may not be limited to politicians.
I know that this statement itself can harm trust because politicians are a group, too.
This just shows that the underlying problem can be hard to solve.
Chris
P.S. Thanks Perry, for getting to the root of the current crisis, which is lack of trust.
P.P.S. There is one great thing about learning marketing: It trains your B.S. detectors, so you recognize very early what’s behind some PR or statements from politics or somebody else. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why direct marketing is not taught in schools… :-)
My favourite sentence: “People have such a strong expectation of sales people lying to them, they don’t even think twice about lying back to the sales people.”
So true.
jim