The Truth Experiment in Software Sales

Mark Stuyt was once a salesman for Peoplesoft, the enormous software company that makes an octopus of interlinked applications to run the administrative functions of large companies. A few years ago he embarked on what he called The Truth Experiment. Then he wrote about it for Canada’s Backbone magazine.

For years I wondered to what extent telling the absolute truth would impact my sales results. So, partly as a creative strategy to make the mundane task of flogging Enterprise Resource Planning software more interesting, and partly as a self-imposed social experiment, I committed to telling the complete truth to customers for an entire year. You read correctly. The absolute truth. Not the watered-down, it s not a lie if you really believe it in your heart, acts of omission don t really qualify kind of truth either. I committed to being completely honest and forthright in each interaction I had with my customers and prospects for the entire year, and I was prepared to risk my income to satisfy my curiosity. Little did I know at the time that my self-indulgent experiment would ultimately lead me to resign from PeopleSoft and move my family to Mexico.

When asked to participate in dysfunctional Request for Proposal (RFP) processes, I declined. When asked to share my opinion on product quality and stability, my responses were not filtered through a corporate agenda. When I discovered customers making undisciplined and/or naive decisions that would result in expensive long-term ramifications, I gave them clear guidance. When asked a direct question during a sales cycle, I told the truth. That being said, I didn t wield the truth like a club. I was professional, appropriate and sensitive to the position and objectives of the individual I was speaking to; but I told the truth…

Mark’s story rings true to me in many ways - the imbalance of the vendor / customer relationship, the deceit companies engage in with vendors, the deceit vendors engage in with companies and the rewards both parties can reap from that deceit. I’ve always been very suspicious of the phrase, ‘That’s business.’ By which I mean that I don’t like it when people rationalize their actions because what they’ve done occurs in a business context. By extension then, anything goes?

One of my driving desires in starting Work Industries is that I swim on my own, having chosen the people I want to work with as partners and clients, and having acted in a way I believe in. I hope I’m strong enough and fortunate enough to make it work as I believe it should.

If you’re interested in learning more, check out the about Work Industries section, and our guiding principals. Then let me know what you think.

(Thanks to Jürgen Ahting of E-Valuation of Information Systems for the link to Mark Stuyt’s story.)