Capitalism breeds an extremely strange business environment. I used to not think it was true... or maybe hope that it wasn't true, but it is. Capitalism. Took a trip to one of my favorite
pages to learn some stuff.
Capitalism is pretty much what everyone would expect it to be... economic system blahblahblah. And
capital is also pretty much what you'd expect it to be... basically wealth used to gain wealth. Only
-ism was really all that interesting. I always sort of knew what "-ism" meant, but I don't think I've ever really looked it up. For those too lazy to click the handy-dandy link, it's basically theories, doctrines, beliefs, acts... So that turns Capialism into something like "my belief in the pursuit of wealth for the purpose of gaining wealth." That doesn't sound as good I I thought it would. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Business is strange. Our sales guys inflate our numbers all the time to make us look better to other potential clients. We send emails and letters to our competitors pretending to be someone else so that they will maybe give us some secret or weakness about their product. The way it sounds, our product is perfect and can do everything. And why? Because we want money. Quite obviously.
So maybe we have 1500 stores running the software. Maybe if you include everyone who's going to start with us over the course of the next year. And it would be totally cool if it was presented that way, but it's not. "We have 1500 locations." Might be true. What's more true is "We have 1000 locations and expect another 500 by the end of the year." Both are fairly impressive, so why tell the pseudo-lie for the extra %.005 growth you might see in your customer base?
And yes, maybe we really are interested in purchasing our competitor's products. But I doubt it. So, we'll give them a fake mailing address and send our email from a different account. And instead of saying that we're interested in learning more about it, we're going to make sure they tell us by saying that we want to know more about their product BECAUSE WE WANT TO BUY IT. So now at least I know, if I ever start a business, to be wary of all customer requests for information. Great.
And then there's the actual sale. When we started, we had nothing. We sold an idea and a promise. Really it's quite amazing. Powerpoint presentations of stuff that didn't exist... "Vaperware" it was dubbed. It was awesome. Telling customers that we can do something when we really had no idea, then finishing at 10:00 at night to meet the deadline and earn the "see, I told you we could do it" brownie points from the customer. Now that we aren't sinking, that feeling has somehow disappeared. Now it's often "yes, our program does that" to the client, and "how fast can we make our program do this?" to our pretty amazing tech team. And then other times, we vouch for things that simply don't work. All to make the potential customer feel secure and as though not buying our product will cost them money.
It might be true. Most of the time I think it is... that we can, in fact, help save companies money. Our software is the best on the market. It's FAR from perfect, but it's the best thing I've seen. So why do we have to inflate numbers and tell half-truths and sometimes outright lie to get customers? We're trying to change our image to that of an established company. Being a start-up was easy. It was ok to tell people that %50 of what they want isn't on the horizon. But now our reputation is more at stake if we put our flaws and shortcomings on the table. We want to seem stronger, bigger, more centralized, tighter, and sturdier. For some reason it's ok to make most of that up. Just to make money.
And while I don't presume to speak for the personal motivations of anyone here, I think the general theme probably applies to most businesses. Just get the customer to buy. Once we've got them, they won't leave. And once they've bought, we'll have more money to hire more people to make more customers buy to get more money to... ad nauseum.
I found this
quote while looking at some sales books on amazon.com
"Of course, if the customer doesn't need your product, then maybe you need to learn some of those "hard-ball sales" techniques (or find a better product!). No amount of customer empathy, listening, or product positioning will help you overcome a customer-product mismatch. Which brings me to a point:... I think playing hardball has a place in negotiations; remember, the party you are negotiating with doesn't always have to feel warm and cozy inside in the process. A true persuader will know when to be soft and fluffy and when to apply the pressure."
I guess you have to see customers mostly as sheep or imbeciles. It doesn't work to simply lay your product on the table and let the customer decide. They're too dumb, and they just won't understand how my product will help them. We've got Spin Selling, Eight Truths of Marketing to Women, Solution Selling... Even the one book I had hope for (No Lie - Truth Is the Ultimate Sales Tool) is billed as a book that "explains why the most effective salespeople know how to transform their product or service's negatives into positive selling points, or even bragging points." and I find out that the title is more sarcasm than anything...
Very very frustrating world... It would seem to make sense for companies to have more of a symbiotic relationship with one another than a parisitic one. But no one wants to pay on a percentage of profits for some reason. And, of course, one company can't work for another w/o getting paid something. And all that would do is turn both companies against the rest of us - the every day consumer. I know that socialism doesn't ever quite seem practical, but I really wish we could found society in general on an "-ism" whose benefits were more communal than personal. Really, it seems as like human nature destroys any similar idea before it even gets off the ground. ahhhhhh... it's evolution, Baby.
and holy crap this is long...
Labels: Capitalism