Lying to get more money from your customers

It's true lying to your customer does great for sales - sad fact but it's true.

What they forget to tell you is even though your sales increase, so do you returns and so does the bad will associated with your product or service.

Some folks are only in it to make a quick buck and they do not care for their reputation - very short minded thinking. I like hopefully most warriors on here want to be around a lot longer, so it's not in my interest at all to over promise - rather I'm more interested in under promising and over delivering. A surefire way of impressing customers, keeping them happy and keeping them loyal.

Customers will realize when you are lying sooner or later and when they do, they will never ever engage you again and they will not recommend you to anyone.. i think you always have to be honest. Telling the customer that you can save money with him for example builds up a good relationship and the customer is more likely to recommend you.

Everyone needs to make sure they are in total integrity. That is their own responsibility. Money made by lying to people is not worth having as it is usually very short lived wealth.

~Olav

Online and offline marketing have 1 fundamental difference. Your reach potential.

Obviously, the internet is a global platform.

Running a business online naturally allows you to reach a huge audience.

Lying to this "huge audience" can pretty much kill you.

Unfortunately, honesty is a highly underutilized marketing strategy.

If your campaign is targeted and hits the right audience then there is no need to lie. I find that 4 or 5 short USP's are all that is needed on a page.

There is a very thin line between creating hype (sensationalism works) and flat out lying to your customers.

But I personally believe "lying" to your customers may get you a sale or two in the beginning. But its bad karma and will affect your success in the long run.

It took me a while to understand this... but If you focus on helping people first and not worry about sales too much.. You will find success.

Cheers

It's marketers like that which makes the FTC and all those other acronyms step in and regulate the Internet. On the one hand, marketing and deception go hand in hand. This is why advertising industry is a bit of a joke to others that don't have respect for it.

I wouldn't lie to prospects to get their money. My conscious would not allow it. I enjoy sleeping well at night too much to let this affect me.

In the end, the people who lie to make sales will get their comeuppance. Look at what happened to Don Lapre.

Carol, I think you've probably been in the CPA or offline section. This sort of advice can crop up anywhere, but those two seem to generate the majority of it.

PM me the link, please?


Paul

Your job - online or offline - is to act in the best interests
of your prospects and customers - at all times.

So, honestly inform them of their options up front before
they commit to a particular route.

A relationship built on deception will NOT last.

Look after your clients and they'll look after you.

Karma rules.

Dedicated to mutual success,

Shaun

I think having ethics and being honest in whatever you do goes a long way. There are highly successful warriors in here who over deliver on their products and support. Having those good qualities create good karma and you can sleep peacefully without worrying about what the consequences of bad karma would be

That's what people do, offline or online.

A bunch of desperate people willing to strip
away their morals in order to get one penny
or two...or to sell their next "snake oil"...

There's always bound to be dishonest
people. But I know that one day, all that
will rebound. I've seen it happen in
uncanny ways, and that's why our
forefathers say things like... "You reap
what you sow". It's always happened in
the past, and it does even now.

Call it mystical, karmical, whatever. I
believe that goodwill always comes back
multiplied (and sometimes
misunderstood)... But whatever. At least
you sleep well knowing that you don't
earn dirty money.

People make millions without doing
any of that in the first place.

Winston Tian

I would never do any business with anyone by lying - I really believe that will come back and bite you in the ass and that's just not how I like to do things

Two groups of people you should NEVER lie to
even through they enjoy it: Customers and
women.

"Have you lost weight?" "You look great in that
dress."

"You'll lose pounds by doing nothing." "You can
make millions by selling these dresses."

This doesn't justify lying but neither should you
ignore the fact that people like to be "lied" to. We
claim that we love the truth but we really don't.

-Ray Edwards

As troubling as it is to say, I do think that being dishonest actually does work to some degree in evergreen niches with high turnover rates of customers.

BTW, i am not for it, but does it work...yes.

Zig Ziglar quoted an old french proverb a good bit:
"there are more fools among buyers than sellers"

Essentially, on average, in any given market, the people selling are intellectually superior (about the given topic) to their average customers. This often times allows them to get away with stuff they shouldn't.

Of course it's wrong to lie to your customers but to form an opinion about the thread in question we would actually have to see it to get the whole story. Since outing people is frowned upon around here we will probably never know which thread you're referring to (without a little digging).

Lying to your customers just to make more money is not a good idea and it could definitely come back to bite you in the butt.

If you depend on repeat customers the only thing you should even bend the truth on is to under promise and over deliver, give your customers more than they think they're going to get.

The people you are talking about are probably in niches where they are not building a list or relying on repeat customers so they probably just try to get as many sales as possible at all costs but of course that doesn't make it right to mislead people.

I think building a business goes hand in hand with building relationships. Think of a building friendships. When you are in kindergarten you may lie to try and make friends, but before long, all kindergarten classmates will no you are a liar and you'll be friendless.

Or like trying to build a romantic relationship in junior high school. You lie to try and impress someone of the opposite sex, but you certainly won't keep them and if you continue with your dishonest stories, you'll be without a date for the prom.

What I'm trying to say is lying in any type of relationship building arena only leads to failure and I can't imagine why anyone would try to build anything on based on a house of lies.

I agree wholeheartedly with you Rosetrees.

Terra

It depends on the character of the marketer and if morality is relative.

For me, lying is always wrong, no matter what, and no matter what form it takes on.

Building a business on truth and integrity is the easiest method for me. I've slowly built up my income and have happy, loyal subscribers/customers.

I've not followed the advice of many fellow marketers....gone the slow and sure route that will allow me to sleep very well at night.

Wishing you all the best.

My personal integrity is worth more than money and I'd never lie to generate extra revenue.

lilpixie

Adam, It's gone, but I suspect the first post in the thread would have drawn some disagreement. Later posts were not so vague.

Some folks need to hope their clients never find out what they say on forums. They'd end up in court over some of this stuff if they actually did it to paying customers. Nope. And they have to look these hopefully-repeat customers in the face while they pull this one.


Paul

I think honesty prevails over lying to your clients. Your customer retention and referral rates will skyrocket. Yes, lying to your clients in the short term can make you quick money but leads to future instability.

A prime example is how the rebill industry boomed a couple years ago. Some of the large networks that depended on these kinds of offers only went bust.

Lying is looked down upon? Alright guys, I have something to admit. I'm not incredibly rich and famous. I'm only awesome on a more low key level. I'm sorry.

Seriously though, the fact that people can even discuss that kind of thing and with a straight face say "lying is OK" is ridiculous.

A very bad idea. Never did it by myself (I'm earning online since 1997) and will never do. Be honest and you will be rewarded in full.

P.S. If your customer thinks that your product did not meet his/her expectations, just refund it.

I agree with you completely. Its horrible that advice like that is given out.

While I agree that lying is wrong, are we not conditioned to accept that lying is ok, just look at the crap hole buy twitter / facebook and similar type ads that allowed to run here and other places.

All of them are crap, all of them are no more than conditional lies (it's ok to do this), they are fake, to do what ? enhance your reputation, give you a better community standing.

Yes it's all balderdash and its sold as legal lies everyday. the sellers just prey on the stupid and the stupid believe in the instant magic and fairy dust and while we all discuss the lies they continue under our nose daily.

Not to mention, not only is lying really bad for your bottom line in the long run but as with all deceptions, you would have to remember which lies you told to who and not get them mixed up...which gets pretty tricky I'm told.

Businesses built on lying are always short term where the intention is to run it through and make a lot briefly then vanish - only to reappear in a short while as a mutated version of what you were doing for another quick fizzle and on with the cycle of rename/relaunch every few months.

Well... I think this is a very important question. If you ask me, more often than not, when I have bought an IM product (specially when I started off buying), I found out that I had been duped with false promises of overnight money by some scam star. Lying to sell products is very rampant in internet marketing. However, there are many sellers who actually add value to their customers and only sell or promote good products

A lie is a lie whether you try to make it sound okay by calling it little and white.

No, I've never heard of a salesman calling his product rubbish but in my opinion a person of integrity would never want to try and sell rubbish to begin with.

With all due respect, my only hope with your "little white lie" success story is that you didn't decide to incorporate it as an ordinary method of doing business from that point on, and I'm not sure I would use it as bragging rights on a public forum either.

Once you lose the trust of potential clients in the business arena, it is a very hard thing to regain.

Terra

I'm no expert and not yet earning (only just started) but I can't see how there would not be long term consequences from lying. I walk into a high street shop. The assistant sells me a waterproof product. I take it out when it's raining and it leaks. I want my money back. I think twice about buying from that shop in future. I don't recommend them to anyone. I tell them what happened to me. How could that be good for business? Why would online markets be any different. If anything it would be even worse. There's no place I can go to see the manager and make a fuss. It's too easy to hide behind the email barrier so customers might even feel cheated of that option. I'm not a follower of the short term gain - long term pain market strategy (online or high street). I'd like to think there are more ethical methods of doing business online.

I would never try to sell anything that I had to lie about. Obviously once the customer receives the product in question they would most likely see any sort of inconsistency or dishonesty that was involved in the sale. Sure if they wanted to cash out on a one-shot kinda big launch and disappear forever go ahead, but they won't have any kind of sustainability or a following for future launches/promotions, which is MUCH more powerful. Why lie for a $10,000 launch, when you can be honest for a $5,000 launch, and years down the road, a launch 10 times as big.

Unfortunately we witness these lies on a daily basis, they land in out email inbox!
Magic bluets that can generate traffic with out you doing anything all on autopilot!
Or a software that will go do some mambo jumbo trick and utilize some loop holes on you tube or Google and will make you money and you will be rich next week this time beyond your imagination,

Well it is unfortunate but it does exist, Main reason for it not stopping? people who are so lazy and excuse me but so greedy that with a good copy you can sell them anything if you promise them that they will make money in no time....

and unfortunately the promoters and creators of such products the delivers nothing but lies, are the one who give out community a bad name!

that's why when you say Internet Marketing first word that comes the persons mind is SCAM!!

Lets change this , stop this bad habit, You want Money, fine work for it and by that I don't mean a 9 to 5 job, I mean take action, get a legit mentor and follow through, it will work
My 2 cents on this thread

Cheers

Its a harsh truth, but I do believe that lying to the customer forms part and parcel of selling these days. It's like walking into an electronic store checking out an expensive kit - and the sales rep will no doubt tell you that he too owns one of them and its brilliant, all to generate a sale. It happens everywhere.

I guess not providing any guarantees when selling an internet marketing product and just informing the customer what the possibilities are does not necessarily constitute lying, but just a good sales pitch. Obviously integrity is key, but defining it in reference to making a sale is difficult. However, one should do everything possible to maintain their integrity and an honest relationship with their customer. So if the customer is not satisfied, honour any money back guarantee.

Posted from Warriorforum.com App for Android

No! they won't be your customers for long.

Building a business on a foundation where you lie to your customers is a business built on sand.

What's the point in building a business like that. You can't even sleep well at night.

Rosetrees, I think you are being a little judgmental and disingenuous. I read the post you are referring to and what was being discussed was not including every service in a project so that the OP could charge for additional services. Not lying to the customer to make more money, but not giving up the farm and getting paid for additional services.

Like it or not that is standard marketing practice. No one should lie to their clients, but you should be able to present your services in a way which is most profitable to you.

Let's face it though. We are conditioned to accept lies. From a very young age we see lies all around us. We see them on the TV, we read it in the news, we hear it from the adults, the authority figures, government officials.

Every advertisement on the TV is a bloody lie. Your politicians are lying to you. Why? For money, power. Now, before you go bashing what i said, I'm not condoning it, i play no part in it, and i damn well question EVERYTHING before i accept it as true. People will ALWAYS lie to make money. That's the world we live in. You don't have to play the game, and it works both ways. You don't have to sell the lie and you don't have to buy it either.

People will continue to sell the lie as long as there are people gullible enough to buy it. I'm sure most people in this forum have been sold many a lie, but what you learn from that experience is what really matters.

Smart marketers work to create relationships. They realize it's the repeat buyers that make the difference to their business. Being honest, transparent and marketing your business with integrity is not only the right thing to do, but the most effective way to achieve success, long term. But, let's not deny the truth that liars and scam artists are all around us. As long as money and power are up for grabs, many will do ANYTHING to get it.

Can you really not see the contradiction in your statement?

Also, if you "never thought for a second it would work", you wouldn't have done it.

Clearly you are very good at lying to yourself...

I guess I would need a little more information on the situation your talking about. People should never lie it's simply dishonest and shot sighted as many have pointed out all ready, but as some pointed out some people just don't care.

On the other hand you can't really say that lying and cheating is short sighted. B/C there are people currently lying and building multimillion dollar businesses.

Lying is something that has become second nature to many people and marketers are not different. Sometime they don't even realize that they are doing it until someone lays it out for them.

I must say though there is a fine line between over hyped and straight lying. Marketers have a habit of hyping up there products and offers when they really don't live up to the hype, but hey who are we to tell someone they don't really think there product is that good and they should tone down the hype.

Being a good honest seller isn't always the case - sometimes people need to be good honest buyers and do there do diligence. If you had problems in the past with OTO then make sure you contact sellers before you purchase products in the future. If they want to sell then they will respond.

Lying to your customers is definitely a sure fire way to end your days of internet marketing. Though honesty truly is underutilized, it is a powerful tactic. Being honest and real with your customers helps you develop customer loyalty and trust. There's nothing better for a serious online business owner...

That is really horrible thinking you got. You should always make relationships and not scam them outright of their money.
I dont think this forum is the place you need.

This one is a hairy topic, specially in the IM niche where "unjustified hype" (AKA lying) is pretty much a daily bread and butter.

Where does "marketing stunts" and "promotional hype" end and where does lying begin? Every marketer knows from moral point when he's pushing it too far, but most marketers fail to be 100% moral when it comes to the actual implementation of their marketing. Why? because unfortunately (or not), that "over-the-top hype" does increase sales.

If you are lying to your customers, you'll end up with something like this: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...-customer.html - sooner or later... It's a Carma.

I feel that we should never cheat customers. In the part of the world where I am from, there is a proverb: "Work is Worship." If internet marketing is our work, then customers are our Gods, as without them, we won't be earning any money.

However, there are people who cheat their customers, and because of them, all of us lose our credibility.

Honesty is key to building an ethical business and having healthy relationships with your customers and/or clients. Lying does not get you far in business because it will catch up to you eventually.