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Moonsail Limited
Making Words Work For You |
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The Importance of Being Honest
My cousin always tells this great story about the time he resorted to slightly dishonest means when trying to sell his old car. There’s a good lesson to be learned here...
My cousin once owned a very old Mercedes Coupe which he advertised for sale when he realised he was making unfair demands on it as an everyday car.
Apparently, he took a call from an interested potential buyer at around 10am one Saturday morning. The caller wanted to view the car but he was also planning to see several other cars that day. Working from his map, the prospective buyer decided it made sense to visit my cousin late afternoon – around 4pm – so that’s what they agreed.
So my cousin had another quick check through the history file and documents to make sure everything was in order then walked outside and took a quick look round the car. He’d already spent the previous weekend cleaning and polishing so it looked pretty impressive but nonetheless he wanted to be sure nothing had been overlooked.
He’s still not sure what prompted him to look under the carpet in the driver’s footwell, although he seems to remember reading a ‘used car buyers guide’ that advised you to do this – but he was dismayed to discover he could see daylight through the floor. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to put off a potential buyer – especially if they’d just read the same used car buyers guide he’d been reading of course and decided to follow the same advice about lifting the carpet.
Thinking fast, he calculated he had about 6 hours to patch up the floor. Some chicken wire, perhaps some old newspaper, a little filler, a lick of paint, and it should be dry by 3pm. Enough time to put the carpet back down, make a cup of tea, and pretend it had never happened.
After mixing up a bucketful of filler, cousin positioned himself in the footwell, chicken-wire in hand, ready to fill the offending hole in the floor. About 5 minutes into the job, he was suddenly overcome by that spooky ‘someone’s looking over my shoulder’ kind of feeling. Sure enough, his potential buyer had revised his route and decided it made more sense to do it the other way round – making cousin the first vendor on the list rather than the last.
Bizarrely enough, there’s a happy ending to this story. Embarrassed at being caught red-handed with his vat of filler and pile of old newspapers (and assuming he’d lost the sale anyway) he came clean and confessed all. But as the car was otherwise in good honest condition, a deal was struck and the car sold.
There’s a lesson here. Be honest – don’t try to cover up faults. Don’t let one fault spoil an otherwise ‘clean’ product. In this instance, the customer still bought the vehicle because it was good in every other way. Remember your product (or service) doesn’t have to be perfect – but if it’s honestly presented, warts and all, you may still get the sale
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