RockysRevenge

Account Executive

Fire Starter

Contributor

Lying to get an appointment

What's up degenerates?!

Recently my manager asked me to lie to people

in organizations in order to get an appointment.

E.G. call the wrong department and say you were supposed to go to x department or to call main number and say the department called you and it got disconnected.

I personally feel VERY conflicted about this and won't do it full stop. I'm not judging y'all, but I'm curious to see how common this is.

Curious to see your anwsers and absorb your collective wisdom.

Cheers

Would you lie to get an appointment?

Attached poll

yes no

*Voting in this poll no longer yields commission.

🧠 Advice

21 comment

Sort by:

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

As far as lies go, these are pretty minor. I don't see how either of these shady tactics even help you get appointment, honestly.

RockysRevenge

Fire Starter

Account Executive

Agree, not only are they minor they are useless.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Being a useless tactic is the major crime here.

CoorsKing

WR Officer

Retired King of the Coors Knights

Ok. The above, I do all the time. But lie about products/features/roadmap? Never - that shit comes back to haunt you.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

No. Transparency always.

Beans

Big Shot

Enterprise Account Executive

That's just weak social engineering - nothing wrong there.

TheNegotiator

Arsonist

VP of Sales

I voted, and I was shocked at the way the poll is going, so obviously this is a good question.

My answer is and always will be like 3,000% yes.

Referencing specifically the example you’ve used, it’s often quite difficulty to get to a decision maker. So, pressing 6 to reach accounting and then apologizing and saying “hey Charlene, so sorry but I was trying to reach Chris and I pressed the wrong number”… it’s a lie. A bold faced, outright lie. I value my integrity, I don’t see myself as dishonest or as a liar, and I will use that tactic until the day I die.

You’re a 9 second interruption to someone’s day, which they will never remember. Your intention is to add value to their organization, and reach someone who might otherwise take hours or weeks or months to reach.

Tbh, i’m thrilled to hear that there are people who see themselves above the tactic, because it just means I’ll have paperwork signed before you ever even reach the prospect.

The lie you tell is virtually insignificant and has no tangible impact of any kind - positive or negative - on the individual or the organization. Why not?

What we do is hard, and then you’re choosing to go and cut your own legs out.

I mean you do you, you obviously feel very strongly about this, but I wouldn’t even blink. I’ve done it 2000x and I’ll do it another million X before I die.

Lie about a product, feature, capability, price, billing, etc? Fuck no. Never. Set expectations clear as fuck. Go out of your way to clarify shit.

But use harmless white lies to get ahead? Sign me up.

369DocuSign

Big Shot

Sales Director

I meannn you WERE trying to reach Chris, and you DID press the wrong button, it just wasn't an accident, so where's the lie technically?

washedD1soccer

Politicker

Regional Sales Manager

Your manager may be okay with that but don’t cross your own ethical boundaries. You can do things the right way and still have success. In fact, you’ll most likely have more long-term success by doing the right thing rather than all the sleazy used car salesman.
Your manager doesn’t sound like someone I would respect. I hope you are making a lot because I would be careful being mentored by this person.
I dealt with some of this in my early B2B years. It’s sadly very common. I got my experience and padded my resume then got the hell out.

TheNegotiator

Arsonist

VP of Sales

Honestly, just my humble opinion, but this is the kind of goody-two-shoes BS they teach you in school. And as we know, school was designed to create workers and followers. Not winners and leaders.

If anyone actually believes that reaching a prospect more easily while causing no harm and doing no damage, is greasy car-salesman shit, then you should probably also stop watching TV and playing Fantasy sports, because sloth and gambling are the devils tools.

If you can describe a single long term benefit from creating more work for yourself for no other reason, than to create work for yourself, I’d love to hear it.

The saying goes “work smarter, not harder” - I even believe you can work smart AND hard. But working dumb and hard don’t make no sense yo

washedD1soccer

Politicker

Regional Sales Manager

My main point is to not cross a line if you as the sales rep do not feel comfortable crossing it. Ultimately, everyone has their own “style.” If you think the ends justify the means, then good on you but I respectfully disagree. The way I go about my work is how I sleep well at night. So far my “goody two shoes” approach has landed me a decent amount of success just as I am sure you are also successful with your approach. I think I’ll stick with mine though.

RockysRevenge

Fire Starter

Account Executive

90/180 right now. I don’t respect him and I’m going to work my ass off without this.

dwightyouignorantsale

Politicker

Account Executive

Even if this tactic were to work and you were able to set an appointment, it probably would not go anywhere. The prospect would feel bait and switched and they wouldn’t be joining the meeting with the mentality of evaluating.

I_LOVE_WINE

Executive

Enterprise AE

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." Nope, it's a small world, you never want to be branded as a liar.

countingmyinterest

Politicker

Account Executive

It's a white lie, could be an honest mistake. Been guilty of using that before hahaha.

If it's not a lie that could be deemed offensive or obscene, I can overlook it.

SaaSam

Politicker

Account Executive

I used to bullshit prospects about using their products when it was maybe true 5% of the time. Worked almost every time. If the potential sale was big enough and whatever they sold wasn't completely useless I might buy some and email a pic of me using/consuming it.

NotCreativeEnough

Big Shot

Professional Day Ruiner

Lying to get an appointment sounds like a really good way for it to never amount to more than 30 minutes of your time wasted when the prospect realizes you lied

Courage_the_Dog

Personal Narrative

Key Account Manager

I spent 3 years of my 20s selling copiers. I call this time my 'sales academy' time as I learned a huge amount about b2b sales, prospecting, self managing, how to make money, how to close a deal... etc. If there was one thing I learned (and was quite fond/proud of) was how many buildings I was escorted out of.

No-one wanted to talk about copiers... seriously! All the businesses had/needed them to do business but no-one wanted to discuss the 'latest and greatest' copier. It was brass knuckles, beat the price, offer better service when shit breaks kind of thing.

I would tell white lies all the time to get past the gatekeeper to the decision maker.

Examples
'I know you are not happy with the service provided by XXX and I can get you happy.' (no idea if they had xxx or whatever but EVERYONE always hated the service they received for their copier)
'John and I spoke a few years ago and he said to follow up this year as your existing contract would be expiring and he was interested in options' (I would search Linked In for job titles and see who was in that position BEFORE the person in it now and reference the old person in the appropriate timeframe)

I don't find this to be a 'moral issue' at all as I'm simply trying to get a sit (or appointment) It's not like I'm saying 'yeah this connects with Oracle' when it would not.

BDR/Prospecting is it's own world. In the end there are those who want it to happen, those who wish it would happen, and those that make it happen.

paddy

WR Officer

Director of Business Development

yeah lie who gives a fuck

Annonny

Big Shot

Account Executive

I read this wrong lol. Its like half truths lol

369DocuSign

Big Shot

Sales Director

I am 100% about honest and ethical business tactics, so NEVER lie about anything that matters (price, product, all that jazz).

BUT if cold phone outreach is how you make money and you're not getting creative in your phone tree navigation, you're probably not making much money. The GK in the front office gets 50 cold calls a day and knows how to send them all straight to VM graveyard. If you can't find a way to get in with the right contact then you're not making your sale. If that happens often enough, you're not hitting quota. You can explain your ethical dilemma to the payroll dept, maybe they'll give you a brownie point for being such an upstanding member of society, but I'd bet they still aren't going to pay you out.

That said, game recognizes game, so hitting '1 for sales' in the phone tree generally gets me where I need to be from a cold prospecting call.

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

Press Careers

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.