From the new media blog Risingline.com:
In my 15+ year sales career I've learned that one principle is by far the powerful: people buy from those they know and trust. Like many of the most profound concepts in life, this truth is simple and intuitive yet ignored by a vast majority of sales and marketing "experts". I sat through a couple hours of stereotypical sales training recently in which the instructor counseled, "If you can't be a good actor then you can't sell." No wonder sales people have such a bad reputation! Do I really want to be sold something from someone who is acting (i.e. lying)...why should I expect that my customers want to get an acting job when they read my marketing collateral or meet my salespeople?
Traditional advertising and sales are almost always based on acting...whether through outright fake sentiment or through some entertainment gimmick like Geico does. It's so established that advertiser embellish the truth on a regular basis that we've invented the special legal word—"puffing". It doesn't sound so bad as "lying" but means the same thing.
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