Is Lying Just a Normal Part of Sales?

Good Morning. According to a new WSJ article, the job market is so tough right now that candidates are paying recruiters to find them jobs. It's called "reverse recruiting," and some people are shelling out $1,500 a month + 10% of their first-year salary just to get someone to submit applications on their behalf. So if you're complaining about having to do your own prospecting…at least no one's charging you for the privilege. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

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Elon Musk promised fully self-driving Teslas by 2020.

Then 2021. Then 2022.

It's 2026, and your Tesla still can't drive itself to the grocery store without adult supervision.

Does that make Elon a liar? Or is he just aggressively optimistic?

And more importantly… is that the same excuse you use when you tell a prospect that a feature is "on the roadmap"?

Most sales reps dance on this line. You believe in your product. You know the team is working on something. And you have a quota to hit.

So when a prospect asks if you can do X, you say "we're building that right now" instead of "no."

It feels like optimism and confidence. But there's a version of this that crosses into territory that will blow up your deals, your reputation, and your career.

Let’s break it down.

Elon gets away with aggressive timelines because he's selling a vision.

He's the CEO. He sets the direction. When he says "next year," the market largely interprets that as aspirational and exciting.

You, the sales rep, do not get that same grace period. When you tell a prospect a feature is coming in Q3, they write that into their business case. They put their trust in you, and they build a plan around it.

Your "optimism" becomes an expectation in their mind, and when Q3 comes and goes with nothing, that’s a problem. In their eyes, you lied to them.

The distinction matters: a vision is directional. A promise is specific.

Saying "we're investing heavily in that area" is a vision. Saying "that feature ships in eight weeks" without confirmation is a promise you had no authority to make.

A lot of salespeople get themselves into trouble without even realizing it.

They never say anything technically false. They just leave out the parts that would change the buyer's decision.

Your platform integrates with their CRM, but you don't mention it requires an additional service fee and three months to set up. Your tool might handle their use case, but only at the enterprise tier, which they probably can’t afford. You didn't lie. But you withheld the information they needed to make a real decision.

Which is probably why a study found that 80% of customers think that salespeople lie to them. We’re fighting an uphill battle, but we don’t have to lie to be successful.

Before you say something (or withhold information) run it through one filter: if my prospect found out the full truth tomorrow, would they feel misled? If the answer is yes, you're gambling with someone else's trust.

Optimism sounds like: "That's a priority for our product team, and I can get you a conversation with them to talk through timelines."

Lying sounds like: "Oh yeah, that's coming out next month", when all you saw was a Slack message from an engineer three weeks ago that vaguely mentioned it.

You can sell with conviction without lying or misleading prospects. In fact, the most successful reps I’ve worked with, who consistently close the biggest deals, are the ones buyers trust enough to come back to.

Be optimistic about your product. But don't let your commission check write promises your company can't cash.