A NEW IDEA IN MARKETING : HONESTY !!

Mr. Longaburger’s secret of success is he is considered one of the ruthless business people ever. He was ruthless, uncompromisingly honest, no matter the consequences.

The fable for millions but allegory for Dave Longaburger is the story of holy St. Aloyisius, which goes like this when Aloysius was child he was instructed by his mother to tell someone who had knocked the door that she was not home. He refused that he could not tell lie, this moral was taken very seriously by Dave Longaburger. Dave later founded a billion dollar company which makes basket woven by thin wood strip,.

Once during sales presentation, a lady was telling story about each of the basket produced by Longaburgers. One basket, she explained was used by Longaburger children to gather eggs from their hen house and designed to hold exactly 12 eggs. The audience was very charmed especially when it was demonstrated that indeed basket could hold exactly 12 eggs. Sales meeting was very successful but Dave didn’t look too happy which he later explained to lady by saying "we never had any chickens”, at this both laughed, but later she was told very seriously by Dave to stick to the facts next time. And here was a fork in the road. Dave set in stone on important principle,: Honesty and Truth were more important than sales and good sales story.

More importantly, if employee of a company tell lies to the customers, employees naturally will assume that the company also will lie to them. For eg: at one point the Longaburger company was in serious financial trouble and to save the company independent sales people and distributors were asked to accept lower commissions. They accepted without a single protest.Why? They knew Dave was not lying to them when they were told that the company was going under unless they could help him through this difficult period. Honesty and reputation for honesty are assets more valuable perhaps than money in the bank.Dave's good works will not soon be forgotten by the Dresden community who still remember the “ten cent millionaire” with admiration and respect.

Some people argue that honesty and truth are outdated, that you have to lie to survive because everybody lies. I think the opposite is true .Most commodities I know of become more valuable when they are rare. When all marketers are liars the smart thing is to become the only one who is telling the truth.