If the Truth Won't Sell It, Don't Sell It: transparency as an operating system
Todd Caponi on getting roasted for telling a client the truth, a sales history museum behind his desk, and why his most honest answer on a mental health show is that he has been lucky.
Todd has a sales history museum behind his desk, artifacts going back to the 1870s, and the punchline is that nothing has changed. The same fear drove the mail order panic of 1910 and drives the AI panic today. The 1911 books already said it: true salesmanship is the science of service. More information has never once made buying easier, which is the whole case for transparency in one sentence.
He has the receipts on his own philosophy. He told a client the truth, got roasted by the head of sales for it, and resigned the next day without a job to go to. A dog boarding disaster turned him into what he calls a transparency lunatic, and now he refers prospects to competitors when he is not the best fit and publishes his own one star review. His mantra comes from a 1921 book: if the truth won't sell it, don't sell it.
On a show about mental health, I want to be fair to what he actually said. The CRO years burned him out badly, an hour and twenty minute commute, two hundred emails a day, kidney stones, what he calls a bucket of goo. But when I asked him for the wound, his most honest answer was that he has been lucky. He refused to manufacture one for the format, and honestly, that might be the most transparent thing anyone has said on this show.
“If the truth won't sell it, don't sell it.”
Notes
- More information has never once made buying easier. The answer has always been service.
- Transparency is the closest thing to a magic bullet: do the homework, share the cons, help buyers predict.
- He resigned the day after getting roasted for telling a client the truth, without a job lined up.
- On a mental health show, he would not manufacture a wound he does not have. He says he has been lucky.