Marketers Have Always Been Liars

Part 3 of a 3-part series on business strategy.

An old business saying, Mercator told readers of the May 1893 edition of Saddlery and Harness, goes, “Get money honestly if you can, but get money.”

It's an adage that can lead businessmen to lie.

But is it okay to tell customers a lie?

Mercator says, yes, in two instances.

First, it's okay to use "elastic terms of quality."

"In strict truth, only the best that can be made should be styled best," he writes, "yet we find in the bridle trade several qualities better, bearing such distinctions as best best, super, extra super, and so on. Here, though there is a departure from the truth, it is so well understood by the buyer that there is no deception, and therefore no dishonesty."

Second, it's okay to display “pretenses as to home manufacture.”

“Nowadays," Mercator writes, "the still so-called boot and shoe maker is only a seller or distributor, and in most cases sends even his repairs out, not needing to employ any workmen on his own premises. The same remarks apply to the soi distant watch and clock makers, whose only occupation is cleaning, not one in a thousand being able to make a watch or clock is it were to save his life.”

So it's okay to imply that you make what you sell, Mercator says—provided customers aren't deceived.

“There certainly are degrees of deviation from the strict truth which commercial customs almost compel everyone to conform to, and so long as the buyer well understands these things, and is in no sense deceived thereby, there is no dishonesty in practice.”

But stray afield of these claims, and you run the risk of discovery.

"The false pretense, although so common in so many trades, is always to be deplored, since it sometimes leads to false representation and untruth," Mercator writes.

"Where, as in the case of the so-called bootmaker, everyone knows the truth, no harm is done, but whenever a buyer is deliberately deceived and hoodwinked, then it amounts to dishonorable dealing. In all these matters the old Latin proverb should be borne in mind—Magna est veritas et praevalebit—the truth is great and will prevail."

Sound a tad quaint?

On his blog, Seth Godin writes, "When you are busy telling stories to people who want to hear them, you’ll be tempted to tell stories that just don’t hold up. Lies. Deceptions.

"This sort of storytelling used to work pretty well. Joe McCarthy became famous while lying about the 'Communist threat.' Bottled water companies made billions while lying about the purity of their product compared to tap water in the developed world.

"The thing is, lying doesn’t pay off any more. That’s because when you fabricate a story that just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, you get caught. Fast."

An Open Letter to Jeffery Boyd

Jeffery Boyd
The Priceline Group
800 Connecticut Avenue
Norwalk, CT 06854                

Dear Sir:

I am writing to you in your capacity as Executive Chairman of the Board of Priceline Group. I would like you to arrange a refund of $1,206.22.

On March 31, I arrived with my spouse at Dulles International Airport, outside Washington, DC, expecting to board a flight to Heathrow with tickets I purchased last August on Priceline.com (Priceline Trip Number: 203-791-090-42).

When we presented the airline the receipt emailed by Priceline, we were informed the tickets had been cancelled in September.

I phoned your customer service number and was informed by two different agents that the tickets had indeed been cancelled. They offered no explanation for why the tickets were cancelled (or by whom) and refused to refund the $1,206.22 I paid for the tickets.

My spouse and I purchased tickets with a different airline at the airport, so we could complete our trip, at a cost of six times the amount I paid Priceline.

The only previous communications I received from Priceline regarding the airline tickets were a purchase receipt and an itinerary, both emailed August 29, 2016. I'd be happy to supply copies of these, as well as the two customer service agents' ID numbers, should you need them.

I was brought up to believe a business that fails to render a service purchased in advance by a customer refunds the purchase amount, in full, and often with an apology. I trust you were brought up in comparable circumstances, and will refund my $1,206.22 immediately.

Sincerely,

Bob James

Create a Sensation

Part 2 of a 3-part series on business strategy.

"Sensation must be the keynote of all advertising," Mercator told his readers in the November 1892 edition of Saddlery and Harness.

In other words, go big or go home.

Tiny, timid ads don't pay off.

“A small everyday poster is not worth the cost of fixing," Mercator says. "Exactly the same may be said of advertisements in newspapers. A small one amongst hundreds of other small ones is not seen at all; only the large and showy ones draw any attention."

But why gamble on outdoor and print, Mercator asks, when you can use direct mail?

"The best and only sure and safe system of advertising is by addressing circulars from a directory of the town to every inhabitant at all likely to be a customer, and sending them through the post," he says.

"Advertisements on walls, and in newspapers, periodicals, and directories are what we may term promiscuous or indiscriminate. They are issued in thousands with the lottery chance of reaching or being seen by the hundreds or possibly only the tens; whereas the directly addressed missive goes like a faithful messenger at once and without fail to the person intended, and every message is seen if be not read, whilst the carriage of it by post does not cost a tenth part of the amount wasted by the indiscriminate method."

Sound too quaint?

According to Demand Gen Report, "Traditional direct mail is still an important means of communication among B2B marketers, and industry experts are seeing signs of its resurgence as a lead gen tool. This is due to marketers seeing better response rates to mail pieces, and leveraging it with other channels and disciplines such as account-based marketing for a targeted and integrated approach."

Horse Sense

Part 1 of a 3-part series on business strategy.

As the plethora of podcasts on the topic proves, freelancers' and entrepreneurs' craving for business advice is insatiable.

Those seekers of commercial know-how could do no better than Mercator's 10-part series, "Business: Reasons of Failure and Roads to Success."

It's not a podcast, but a series of articles that ran in the British trade journal Saddlery and Harness between August 1892 and June 1893 (the author took December off).

Who Mercator was remains a mystery; but that hardly makes his advice―tips on everything from advertising to time management―any less sound.

On the subject we'd call "focus," Mercator's advice is as pointed as any you'd hear from Seth Godin or Gary Vaynerchuk:

"Amongst the answers given by businessmen to the question as to the chief causes of failure occur the following," Mercator says. "'Unwillingness to labor and wait,' 'lack of perseverance,' 'haste to get rich,' 'undue haste to accumulate,' 'drifting,' 'unwillingness to achieve success in the old-fashioned way,' 'waiting for opportunities,' 'unwillingness to work persistently,' 'lack of appreciation for the opportunities of life,' 'unsteadiness of purpose,' 'lack of persistent application,' 'unwillingness to begin at the foot of the ladder and work up.'"

All these causes of failure, he says, amount to one thing: disdain for details.

"It is a common thing for us to speak of our great men as genii, and to suppose that a genius is a man who from his birth inherited a superiority of brain which was bound to carry him to excellence, when he took up the line of life he was especially gifted for," Mercator says.

"To a certain extent, and in certain cases this is undoubtedly true; but what definition did one of our greatest writers and scholars—Carlyle—give of genius? He said genius is nothing more or less than 'the capacity for taking infinite pains.' This, indeed, is the secret of the success of the most eminent men in all times.

"Take Newton and all the most celebrated astronomers; take Stephenson, Brunel and all the famous engineers; take Watt, Edison, and all clever inventors; take Sir Robert Peel, Gladstone, and most of the principal politicians and prime ministers of England; take great poets, artists, warriors, and all the men who have risen to eminence in the world, and you will find that they have almost all been famous for their industry, their patience and their perseverance."

Sound too quaint?

In 1995, Steve Jobs told Computerworld, “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

Misericords

Surrounding the chancel of the church where Shakespeare lies buried in Stratford-upon-Avon are 26 intricately decorated choir stalls that date from the 15th century, as I discovered on a recent visit.

Inside each is a misericord (from the Latin for "act of mercy"), a wooden ledge that allowed infirm priests to sit during masses and divine offices, without appearing to do so.

If you wonder why the little butt-rests were considered merciful, you must recall priests had to stand throughout two masses and eight divine offices, which they were required to attend every day.

Medieval people applied the word "misericord" not only to these little ledges, but to any kindness shown infirm priests, including gifts of meat during Lent and blankets during winter.

But mercy didn't stop with priests.

Seats for the infirm were also provided in churches to laymen. Church walls customarily featured built-in benches, where infirm parishioners could sit during mass.

It's from the custom we get the expression, "The weak must go to the wall."

"Victory is to the strong and the weak must go to the wall," Hitler once told a group of his officers, meaning, in our dog-eat-dog world, only the strong deserve to win.

Sadly, his sentiment is alive and well in Washington and many state capitals today.

Why pay for misericords, when our billionaire masters can have more?