Liar Liar

Today I test-drove a few motorcycles from different dealers. The last place I stopped at was Linex Yamaha in Cape Town. I asked the salesperson about the benefits of buying a Yamaha scooter, instead of a cheaper import such as Jonway. He started telling me how the Jonway scooter across the road has been standing in one spot because it uses a special sparkplug that can't be found anywhere (nonsense). I then asked him how the Yamaha XT660 compares to a BMW 650GS. He told me that it wildly outperforms the BMW 650GS and that the BMW will only go 140 km/h "flat-out". I don't know if it really does go as fast as the listed 176 km/h, but I did drive one last year and got it to 140 with plenty of revs to spare...

Now, I've met a few liars in my life. One of the things about compulsive liars is that they'll happily lie in front of you, to other people, gladly exposing their fickle art. What's even more bizarre is that the lies they tell are often insignificant and simply telling the truth would have had no bad consequences for them.

I think the reason why liars continue lying is that they're seldom confronted with it. I mean, I know when I'm being lied to, but often feel that I'd rather 'move forward' than accuse a liar of lying. Who wants to hear "You calling me a LIAR!?!?!?" being shouted at them? Or the less aggressive version: "I thought you trusted me?". No-one starts throwing their toys out the cot quicker than a liar being called a liar.

I think my message to compulsive liars here is this: We know you are lying. We might not say anything now, but we ain't gonna trust you much in the future.

Trust is probably the most important aspect of a successful business. Tell a few small lies to a handful of clients and you and your company will very quickly see your profits dwindling.