{"id":2143,"date":"2014-11-20T10:00:45","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T18:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=2143"},"modified":"2025-04-26T11:33:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T18:33:51","slug":"dont-make-assertions-that-will-later-prove-untrue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=2143","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t make assertions that will later prove untrue."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes it is easy for someone at the top of an organization to make a statement that, in the enthusiasm of the moment or to make a point, crosses the line between fact and fiction.\u00a0 Sometimes it seems to you to be just an unimportant little stretch of the facts. An estimate of the number of customers, of the amount of traffic to your website, of the numbers of products sold or hours spent in development – there are thousands of areas where a number sounds better when it is larger.<\/p>\n

Often, the number you state cannot easily be challenged, sometimes justifying the use of a larger number as a way to impress at potential customer, or make a point at an industry meeting.<\/p>\n

[Email readers, continue here…]\u00a0<\/em><\/span> In this age of readily available information, the risk involved in making a statement that can later be proved untrue is too great.\u00a0 It goes to your<\/p>\n

\"Available<\/a>

Available at berkus.com , Amazon Kindle, or any online bookstore<\/p><\/div>\n

credibility itself when discovered or challenged. \u00a0\u00a0And often, when someone discovers or uncovers the truth, you\u2019ll never hear of it, even as that person lowers his or her trust in your future statements by some level as a result.<\/p>\n

Yet, we have all done this in one form or another, some harmlessly, some with intent to deceive.\u00a0 An often-expressed example seems to come from the salesperson who quotes a larger number of users or customers than the facts support.\u00a0 Yes, we\u2019ve seen gray areas.\u00a0 In one example in an industry I know well, there are direct customers and then central systems that in turn support direct customers.\u00a0 The company in mind provides systems to serve both, but its salespeople count as customers all of the indirect customers served by the one system sold to oversee them.\u00a0 The result is an inflated number of total customers, which when compared to the competition counting only direct customers, makes the company look much larger and with greater market share.<\/p>\n

Is there any harm in this activity?\u00a0 Yes, in two ways, this hurts credibility and confidence.\u00a0 Competitors have every incentive to research the truth of your statements and every incentive to broadcast findings of inaccuracies.\u00a0 And the creator of the knowingly inaccurate statement will always be a bit wary about being challenged, sapping just a bit of energy away from other communications with the same constituents, and knowing that a previous statement is vulnerable to attack.<\/p>\n

It is best just to not make those statements in the first place.\u00a0 They probably don\u2019t do the job expected in enhancing the person\u2019s or company\u2019s reputation as intended anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes it is easy for someone at the top of an organization to make a statement that, in the enthusiasm of the moment or to make a point, crosses the line between fact and fiction.\u00a0 Sometimes it seems to you … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-protecting-the-business","category-surrounding-yourself-with-talent"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5749,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions\/5749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}