In the last 20+ yrs, I’ve been on both sides of the desk (being sold to and selling). I think that, to your point, buyers sometimes lie or live in a fantasy world where they have more power than they do. At the same time, the stereotype of a sales person will to say *anything* to get the sale is embedded in our culture.

When I was the buyer in an equation, I often found my internal lie detector going off when I worked with sales people. And after I had established I could not trust an individual, I didn’t have a great deal of guilt in limiting how much information I shared. I often caught my reps in small mis-truths but would not comment on them — negotiation is, after all, about power and knowledge, right?

There’s another character on the show, Lie to Me, who has taken a “vow of radical honesty” — a bit of comic relief, but also an interesting counterpoint. We all tell little lies (or lie through omission) to grease the wheel of social interaction. No one wants to be around the 100% honest person, because we don’t want to look in a perfect mirror of our behavior.

BUT, I think that the sales person who is willing to peel back the facade of salesmanship….show humanity, share a foible, acknowledge a weakness ….creates a completely different relationship than the super-slick cliche of a “sales guy.”