You Have to Lie and Be Tricky to Sell Products

It's the old snake oil routine. Find out what people are worried about, sell them anything, and call it a cure. A certain number will get better, because faith heals. They'll attribute their better health to the snake oil and others will buy.

I'm not saying all former business was a matter of fraud. Many people in any age gave honest goods for the money they charged. Farmers sold milk and butter and eggs and vegetables in town. Carpenters built houses and stores. Bakers threw in a thirteenth roll when you bought a dozen, still do sometimes. But somewhere along the way a two-by-four got shaved back to 1½ inches. And you can't find a pair of cotton knee lengths anywhere in the mall.

All in all, throughout the industrial world, life has been a bit of a scramble, with winners and losers. Two things are true about that. One, some people haven't worked as smart as others. Two, smart entrepreneurs deserve the money they make. Anyhow, before the industrial age was even a teenager, there were new levels of rich and poor. I suppose if you didn't believe you had anything worthy to sell, you might decide upon trickery. Mark Twain used to love to write stories about how a couple of swindlers came into town and found enough fools to make a killing before the town caught on. But I can't think the swindlers had any kind of a life, always having to move on before the sheriff came to find them. No friends, no community, no trust, no truth, no salvation.

It may have been Carl Sandburg, Chicago's wry poet, who said, "Only the rich can afford salvation." The poor seem to have to give up their ethics in trade for the barest survival. An example would be a young woman such as Moll Flanders, raised in an orphanage and surviving as a prostitute. Or any number of Dickens' characters.

Are there, on the internet today, snake oil salesmen, swindlers, and forms of prostitution such as viruses, identity theft, and a host of scams? We know there are. These shady activities have grown from the seeds of the weeds our ancestors sowed, one of which was the idea you had to lie and be tricky to make it.

You and I have choices Moll Flanders and The Artful Dodger didn't have. When I consider the careers of Kendall Summerhawk, Susan Liddy, Jeff Johnson—none of whom are paying me a cent to mention their names—when I watch how successful internet entrepreneurs turn around and offer a helping hand to anyone who wants to make it on the internet, it makes me downright cheerful. I know success comes with ethics, truth, and spirit.

By Patricia Lapidus

You Have to Lie and Be Tricky to Sell Products