Albert Einstein was once introduced to the eighteen-month-old son of a young friend. The infant looked into the old physicist’s wizened face and promptly began to bawl.
“You’re the first person for years,” Einstein declared, patting the child on the head, “who has told me what you really think of me.”
Here is the thing, if you have your own business, especially if it involves any freelance related work, you will at times be asked to give an honest review, or an honest opinion on something. It may be a web design, a business plan, a marketing strategy, a logo, or an idea… but we all know that giving our 100% honest opinion is a little dangerous.
It doesn’t matter how much people insist they are looking for constructive criticism, a deep part of them is still seeking re-assurance.
So what do you do in this situation?
Do you tell the brutal truth, even if it sucks, and even if it is to potential client? Or do you try to show them that you are honest and speak your mind?
I would love to hear what you would do in this scenario.
Please use the comments form and let me know your approach to these situations.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Chuck // Aug 4, 2007 at 10:13 pm
This is great . It means someone has hired you to review their site for a million bucks.
I’ll bet your knees are shaking and your losing sleep.
I would like to be able to tell the brutal truth but I am tooooo nice of a guy. However Simon Cowell gets paid well to do the exact thing you are talking about.
Is the high level music/entertainment business any different than high level internet marketing. I personally don’t think so.
2 Steven Henderson // Aug 5, 2007 at 12:44 am
Now there’s a question - would the honesty quotient vary with the review price tag? I guess for a really honest review you need to pay up front!
I once made a living in the consulting arm of a major accounting firm. The larger corporates would often call us in to review (and endorse) some project or investment proposal. Motives combined buck passing and ammunition to get the proposal approved internally.
There’s a gender issue to consider too. This may be a politically incorrect sexist assertion but (in my experience) women do tend to a higher proportion of reassurance requests compared to men. Maybe a safer way to phrase this is that men tend to thicker skins!
Classic example - imagine you are standing in the hall about to go out with your wife and she asks you how she looks. Now it’s a REALLY dumb guy that would even consider telling the truth here. All parties involved understand that this is a call for reassurance.
Consequently, the manner of the response is as important as the content. The reassurance has to be convincing. Even a minor hesitation is fatal.
Professional occupations often include an element of genuine enquiry if they stand to lose bigtime through publishing anything embarrassing. Medical, legal and acountanting professionals routinely seek honest peer review - their pride is cheaper than a professional negligence damages action.
Software geeks too can control their egos re coding bugs - because everyone in their peer group accepts that bugs are a fact of life. It’s no longer an embarrassment - just a chore to get past. If a fresh mind can help nail a stubborn bug then “bring it on” is the mindset.
Personally, I’d prefer to nip bad news in the bud with an honest review but maybe I’m just naive.
Steve
3 Nick The Geek // Aug 5, 2007 at 8:30 am
Nope … I’ll always tell the truth.
If you’ve been hired by someone to improve any aspect of their business, you’ve got to be truthful otherwise you’re doing them a disservice.
So long as you can give a reason *why* what they’re doing is either wrong or hasn’t had the desired effect and you’re explaining it in a way that doesn’t make them feel stupid, you’re OK.
4 Robert // Aug 5, 2007 at 11:32 am
tell it like it is…the question is whether to be brutal or tactful…like if someone has bad breath do you offer them a breath mint or say “hey! your breath smells like sh!t.” either way you’re telling the truth. one way is just a lot more tactful than the other.
avoiding the truth in the short-term only leads to bigger challenges somewhere down the road so just tell the truth. who knows, the person asking the opinion might be testing you to see if you have any balls.
5 Jimmy Adames // Aug 5, 2007 at 3:52 pm
In a business situation if I’m being paid to tell the truth then I would hold back less and in a personal situation I would hold back more but in both cases it is important to the other person if they are asking so I would be respectful of their request and go with what Robert said about being tactful but truthful.
6 Darko // Aug 6, 2007 at 1:29 am
Tell the truth about the problem and offer the solution. Let’s say… “Hey man your breath smells but and you should go and brush your teeth right now”. Or “Oh, your website is horrible and you should take immediate steps to fix that horrible looking navbar”. You see, tell the truth honestyly and offer the solution. And use “AND” and not “BUT” because if you use “BUT” you are starting to get on fire the defensive mechanism of people. I usually tend to approach situations this way.
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