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The Transparency Sale: How Unexpected Honesty and Understanding the Buying Brain Can Transform Your Results
The future of sales is radically transparent. Are you ready for it?
Today, anyone buying anything relies on reviews and feedback shared by strangers and often trust those anonymously posted experiences more than the claims made by the providers of the products or services themselves. They expect to see the full picture and find out all of the pros and cons before making any purchase. And the larger the purchase, the greater the demand for transparency. What if the key to selling was to do exactly the opposite of what most sales courses tell you to do?
It may be hard to imagine, but something as counterintuitive as leading with your flaws can result in faster sales cycles, increased win rates, and makes competing with you almost impossible. Leveraging transparency and vulnerability in your presentations and your negotiations leads to faster buyer consensus, larger deals, faster payments, longer commitments and more predictable sales forecasts. In this groundbreaking book , award winning sales leader Todd Caponi will reveal his hard-earned secrets for engaging potential buyers with unexpected honesty and understanding the buying brain to get the deal you want, while delighting your customer with the experience.
Today, anyone buying anything relies on reviews and feedback shared by strangers and often trust those anonymously posted experiences more than the claims made by the providers of the products or services themselves. They expect to see the full picture and find out all of the pros and cons before making any purchase. And the larger the purchase, the greater the demand for transparency. What if the key to selling was to do exactly the opposite of what most sales courses tell you to do?
It may be hard to imagine, but something as counterintuitive as leading with your flaws can result in faster sales cycles, increased win rates, and makes competing with you almost impossible. Leveraging transparency and vulnerability in your presentations and your negotiations leads to faster buyer consensus, larger deals, faster payments, longer commitments and more predictable sales forecasts. In this groundbreaking book , award winning sales leader Todd Caponi will reveal his hard-earned secrets for engaging potential buyers with unexpected honesty and understanding the buying brain to get the deal you want, while delighting your customer with the experience.
208 pages, Paperback
Published June 2, 2020
107 people are currently reading
451 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
August 1, 2019
I’ve worked in technical sales for almost two decades now, and I’ve been involved in many sales cycles. I liked “The Transparency Sale” because it agrees with what I’ve seen, and takes the best practices a little farther than many other sales books I’ve read. The author suggests calling out early in the sales process your own product’s weaknesses. I’ve found this counterintuitive with most sales managers and account managers I’ve worked with, who hope to eliminate any discussion of perceived weaknesses. I buy the author’s tact of starting with this discussion to build trust. When I’ve been in talks that start this way, the sales process went much more smoothly. I also appreciate the author’s additional points, including getting in front of contract terms negotiations and using references. I’ve taken many classes on creating and giving good technical demonstrations, appealing to limbic thinking in our prospects, and I appreciate those learnings, but they often stand alone, unconnected with the bigger sales process orchestration. Caponi’s book makes a good companion to those demo processes in order to think about the overall sales and account management process in an integrated way. Good read.
April 3, 2021
Takeaways:
Adapt your selling to fit the way buyers actually make decisions.
Answer three questions for your buyer: “Why change? Why you? Why now?”
Use empathy and candor when communicating with prospects.
Lead with your weaknesses, and make transparency part of your business culture.
Use a “mutual decision plan“ to guide your prospect through the buying process.
Tell an emotionally rewarding story in your sales presentation.
Be honest about the negotiating points that matter to you as the seller.
Recruit references by offering them value and encouraging them to be candid.
Don’t let the terms and conditions of your contract undermine the ease and trust you’ve established.
The value of transparency continues after the sale concludes.
Summary:
Adapt your selling to fit the way buyers actually make decisions.
In today’s marketplace, most buyers come to a potential purchase well-informed about the product or service that interests them. They’ve read reviews and done their research. They are skeptical of perfection. They’re more likely to buy a product with a 4.3- to 4.5-star rating than one with five stars.
During every interaction...your buyer is subconsciously assessing whether you are communicating with sincerity, competence and consistency.
Salespeople must understand the science behind decision making if they hope to persuade buyers to make purchases.
Consider three basic truths about how human beings make decisions. First, people don’t like to feel influenced. The human brain prefers the status quo and resists change. The mind must work harder to consider options and choose something new. Successful salespeople make it easy and rewarding to overcome that resistance.
If you want to get [people] interested in you and what you have to offer, the first step is to show them you are interested in them. To show them you are interested in them, you must actually be interested in them.
Second, people base their decisions on feelings and emotion and then find a logical rationale to explain their choices. They move toward situations they perceive as rewarding, and they avoid risk and discomfort. Most folks feel strongly about status, predictable outcomes, connection, fairness and personal control. To influence buyers, help them experience those feelings as they make their decision.
There is no better way to get alignment and engage the audience’s brain than by getting them talking from the beginning.
Third, most decision making happens subconsciously. Thousands of small choices bring prospects to the big decision to buy your product or service. You must determine what drives the “micro decisions” that lead the buyer to purchase from you. Every step of the sales process either enhances the buyer’s trust in you or undermines it.
Don’t be afraid of the flaws in your offerings, as exposing those flaws may be the very reason your customers engage with you, buy from you and keep buying from you.
You want buyers to see you as a reliable source of everything they need to make a good decision. This means empathizing with them and understanding why they are trying to learn more about you. Know what others say about you, and prepare to make a candid, persuasive offer.
Answer three questions for your buyer: “Why change? Why you? Why now?”
Prospective buyers are experiencing one of the three stages in the buying process: 1) those who are actively buying, 2) those who recognize they have a need but haven’t yet addressed it, and 3) those who are content with the status quo and don’t perceive a need to change. Your job is to adjust your selling approach to their different feelings and emotions during each stage. You must become the “Sherpa” who guides your prospective buyer up the slope from disinterest (why change?), to engagement (why choose you?) and ultimately to the enthusiastic commitment to buy (why now?). Being transparent is an effective selling tool to understand where your prospect is on that journey.
Use empathy and candor when communicating with prospects.
Email prospecting is a great way to reach potential buyers – if you know how to get past their resistance to pitches that arrive in their inbox uninvited. Most recipients use the 10- to 15-word email preview to decide if a message is worth their time. Emails with value-laden subject lines and previews are more likely to escape the delete button. Your subject line and first few words should accurately represent your message’s content. If they don’t, you are giving the reader a reason to distrust you.
Beyond reviews or striving for authenticity, building a better understanding of how decision making really works is key to getting better at selling anything to anyone.
Prospecting is the beginning of a relationship. Offer something of value, like novel information about the prospect’s business or industry, a useful professional connection or recognition of an achievement. Be brief and relevant. When you have in-depth information to share, put a link in the body of your email. Offering them an opportunity to contact you during a specific window of availability conveys that your time is valuable.
Lead with your weaknesses, and make transparency part of your business culture.
Candor about the limitations of your offering and how it differs from your competitor’s can be a powerful selling tool. Do-it-yourself furniture retailer IKEA, for example, is upfront about the work it expects customers to do. Progressive Insurance helps customers find what might be a better deal from a competitor. Honesty about your product disarms prospects and establishes trust. This helps you address potential problems early in the relationship and removes a selling point from your competitor’s arsenal.
We have been taught to sell perfection, but perfection does not sell. To win in this digital era, where feedback is all around us and easy to come by, we need to adjust how we sell to optimize for the way buyers buy.
Transparency depends on your awareness of what the people in the marketplace – that is, customers, analysts, influencers, and even your employees past and present – say about you. Make gathering and evaluating feedback an organizational core value. Be aware of any negative sentiment. Your marketing staff should present your products in the 4.3 to 4.5 range of excellence – “not a perfect 5.0.” Train your sales personnel to deliver an effective “we’re less than perfect” pitch.
Use a “mutual decision plan” to guide your prospect through the buying process.
Having too many choices leads to decision fatigue. Help prospective buyers choose you by mapping out manageable decision steps you’ll take together. Introduce the “mutual decision plan” (MDP) in your early conversations. It gives the buyer confidence that you’ll make the process simple and straightforward. The MDP lays out all the steps in advance; it makes the road ahead transparent, which allays buyer resistance.
Transparent negotiation [means] showing your hand to the buyer from the beginning, disarming their barrier to the discussion.
As the process unfolds, buyers undertake a series of yes decisions. Trust grows as you provide recommendations rather than endless options. Review the MDP regularly with the prospect to ensure that the steps and their timing are clear, feasible and agreeable. The MDP provides accountability, tracks benchmarks and transforms a complex journey into a manageable joint effort.
Tell an emotionally rewarding story in your sales presentation.
Why should buyers choose you? Starting with your sales presentation, show that you understand and empathize with their concerns. Create an engaging buyer-centered story so your prospect can connect with you. Don’t structure your pitch around analysis and logic; lead with stories and emotion. Emphasize the near-term rewards of your work together – not the risks of choosing someone else. Use six steps to structure your presentation like a makeover story on a reality TV show:
“Alignment” – Use introductions to get everyone on the same page. Have each member of the audience explain why he or she is investing time and energy in the process.
“Disarming” – Reduce buyer resistance by revealing a vulnerability in your business; tell a touching anecdote or revealing a personal experience that strengthens your connection to your audience. Pivot the presentation to the wonderful but unrealized potential of the buyer’s business. Bring up exciting ideas that surfaced as you researched your prospect’s enterprise and market.
“Diagnosis” – Educate customers about the pitfalls of their current status quo – how it might be unsustainable in ways that are opaque to them. This displays your expertise. In preparing for diagnosis, evaluate the buyer’s enterprise for missed opportunities. Review your portfolio of experiences with other clients to identify insights and best practices to share with each potential customer.
“Prove it” – After evoking buyers’ dissatisfaction with their current situation, make your case. Use reason and data to support the ideas you offer. Logically demonstrate the tailored outcome this client can expect.
“Potential reward” – Beyond mere numbers, show the benefits of buyer engagement with your product or service. Use positive language. How will buyers experience status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness as they move forward with you?
“The path together” – Present your specific capabilities, and lay out a framework of your proposed work with buyers. Circle back to your vulnerabilities to emphasize your commitment to working together in your buyer’s best interest. Focus the story on the buyers and the great things possible for them.
A presentation rich in emotion is a much stronger path than one rich in data and logic to bringing a group of people together.
Your presentation shouldn’t exceed 20 minutes. Early on, use enthusiasm and positivity to capture your audience members’ interest. Don’t put speaker notes up on the screen. Use mostly images; show text sparingly. Don’t end your presentation with a question-mark slide. Your final visual impression should be a brief, affirmative call to action.
Be honest about the negotiating points that matter to you as the seller.
“Transparent negotiation” creates a climate of trust and clarity for the buyer. In transparent negotiation, you reveal your “levers” – the elements of the deal that are most important to you – from the beginning.
If you’re not losing, you’re not trying. Nobody has a 100% win rate.
When your prospect asks how you set the prices for your product or service, explain upfront that it depends on those levers – perhaps volume, payment structure, timing or duration. Explicitly assign a value to each of your levers. This eases negotiating trade-offs by making them more transparent to buyers, since they can choose which combination of elements works best for them.
Recruit references by offering them value and encouraging them to be candid.
Prospective buyers want to hear the straight scoop from your previous customers, but established clients might be uncomfortable about providing references. Encourage them to tell the candid story of your work together – warts and all.
If you’re the buyer and you’re speaking with a reference, you are looking for the honest, less-than-perfect reviews. If you can’t get that, then the call was essentially a waste of time.
Make connecting your past and future clients interesting and useful to everyone. A great reference isn’t necessarily a buyer with whom you had a problem-free experience. Embracing that concept can help you identify many more potential referrals.
Don’t let the terms and conditions of your contract undermine the ease and trust you’ve established.
You made the decision to buy from you as easy as possible, and you’ve built trust along the way. Don’t let legalities undermine that goodwill. Agreeing on a contract should be a continuation of the sales process. Experience will remind you which of the items among your contract terms are most likely to elicit questions or renegotiation. Recast any self-serving language so you start out in the “middle” – which is where you’re likely to end up anyway.
The best leaders are fostering cultures of transparency and celebrating losses as opportunities to learn, develop and improve.
When you send the contract, write a cover document that outlines the overall terms in plain language and explains how any conditions that may seem one-sided are mutually beneficial. Unexpected honesty in negotiation helps your buyers feel that they maximized the value of your relationship.
The value of transparency continues after the sale concludes.
The future of your relationship with a client depends on the same transparency-inspired feelings that nurtured it at the outset. Start with a post-sale letter confirming the purchase; detail what buyers can expect in terms of process and outcome. A kick-off call allows the salesperson to acknowledge the buyers’ objectives, outline why they chose you, align everyone’s expectations and introduce each member of your implementation team.
A team focused on the client’s results should nurture relationships by serving as the customer’s representative within your organization. Don’t send feedback surveys to clients after troubleshooting episodes; surveys simply remind them of the problems. Ask for feedback only after customer training or as part of scheduled progress checks.
Quarterly business reviews ensure that buyers get what they expected. The structure outlined earlier for presentations will be equally effective here. After alignment, disarm any problems by offering��candor and a full accounting of their resolution. Suggest ideas and appropriate products or services to show the clients how they could do even better. Support those propositions with logic and data. Clients’ satisfaction depends on their positive emotions about your relationship.
Even if a client terminates the relationship, transparency remains valuable. Get to the heart of why customers leave. If they give you “logical” reasons, acknowledge them, but press to learn the deeper reasons based on the customer’s feelings. If you understand the emotional context, you can learn from a failure.
Adapt your selling to fit the way buyers actually make decisions.
Answer three questions for your buyer: “Why change? Why you? Why now?”
Use empathy and candor when communicating with prospects.
Lead with your weaknesses, and make transparency part of your business culture.
Use a “mutual decision plan“ to guide your prospect through the buying process.
Tell an emotionally rewarding story in your sales presentation.
Be honest about the negotiating points that matter to you as the seller.
Recruit references by offering them value and encouraging them to be candid.
Don’t let the terms and conditions of your contract undermine the ease and trust you’ve established.
The value of transparency continues after the sale concludes.
Summary:
Adapt your selling to fit the way buyers actually make decisions.
In today’s marketplace, most buyers come to a potential purchase well-informed about the product or service that interests them. They’ve read reviews and done their research. They are skeptical of perfection. They’re more likely to buy a product with a 4.3- to 4.5-star rating than one with five stars.
During every interaction...your buyer is subconsciously assessing whether you are communicating with sincerity, competence and consistency.
Salespeople must understand the science behind decision making if they hope to persuade buyers to make purchases.
Consider three basic truths about how human beings make decisions. First, people don’t like to feel influenced. The human brain prefers the status quo and resists change. The mind must work harder to consider options and choose something new. Successful salespeople make it easy and rewarding to overcome that resistance.
If you want to get [people] interested in you and what you have to offer, the first step is to show them you are interested in them. To show them you are interested in them, you must actually be interested in them.
Second, people base their decisions on feelings and emotion and then find a logical rationale to explain their choices. They move toward situations they perceive as rewarding, and they avoid risk and discomfort. Most folks feel strongly about status, predictable outcomes, connection, fairness and personal control. To influence buyers, help them experience those feelings as they make their decision.
There is no better way to get alignment and engage the audience’s brain than by getting them talking from the beginning.
Third, most decision making happens subconsciously. Thousands of small choices bring prospects to the big decision to buy your product or service. You must determine what drives the “micro decisions” that lead the buyer to purchase from you. Every step of the sales process either enhances the buyer’s trust in you or undermines it.
Don’t be afraid of the flaws in your offerings, as exposing those flaws may be the very reason your customers engage with you, buy from you and keep buying from you.
You want buyers to see you as a reliable source of everything they need to make a good decision. This means empathizing with them and understanding why they are trying to learn more about you. Know what others say about you, and prepare to make a candid, persuasive offer.
Answer three questions for your buyer: “Why change? Why you? Why now?”
Prospective buyers are experiencing one of the three stages in the buying process: 1) those who are actively buying, 2) those who recognize they have a need but haven’t yet addressed it, and 3) those who are content with the status quo and don’t perceive a need to change. Your job is to adjust your selling approach to their different feelings and emotions during each stage. You must become the “Sherpa” who guides your prospective buyer up the slope from disinterest (why change?), to engagement (why choose you?) and ultimately to the enthusiastic commitment to buy (why now?). Being transparent is an effective selling tool to understand where your prospect is on that journey.
Use empathy and candor when communicating with prospects.
Email prospecting is a great way to reach potential buyers – if you know how to get past their resistance to pitches that arrive in their inbox uninvited. Most recipients use the 10- to 15-word email preview to decide if a message is worth their time. Emails with value-laden subject lines and previews are more likely to escape the delete button. Your subject line and first few words should accurately represent your message’s content. If they don’t, you are giving the reader a reason to distrust you.
Beyond reviews or striving for authenticity, building a better understanding of how decision making really works is key to getting better at selling anything to anyone.
Prospecting is the beginning of a relationship. Offer something of value, like novel information about the prospect’s business or industry, a useful professional connection or recognition of an achievement. Be brief and relevant. When you have in-depth information to share, put a link in the body of your email. Offering them an opportunity to contact you during a specific window of availability conveys that your time is valuable.
Lead with your weaknesses, and make transparency part of your business culture.
Candor about the limitations of your offering and how it differs from your competitor’s can be a powerful selling tool. Do-it-yourself furniture retailer IKEA, for example, is upfront about the work it expects customers to do. Progressive Insurance helps customers find what might be a better deal from a competitor. Honesty about your product disarms prospects and establishes trust. This helps you address potential problems early in the relationship and removes a selling point from your competitor’s arsenal.
We have been taught to sell perfection, but perfection does not sell. To win in this digital era, where feedback is all around us and easy to come by, we need to adjust how we sell to optimize for the way buyers buy.
Transparency depends on your awareness of what the people in the marketplace – that is, customers, analysts, influencers, and even your employees past and present – say about you. Make gathering and evaluating feedback an organizational core value. Be aware of any negative sentiment. Your marketing staff should present your products in the 4.3 to 4.5 range of excellence – “not a perfect 5.0.” Train your sales personnel to deliver an effective “we’re less than perfect” pitch.
Use a “mutual decision plan” to guide your prospect through the buying process.
Having too many choices leads to decision fatigue. Help prospective buyers choose you by mapping out manageable decision steps you’ll take together. Introduce the “mutual decision plan” (MDP) in your early conversations. It gives the buyer confidence that you’ll make the process simple and straightforward. The MDP lays out all the steps in advance; it makes the road ahead transparent, which allays buyer resistance.
Transparent negotiation [means] showing your hand to the buyer from the beginning, disarming their barrier to the discussion.
As the process unfolds, buyers undertake a series of yes decisions. Trust grows as you provide recommendations rather than endless options. Review the MDP regularly with the prospect to ensure that the steps and their timing are clear, feasible and agreeable. The MDP provides accountability, tracks benchmarks and transforms a complex journey into a manageable joint effort.
Tell an emotionally rewarding story in your sales presentation.
Why should buyers choose you? Starting with your sales presentation, show that you understand and empathize with their concerns. Create an engaging buyer-centered story so your prospect can connect with you. Don’t structure your pitch around analysis and logic; lead with stories and emotion. Emphasize the near-term rewards of your work together – not the risks of choosing someone else. Use six steps to structure your presentation like a makeover story on a reality TV show:
“Alignment” – Use introductions to get everyone on the same page. Have each member of the audience explain why he or she is investing time and energy in the process.
“Disarming” – Reduce buyer resistance by revealing a vulnerability in your business; tell a touching anecdote or revealing a personal experience that strengthens your connection to your audience. Pivot the presentation to the wonderful but unrealized potential of the buyer’s business. Bring up exciting ideas that surfaced as you researched your prospect’s enterprise and market.
“Diagnosis” – Educate customers about the pitfalls of their current status quo – how it might be unsustainable in ways that are opaque to them. This displays your expertise. In preparing for diagnosis, evaluate the buyer’s enterprise for missed opportunities. Review your portfolio of experiences with other clients to identify insights and best practices to share with each potential customer.
“Prove it” – After evoking buyers’ dissatisfaction with their current situation, make your case. Use reason and data to support the ideas you offer. Logically demonstrate the tailored outcome this client can expect.
“Potential reward” – Beyond mere numbers, show the benefits of buyer engagement with your product or service. Use positive language. How will buyers experience status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness as they move forward with you?
“The path together” – Present your specific capabilities, and lay out a framework of your proposed work with buyers. Circle back to your vulnerabilities to emphasize your commitment to working together in your buyer’s best interest. Focus the story on the buyers and the great things possible for them.
A presentation rich in emotion is a much stronger path than one rich in data and logic to bringing a group of people together.
Your presentation shouldn’t exceed 20 minutes. Early on, use enthusiasm and positivity to capture your audience members’ interest. Don’t put speaker notes up on the screen. Use mostly images; show text sparingly. Don’t end your presentation with a question-mark slide. Your final visual impression should be a brief, affirmative call to action.
Be honest about the negotiating points that matter to you as the seller.
“Transparent negotiation” creates a climate of trust and clarity for the buyer. In transparent negotiation, you reveal your “levers” – the elements of the deal that are most important to you – from the beginning.
If you’re not losing, you’re not trying. Nobody has a 100% win rate.
When your prospect asks how you set the prices for your product or service, explain upfront that it depends on those levers – perhaps volume, payment structure, timing or duration. Explicitly assign a value to each of your levers. This eases negotiating trade-offs by making them more transparent to buyers, since they can choose which combination of elements works best for them.
Recruit references by offering them value and encouraging them to be candid.
Prospective buyers want to hear the straight scoop from your previous customers, but established clients might be uncomfortable about providing references. Encourage them to tell the candid story of your work together – warts and all.
If you’re the buyer and you’re speaking with a reference, you are looking for the honest, less-than-perfect reviews. If you can’t get that, then the call was essentially a waste of time.
Make connecting your past and future clients interesting and useful to everyone. A great reference isn’t necessarily a buyer with whom you had a problem-free experience. Embracing that concept can help you identify many more potential referrals.
Don’t let the terms and conditions of your contract undermine the ease and trust you’ve established.
You made the decision to buy from you as easy as possible, and you’ve built trust along the way. Don’t let legalities undermine that goodwill. Agreeing on a contract should be a continuation of the sales process. Experience will remind you which of the items among your contract terms are most likely to elicit questions or renegotiation. Recast any self-serving language so you start out in the “middle” – which is where you’re likely to end up anyway.
The best leaders are fostering cultures of transparency and celebrating losses as opportunities to learn, develop and improve.
When you send the contract, write a cover document that outlines the overall terms in plain language and explains how any conditions that may seem one-sided are mutually beneficial. Unexpected honesty in negotiation helps your buyers feel that they maximized the value of your relationship.
The value of transparency continues after the sale concludes.
The future of your relationship with a client depends on the same transparency-inspired feelings that nurtured it at the outset. Start with a post-sale letter confirming the purchase; detail what buyers can expect in terms of process and outcome. A kick-off call allows the salesperson to acknowledge the buyers’ objectives, outline why they chose you, align everyone’s expectations and introduce each member of your implementation team.
A team focused on the client’s results should nurture relationships by serving as the customer’s representative within your organization. Don’t send feedback surveys to clients after troubleshooting episodes; surveys simply remind them of the problems. Ask for feedback only after customer training or as part of scheduled progress checks.
Quarterly business reviews ensure that buyers get what they expected. The structure outlined earlier for presentations will be equally effective here. After alignment, disarm any problems by offering��candor and a full accounting of their resolution. Suggest ideas and appropriate products or services to show the clients how they could do even better. Support those propositions with logic and data. Clients’ satisfaction depends on their positive emotions about your relationship.
Even if a client terminates the relationship, transparency remains valuable. Get to the heart of why customers leave. If they give you “logical” reasons, acknowledge them, but press to learn the deeper reasons based on the customer’s feelings. If you understand the emotional context, you can learn from a failure.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 4, 2025
3.75 rounded to 4 stars.
While I’m not directly involved in sales as part of my career, I’ve picked this book attempting to look into whether honesty plays a role in sales.
The concept of salesperson being misleading , manipulative and having to be a social chameleon disturbed me!
This distancing from authenticity as a need to sell was bothersome, given the fact that we now live in a world of consumerism. Does this mean salesperson are so imbedded in a war against having an externalized unified real persona ?
Because if so, then their psychological wellbeing is gone !
Reading this book, I realized that it’s possible to be authentic and yet generate revenue. I liked how neuroscience and a bit of psychology were included.
It is possible to have a win-win situation and flip the narrative of I win, you lose when it comes to sales.
While I’m not directly involved in sales as part of my career, I’ve picked this book attempting to look into whether honesty plays a role in sales.
The concept of salesperson being misleading , manipulative and having to be a social chameleon disturbed me!
This distancing from authenticity as a need to sell was bothersome, given the fact that we now live in a world of consumerism. Does this mean salesperson are so imbedded in a war against having an externalized unified real persona ?
Because if so, then their psychological wellbeing is gone !
Reading this book, I realized that it’s possible to be authentic and yet generate revenue. I liked how neuroscience and a bit of psychology were included.
It is possible to have a win-win situation and flip the narrative of I win, you lose when it comes to sales.
January 5, 2023
Absolutely loved it. Have incorporated transparency into everything I do as a founder working alot with sales and growth. Seeing great results applying this in business myself. Pushed a lot for reviews on G2 this last year for my company, recommend competing substitutes when it's clearly a better fit for the prospect, and many other initiatives based on this book - so highly actionable and inspiring content.
July 7, 2021
Maybe the best sales book I've ever read. If you communicate for a living (sales, CS, Management, etc) this book will absolutely make you better.
October 28, 2023
3.5
I really like this subheading unexpected honesty
The ideas in the book are excellent and they're backed up by some pretty provoking evidence.
I wouldn't say that Todd Caponi is a particularly great writer nor that this book is must read, but if you're in charge of sales or some part of the sales process I think there's enough valuable information in here to make this worth picking up and going through.
Capone doesn't stay too long on any one thought and executes this idea well. Even though this book mostly talks about a style of sales that I'm not involved in the principles are easy to apply across markets
I would recommend this book to anyone involved in sales
I really like this subheading unexpected honesty
The ideas in the book are excellent and they're backed up by some pretty provoking evidence.
I wouldn't say that Todd Caponi is a particularly great writer nor that this book is must read, but if you're in charge of sales or some part of the sales process I think there's enough valuable information in here to make this worth picking up and going through.
Capone doesn't stay too long on any one thought and executes this idea well. Even though this book mostly talks about a style of sales that I'm not involved in the principles are easy to apply across markets
I would recommend this book to anyone involved in sales
July 22, 2024
There are a lot of books about sales and many of them are filled with mindset and motivation ideas that are important to sales performance but most of them lack the concrete actions that lead to success.
Todd does an excellent job of laying out actions in a manner that is approachable for beginners and people who have been in sales for awhile.
This book should be on the desk of every salesperson selling anything complex in the B2B space.
Todd does an excellent job of laying out actions in a manner that is approachable for beginners and people who have been in sales for awhile.
This book should be on the desk of every salesperson selling anything complex in the B2B space.
February 21, 2019
A solid 4.3
Transparency is today’s sales currency. Forget the “closing techniques” of old and learn how to confidently help your customers and prospects with honesty and transparency. Whether you are new to selling or have years of experience you will find something you can apply.
Transparency is today’s sales currency. Forget the “closing techniques” of old and learn how to confidently help your customers and prospects with honesty and transparency. Whether you are new to selling or have years of experience you will find something you can apply.
July 15, 2019
Todd’s view of sales was refreshing and made me feel more comfortable with my job. His idea is being completely out there with prospects and tell them exactly what you can do, and almost more importantly, what you can’t do. It’s system of levers for negotiating should be taught to all sales reps. Quick easy read.
-Yale Reardon
-Yale Reardon
December 29, 2020
One of my favorite books of 2020.
I enjoyed reading that transparency is key to sales, being completely open to any flaws which will create trust. Also, learned that it's all about emotional connections that make the sale. Usually in sales we talk about logical things and logical reasons which don't move the sale forward. I also enjoyed the play by play in various sections of the book.
I enjoyed reading that transparency is key to sales, being completely open to any flaws which will create trust. Also, learned that it's all about emotional connections that make the sale. Usually in sales we talk about logical things and logical reasons which don't move the sale forward. I also enjoyed the play by play in various sections of the book.
February 16, 2019
This is a must read for any professional in a customer facing role. One of my favorite concepts is that every interaction is either building or eroding trust. We win when we are trusted. Leading with this simple perspective helps drive so many micro-decisions that lead to growth as a professional.
November 26, 2019
Great book, have seen this in practice (disclosure Todd and I worked together at PowerReviews, some of the stories in the book are from this time) and agree that it's a powerful and differentiated strategy to lead with transparency of goods/shortcomings, especially in sales.
June 28, 2020
Interesting perspective
Thoroughly enjoyed this read. It has definitely caused reflection on my own processes. I can certainly think of times that this perspective would have served me well. The discussion around discounts is worth the investment.
Thoroughly enjoyed this read. It has definitely caused reflection on my own processes. I can certainly think of times that this perspective would have served me well. The discussion around discounts is worth the investment.
November 21, 2022
While reading about sales is no fun thing, this book makes it about being an open and honest person, rather than a hostage negotiator trying to fool people into making a purchase. Loved the practicality in this book. It's mainly written for Saas sellers in mind.
September 29, 2019
A great reading defending an uncommon attitude towards sales and negotiation.
January 14, 2020
Good ideas contained. Would recommend wholeheartedly.
October 6, 2022
Some insight but not sure I'm aligned with all of the advice given
February 4, 2023
Unlike most sales books, this assumes some basic knowledge and gives some good templates. In an age where the customer has the power, Todd Caponi encourages the modern seller to embrace transparency.
February 24, 2025
There were some good insights in the book such as negotiation levers.
July 16, 2025
transparency sells better than perfection
August 31, 2020
Practical book with good recommendations to include into your sales practices.
I just found it to be a bit dry and hard to read. Lots of anecdotal experiences used as evidence, but sound like good advice.
Overall, I did gain a few lessons, and would recommend reading for sure!
I just found it to be a bit dry and hard to read. Lots of anecdotal experiences used as evidence, but sound like good advice.
Overall, I did gain a few lessons, and would recommend reading for sure!
May 2, 2021
The focus on clear value demonstration, consultation, and true “fit finding” (other than “shill selling”) that Todd talks about in this book is pretty much how sales should be. Good for him for creating a helpful modern package.
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