Diogenes should have gone errand running with me yesterday after work. First, I went to the Verizon store to get something for my phone. I overheard one of the sales associates say, "to be perfectly honest with you, I'd get the A product and not the B product." Then I heard the same thing at a furniture store from one of their sales reps.
Message to anyone who works in any kind of business: don't say the words to be perfectly honest with you!
Whenever I hear this phrase (and I hear this one a lot), I am tempted to say, "you mean, as opposed to the part of our conversation where you were imperfectly honest with me, or just not honest at all?" (I'm tempted to say it, but I can usually avoid letting that one sneak out in my out-loud voice.)
Instead of saying it, just be perfectly honest with people as a matter of course.
When I mentioned this to one of my team members here at the office, she reminded me that Diane Berenbaum and Tom Larkin at our client Communico, a customer service training firm in Westport, CT, included this phrase in their list of subtle "tragic phrases" in their fabulous new book How to Talk to Customers.
Other subtly "tragic phrases" went like this:
| Tragic Phrase | Implied Message |
| "As soon as possible. | "When I get around to it." |
| "I'll try." | "Not sure what I can do." |
| "The truth is..." | "I probably shouldn't tell you this." |
| "To be honest with you..." | "I was lying up until now." |
| "Hopefully..." | "Who really knows?" |
| "Maybe or "Possibly." | "I really have no idea." |
You'd think it would be easy enough to avoid employing tragic phases like this, but unless you 1) know what they are, and 2) maintain vigilance to keep them out of your conversations, they'll sneak in.
What other tragic phases have you heard in your business travels? To be perfectly honest with you, I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say.