FAIR, FARE, FAIR OR FAIR

The English Language is one of the most confusing and contradicting languages on earth. I remember George Carlin used to do a dialog about the English Language. One liners like, “Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?”, “Why do we call them apartments when they are all stuck together?”, and one of my favorites, “Why are there tolls on a freeway?”

Although I don’t have a cute line for this word it is just as confusing, FAIR. It can mean something is marginal as in, “The meal was only FAIR, nothing great”, it can mean a price paid for a service, “The fare is $10.00 for the cab ride”, it can mean equitable as in, “he is a fair judge, he treats everyone the same”, it can mean an event, “I am going to the county fair”, or it can mean light complexion as in, “she is fair skinned”.

WOW, all those meanings for a 4 letter word. Well let’s talk about fair as we want a customer to talk about us. If a customer says he was a FAIR sales rep is that a good thing or bad? Well it could go either way, if you were only marginal than it is a bad thing, if you treated the customer right than it is a good thing. The problem is if we don’t ask the right questions we may be working under false ideas.

With so many definitions of the word we need to always be asking what was the question being answered so we have a REAL look at what we are doing every day. Never take it for granted that just because we want to believe we are doing a great job that we are in our customer’s eyes.

The same goes for our managers, we need to ask them what they mean when they say the word fair. Just the other day I was talking to an FSM about a rep and they said the rep was a fair rep. I took it to mean the rep wasn’t very good, the manager actually meant the rep treated all her customers with the same set of standards and always made fair decisions. It was a very confusing conversation until we got on the same page and understood what each of us was thinking.

I wonder how often this miscommunication cost a rep their job or at least cost a rep a raise?

I want to be fair with you when I tell you that you can’t be a fair rep but you always need to be fair with your customers. You will only be able to charge a low fare for your product or service if you don’t show a fair value for it. And never settle for fair when you are aiming for EXCELLENT!

Lorin