There are lots of components to Fisher's sales strategy including providing awesome customer experiences, understanding and solving customers' needs, and demonstrating a level of expertise far beyond hardware features. But one piece of our sales strategy is less tangible and is missing at most companies in our industry: transparency.

By transparency I mean open and honest communication, both internally and externally.  When I first started in the industry I was shocked at the lack of internal transparency... employees were not trusted with information.  Sales reps, for example, were churned and burned through the company, so only minimal information was shared with them because it would go straight to the competition.  There were departments sectioned off where other employees were forbidden to go for fear they would walk away with critical information.  I found it unbelievable.  Information is indeed critical and it therefore must be SHARED.  We are now very transparent as a company and we have made significant investments ensuring employees have information when and where they need it.

Even more shocking, and still prevalent in most of the companies in our industry, is a very deliberate lack of transparency externally.  Profit margins are made in this industry through a shell game of lease payments, service rates, and overages.  Deception is the number one sales tactic in our industry to driving profit into sales transactions.  Fisher's still needs to make profits (we do have to pay the bills), but we will not do it through deception.  We make profits by providing better, differentiated products and services.  If we make high profits today through deceptive techniques, we will not retain those customers in the future.  If we are transparent with information and provide unprecedented service levels, we will retain customers forever.  

The final point about transparency is TRUST.  By being transparent you show that you trust people... your employees and your customers.  Fisher's is now a trusted source of information and truly a partner with its customers.  Conversely, if you are not transparent and you hide and twist information to your benefit, you demonstrate that you are not trustworthy.