It used to be marketing 101 that you shouldn’t be too honest. You either had the best product in the market, or you weren’t doing marketing right. When people brought up alternatives or innovative solutions to you, you should shut them down and attack these “objections.”

Of course, that’s not the best way to do business. 

Life is short, but life is also long. If you’re being intellectually dishonest with people (don’t look over there, there’s nothing good worth looking at), or deliberately exaggerating fear, uncertainty, and doubt, you’re not going to be reaching your potential in business. You’re not moving things forward; you’re just trying to run down the clock, when it’s hopefully not your problem to deal with. 

Sure, the channel can put up blockers, or lobby the government, but at some point, it’s gonna fall apart. When it does, people will finally have a choice, they’ll remember, and they will purposely not do business with you out of spite.

With the pace of innovation picking up, and new changes and challenges every day, it’s important to continue to change and evolve. 

Yes, the customer might think your product will be disrupted. Yes, you may be late to the draw. What you decide to say from there—whether you deny it, you’ve spent precious time studying the disruption and honestly think they’re wrong, or you vow to catch up to the lead, or make an entirely new observation about the conversation—is up to you.