One of the most important lessons that business executives and all others involved in the business world must learn and learn early is that it's okay to simply say, "I don't know." If you ask a business consultant what the most important lesson for employees and executives of a company to learn is, you will almost always hear "honesty." It's extremely simple to do and, in the long run, much easier than being deceptive. This advice is even more important for small businesses when employees and clients are usually closer to the company. Along this topic of honesty, if you are asked a question and you don't know the answer, you should not try to make up an answer on the spot. If the person you are talking to catches you in the fib or challenges you on your answer you will end up in the extremely uncomfortable position and you will be forced to tell them you were lying. However, by simply saying, "You know, I don't know the answer to that question, but I will look into it and get back to you." Nine times out of ten, the person you are talking to will completely understand, and will actually be very happy with you that you were truthful.

As small business consultants, the ability to admit that we don't know something is one of the most important criteria we have before we send a consultant on the road to go meet with a client company. If we had consultants that were making up answers when they didn't know the answers the problems would be a lot bigger than a possible embarrassing social situation. A consultant lying about knowing the right thing to do could cause major problems for the business especially when it's a small business. This is why we pound the concept of professional integrity into all of our consultants to ensure that they are always making the right decisions.

We also always mention this fact to small businesses that we are doing consulting work for. Except for people who are experienced deceivers, people can often times tell when they are being lied to. The science behind it, while interesting, is beyond the scope of this article, but many people's brains are able to subconsciously pick up on when someone is lying or even being slightly deceptive. We want to make sure that companies understand that lying to a customer can and will often cause a significantly larger amount of damage to your business than simply upsetting a customer with truthful information. This is because, when you don't know the answer, and you lie to a customer, not only will you likely lose that customer, but the customer is often times so angry about the event that they spread the word that your company treats customers poorly. As everyone is business and business consulting knows, word of mouth can be the most effective way of getting information about your business out, but when that information is bad, it can be devastating to your business.

The overall message here is that you should always be honest. If you don't know the answer to a question or don't have the solution to a problem, just say "I don't know."