The Lyin' King — by Dan Lynn
By Dan Lynn
When I started my career at ADP, I was a Director of Marketing. This was 1997 — and back then, AOL was one of the most powerful companies on the planet.
One day, a group of us flew down to AOL. It wasn't a junior crew. My boss, the VP of Marketing, was there. His boss, the President of ADP's small business division, was there. A couple of my colleagues, too. Senior people.
We were led into a conference room where a team from AOL was waiting. But they told us we couldn't begin — not yet. We had to wait for their boss. The way they talked about him, he was clearly the king. And even though we'd brought some of the most senior people at ADP, we sat there and waited for him, the king. It felt like forever.
Then a Porsche pulled into the parking lot. We could see it through the windows. His team lit up — the king had arrived.
Out steps this guy wearing all black clothing. Cowboy boots. Tan as could be. His team was practically running in circles now that "the king" was here. And when he walked through that door, I swear it was like the sea parted.
After some brief intros, he got to the point fast. I'm paraphrasing — but it went something like this:
"Listen. Look out that window. See that building over there? We call that the MCI building, because they paid us millions of dollars to advertise with us. See that other building? We call that the Bank of America building because they also paid us millions to advertise. So, you have a choice. Right now your competitor, Paychex, is sitting in the other conference room ready to write us a check. If you want an advertising spot with us, you'll have to pay us first — or they will."
Wow. Now that was a wild, aggressive pitch. Something I had certainly never heard before.
Well, we declined the "offer," and flew back to New Jersey.
Here's the part that stuck with me. Years later, I opened the Wall Street Journal — and there he was. The king - AOL's head of Business Affairs and its chief dealmaker. The SEC had charged him and seven other AOL executives in a roughly one-billion-dollar scheme to inflate the company's advertising revenue. The king settled without admitting wrongdoing — millions in penalties, and a ten-year ban from ever running a public company again.
When the article laid out how the high-pressure deals worked, it was almost word for word what we'd sat through:
Aggressive timelines — artificial deadlines, sign now or the opportunity vanishes forever.
The FOMO play — telling you your direct competitor is standing by, checkbook open, ready to take your slot.
Manufactured scarcity — the illusion that this was finite, elite, once-in-a-lifetime real estate, and losing it would break your business.
Some of those deals — the ones "everyone was paying millions for" — were round trip transactions. AOL would quietly hand a company money, and that company would turn around and spend it on AOL ads, so AOL could book it as revenue. Which means the scarcity we'd been pressured with wasn't just exaggerated. In some cases, the demand itself was fake.
The Porsche pulling up, the all-black outfit, the king who kept us waiting — none of that was ego. It was staging. And the pressure wasn't hiding a great deal. It was hiding the absence of one.
Questions this Key Learning answers
How do I handle a high-pressure sales pitch with a deadline?
The author’s experience suggests slowing down when urgency dominates a pitch. Artificial deadlines can shift attention away from whether the deal has real value. Our analysis recommends testing the underlying economics rather than reacting to the fear that an opportunity will disappear or that a competitor will claim it first.
How can I tell if claims of scarcity are real?
The author learned that apparent scarcity may be exaggerated or even manufactured. AOL’s pitch presented advertising space as finite and highly sought after, while some demand allegedly came from round-trip transactions. Our analysis emphasizes independently verifying claims about limited availability and competing buyers before accepting the seller’s version of demand.
What do you do when a sales pitch feels staged?
The Porsche, clothing, delayed entrance, and reverential treatment created an atmosphere of power and urgency. The author later concluded that this was staging, while the pressure concealed the absence of a strong deal. The lesson is to look past the theater and examine whether the revenue, demand, and economics reflect genuine outside interest.