the following excerpt from dave's blog provides an excellent real world example and lessons to be gleaned there from. one of dave's colleagues was house hunting, and he told his real estate agent that he wanted a house with no lawn or plants because he hates gardening. she kept showing him houses with brick and cement yards, but he found them cold and sterile. finally she took him to a house with features that completely violated his request - plants and grass everywhere. when he complained, she said, "don't worry, i found you a gardener." sure enough, that's the house he bought.

in this case, dave's colleague was the liar, and his agent made the sale by listening carefully to his concern, but not listening so closely to his proposed solution. if she had believed him, she would probably never have sold him anything.

i am often reminded of this lesson when i hear clients describe the features they would like to have in a property. even if i find a property with exactly the features they say they want, they may not be satisfied. the problem is that while clients may be experts in terms of their needs and desires and in understanding problems in their environment that they need solved, they aren't necessarily experts in developing solutions to those problems.

how then do you deal with this contradiction when on the one hand, "the customer is always right," while on the other hand, "buyers are liars"? one compromise is to assume that they are right about their own needs and desires, but don't assume that they've necessarily conceived of the best possible solution.

when a client requests a feature, i believe it's important to dig deeper and ask lots of questions. exactly why is this feature important to you? how were you planning to use this feature?  are there other alternative substitute features that you have considered that might meet your needs?  would you be willing to trade more of feature "a" for less of feature "b"?  if done with tact and perseverance, i believe that this kind of interaction can lead to much better solutions than if either clients or agents simply specified the features on their own.