Anyone who’s read my book, Endless Referrals or attended my live program knows my basic premise of sales success and that is, “All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like and trust.” This is also true when in the Winning Without Intimidation process of trying to persuade a difficult person to your point of view.
Let’s focus our discussion today, not on “know” or “like” but on trust.
Trust is a significant “mover of people.” People will follow leaders they trust, will buy from people they trust, will do things with and for people they trust. Yes, they can know, and even like a person and still not take action if trust is not present. And this is certainly true in sales.
In the selling process, I believe it’s safe to say the following:
“If the prospect to whom you are presenting is totally convinced and persuaded that the benefits of doing business with you far outweigh any costs associated with such action (“costs” include – but are not limited to – price costs, risk costs, lost opportunity costs, time costs, stress costs, etc.) and they still say “no” or “I need to think it over”… the chances are excellent that such a decision is a function and result of a lack of trust.
Of course, this is nothing to take personally. A lot goes into a decision to trust someone with their money, risk, time, stress, etc., and often it’s simply a matter that the relationship has not been built or progressed to the point that those feelings of trust are there.
This is one reason why developing a strong referral-based business is so important. Often, a quality referral allows you to go into the presentation on, what I call, “borrowed trust” – the trust that is already present between the person who referred you and the referred prospect.
However, it’s important to understand that, without that type of referral the *process* of building trust is just that; a process.
(Note: When Winning Without Intimidation in overcoming a non-sales “people challenge” it’s actually easier to quickly develop significant enough trust to attain immediate satisfaction.)
In sales, trust is often a function of time. It begins with your initial conversation and continues while you add value to that person’s life in ways that often have nothing to do with your particular product or service. All the while, you are also displaying the attributes of one whose word is their bond; who does what they say they are going to do when they say they are going to do it.
This is important because your consistency in thought and action show that you are authentic and make people feel as if they have a good “read” on you. Knowing and liking are components of trust. People ask others to just trust them while they expect others to prove their trustworthiness. Trust, like respect, is earned, not freely given.
At a certain point in either the very near or even somewhat far-off future, you’ll know their trust in you is sufficient so that – when you do eventually make the sales presentation – you’ll only need to overcome their concerns regarding whether your product or service is worth the various costs involved… but trust will not be an issue; you’ve overcome that already.
Actually, once your prospect has absolute trust in you, you’ll hardly even have deal with the above- mentioned concerns. Why? Because your prospect will know that – if your product or service was not right for them, you wouldn’t be presenting it in the first place.
And, how does your prospect know that?
Because, he or she trusts you.
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Bob Burg speaks on “Endless Referrals” and “Positive Persuasion.” He is author of “Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts Into Sales”, “Winning Without Intimidation: The Art of Positive Persuasion”, and co-author of “The Go-Giver.” Visit Bob at www.burg.com.
-What are some ways you can begin building a strong “trust factor” with your customers, clients, and or prospects?
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