The profession of selling doesn’t have a great reputation. We’ve all encountered sales people that use self serving tactics to close a deal, leaving the rest of us tarred with the same brush. How can we build trust effectively with our prospects and customers, in spite of this reputation? Here’s four things you can do to build trust:
1) Credibility – show that you have the experience and credentials to deal with their issues. Do this as early as you can in the engagement. A great way to do this is by getting someone to introduce you with your credentials.
2) Reliability – do what said you would do, when you said you would do it! People can easily draw inference from the consistency of our actions. If you make commitments stick to them, so think about the commitments you make before you agree them. Use conditional language before you make a commitment, for example, “I’m pretty sure we can do that, but I’d like to check in with my colleagues first before I commit.”
3) Intimacy – how secure or safe the client feels sharing information with us. This is a fine line to tread and takes good emotional intelligence to judge it well. It also takes time to get into this position, and trying to be too friendly too soon can be seen as insincere.
4) Self-interest -This can reduce all the work you’ve done on the other three, so above all make sure you put the client’s interests first.
Conclusion: we all know that we need to build trust with clients, but knowing how to do that is not always obvious. Use these four levers to see where you can improve and so close more deals.
