How Well Do You Inspire Trust with Your Customers?
We've chosen this classic article from our Sales Blog archive to keep you productive over the weekend, even as our CEO is currently on a business trip to Shanghai and not in the best condition. Stay inspired and keep pushing forward. We’ll return next week with more insightful articles.
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By Michael J Griffin
How well you inspire trust with your B2B customers can be your competitive advantage or kill the sale. Effectively building trust leads to healthy long term customer relationships that is a win for both you and your customer. With customers limiting their “exposure” to salespeople, quickly establishing trust is a must to move the sales process forward. Dale Carnegie research states 81% of customers are more likely to buy again from a salesperson they trust.
Let’s look at a “trust checklist” for you to evaluate your ability to get customers to trust you.
The Trust Checklist – The Baker’s Dozen!
What is your attitude to serve and help the customer achieve success? Are you more focused on getting the sale or supporting your customer’s success?
“Most (sales)people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply,” says Stephen Covey. How well do you really listen to your customer and his/her problems?
Being prepared shows you care. How much effort to you put in to being prepared for your sales meeting? Demonstrating you are prepared is a trust builder.
How likeable are you? Are you amicable, friendly and pleasant, perhaps demonstrating high levels of empathy and agreeableness?
Do you deliver on what you promise? Can you consistently under promise and over deliver t wow your customer? In other words, are you dependable?
How well do you adapt your communication style to connect to different communication styles of customers?
Are you a confident expert in the features, benefits and solutions your product offers? Customers want to deal with experts who know and believe in their solutions.
How good are you at telling stories that allow the customer to connect to their situation?
Are you aware of what your facial expressions and body language signal to the customer? Do you signal care and confidence? Are you observant to the customer’s body language and their ability to share and listen?
What tactics can you employ to minimize distractions during your discussions with the customer? Cell phone on silent? Clear your own mental distractions before you begin?
Trusted salespeople ask great questions. Are you prepared to ask questions that inspire the customer to discuss their problems and explore solutions with you? Good respectful questions inspire trust.
Don’t be a probing machine! How well do you employ collaborative discussion skills to ensure an open trusting discussion: confirm what has been said, position topic changes, and checking if the customer is “on the bus.”
How honest are you with your customer? Or do you need to shade the truth, the benefits to get the sale? Is your personal integrity a trust builder?
Being trusted is a competitive advantage that leads to long term customer loyalty and mutually beneficial relationships. Work on your “trustablity” by having a serving attitude and the behaviors that show you can be trusted.
May you build customer trust that leads to healthy customer relationships!
Michael J Griffin
ELAvate Founder
Sales Productivity Coach