How high is your sales trust factor?
Is it higher than the sales trust factor of your competitors?
It should be, if you want to increase your success in sales.
Your sales trust factor represents the level of trust that
buyers have in you as a seller. In the buy/sell relationship,
perception is the reality under which sellers operate, and trust
is based on the buyer?s perception of you.
You may be the most honest, trustworthy person in your field,
but if buyers don?t perceive you to be trustworthy because of
your selling behaviors, it doesn?t matter how trustworthy you
are in reality.
Buyers Don?t Trust Sellers What is the greatest challenge,
usually unspoken, that sellers face when working with buyers?
Distrust.
The simple truth is buyers don?t trust sellers. Unfortunately,
because of the way a lot of people have sold in the past and
still sell today, buyers have very good reasons not to trust
sellers.
We all like to think we?re trustworthy. In fact, a study has
shown that we think others trust us at significantly higher
levels than they really do. For example, you may think that
buyer A rates you as eight out of ten on the trust factor scale.
When asked by a third party, however, the same buyer may
actually rate you as five out of ten, the same they rate most
other salespeople. Again, the reality is that most people
mistrust sellers ? regardless of what they may tell you.
Trust ? YOUR Competitive Advantage To win more business,
especially in today?s competitive environment, it?s imperative
that you create a separation point between you and your
competitors based on trust. Notice I said YOU. For most products
and services today, there is relatively little functional
difference for the buyer among the available choices, even
though companies continue to spend billions of dollars in
advertising each year to attempt to create separation points in
the minds of buyers.
Today?s buyers are so busy and exposed to so much information
that often they either ignore or do not recognize these efforts.
Buyers have a difficult time making a purchase decision because
they are not able to identify one product or service that is
clearly superior to the others.
It?s critical, then, that sellers focus on trust-building
activities with prospects and customers and avoid trust-breaking
activities. You must take it upon yourself to create a
separation point in the mind of potential buyers between
yourself and your selling competitors.
The best way to create this separation point is to increase your
trust factor with your buyers.
You Need a Plan Given the perception of buyers, trust-building
is not likely to occur simply as a result of your sales process.
If you attend the same training courses as other sellers in your
industry, read the same books, say the same things, and use the
same sales tools and techniques, chances are you?re not going to
create much of a separation with buyers based on trust.
Despite the fact that level of trust is the number one decision
factor in many purchases, it is rarely addressed. If you were to
take a look at the indexes of the ten most popular sales books,
how many do you think would include the word ?trust? in the
index? Try it. If the books you read are like the books on my
bookshelf, only one or two will even have the word listed in the
index. The others probably have only a few paragraphs discussing
the topic of trust.
So what IS your approach to overcome distrust, one of the most
significant obstacles in the buy/sell relationship? Do you have
a specific, well-thought out plan designed to overcome this
obstacle and to build greater levels of trust with your
prospects?
You must create an action plan and constantly focus on executing
the plan in order to build trust. And once you?re able to
increase your trust factor with buyers, you will also see an
increase in your sales.
Summary ? Three Key Points to Remember: Regardless of what you
believe about your own level of trustworthiness, your trust
factor with buyers is low. To increase sales, individual sellers
must create their own separation point from competitors rather
than rely on their product, service, or company to create the
separation point. Sellers can create a separation point by
building a greater level of trust with buyers versus their
competitors.
About the author:
Robert Reed is a consultant, speaker and president of
TrustBuild. TrustBuild offers the only trust seal program to
identify trustworthy sales professionals and organizations.
Sealholders receive tools and information to help them break
through the buyer ?trust barrier? to gain a competitive edge.
Visit
target=_blank>TrustBuild.com to learn more about the trust
seal program for trustworthy sales professionals.
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