Trust
When I first came to live in the town where I currently live, I did not really know anyone who lived there. However, I had to employ a builder for some work on the house that I had bought. As I did not know anyone, I could not ask for recommendations. As a result, I had to contact a number of builders and ask them to come around to have a look at what was required. Eventually I found one who seemed trustworthy and gave him the work. I used him for three of four more jobs over the next few years as he did a good job and was reliable. I trusted him.
Having a recommendation can shorten the process of finding a reliable tradesman. There are now a number of schemes for providing feedback on all sorts of trades so that companies or individuals can build a profile that demonstrates that they can be trusted. Asking friends and colleagues is another good way of finding trustworthy people to work for you. Most companies when they are recruiting will offer incentives to their own staff for them to recommend someone that they know to fill the vacancy. This is not to provide extra benefits to their staff but to shorten the recruitment process and provide more certainty that they will be employing someone that is capable of doing the job.
It is almost impossible to do anything now without being asked for a review. Any purchase is followed by an email asking for a review; any hotel stay or meal out that was booked online comes with a request for a review. Whole websites and businesses exist just from online reviews. If we want to buy anything, we can find a review of it. All of these things are done to try to persuade people to trust the business that is supplying the product or service.
If we want someone to buy from us, we have to demonstrate that they can trust us.
This does not happen overnight. Walking in off the street and expecting to be trusted is not likely to happen. The customer has to know that what you are offering is the right solution for them and that it will do what they need it to do. They only have your word for it to start with so they must trust you before they progress.
Chapters 6 to 11 of The Equation of Sales cover the aspects of a sales person’s role that deal with trust. They are:
Chapter 6 - Building trust, how do you go about doing this?
Chapter 7 - Why do you do what you do?
Chapter 8 - Customer Research, how to find out about your customer;
Chapter 9 - What does a good customer look like? – and which are the best ones to focus on?
Chapter 10 - How to get through the front door, what can you say to get your potential customer interested in your solution?
Chapter 11 – Presentations, how to present your product in the best possible way.
The video below discusses Trust in more detail.
