Customers don’t buy from people they like, they buy from people they trust.

It is often said that customers buy from people they like. While we don’t usually buy from people we don’t like, there is an added dimension to this old saying.

Customers buy from people they trust

To further illustrate this point, let’s look at how typical prospects react when first contacted by new salespeople (also known as cold calling):

1. They find an excuse to hang up the phone as soon as possible
2. They are very busy during sales appointments.
3. They keep their mouths shut as much as possible when salespeople ask questions.
4. They will not refer sellers to a higher authority even when the need is clear.
5. They often use delaying tactics like “We’ll call you if necessary” to appease salespeople, etc.

These are just a few examples of customer behaviors when they mistrust the seller. As such, in order to get customers interested and excited about what you have to offer, you must first earn their trust.

a question of lust

The reasons why customers do not trust sellers are very simple: they feel that the only thing that sellers care about is receiving their money. Unfortunately, this “lust for customer money” is quite true with many vendors, AND customers can smell them from miles away.

When customers shop, what they really want for the money they spend is proven value. That is, the products or services they buy can bring about better productivity, reduce waste, or simply improve their quality of life.

So the first step to building trust is this: You need to be perceived as on the customers side and proactively help solve customer problems.

Here is a simple example. When most salespeople approach potential customers, they’ll say something like, “Hi, my name is xyz and I’m from abc company. How are you today? I’d like to show you a demo of our latest productivity-enhancing device.” . Since I’ll be near your neighborhood on Tuesday afternoon, can I come see you around 2pm or 4pm?”

The problem with this form of approach lies in how these potential customers respond. They’ll just say “I’m not interested” or they’ll say yes and then ask their secretaries to say “the boss has an urgent meeting, leave your materials at the front desk and we’ll call you when we need you.”

The reason for such customer responses is that they don’t trust what you said. They’ve probably seen too many “productivity-enhancing gadgets” and heard too many “I’m in your neighborhood” stories, and are no doubt too busy to run into yet another gadget peddler. Also, they don’t trust you enough to tell you about their “productivity” challenges, if that’s what your product will solve.

To overcome such trust issues at the initial contact, both sales people and their managers will need to work together to build trust and allay customers’ fears that they will be ripped off or wasted their time.

From the salesperson’s perspective, you’ll need to provide the customer with what Miller Heiman calls a valid business reason in your opening call, for example, “Hello, my name is xyz. I understand that many companies in your industry face serious challenges due to the sharp increases in raw material costs. I would like to explore with you if we can help you improve your productivity and therefore reduce your costs.”

From the perspective of sales managers, trust will need to be built beyond the initial cold call. Customers are likely to gain confidence if they have seen previous testimonials and case studies of success BEFORE the initial phone calls from salespeople.

Build credibility, NOT profit

Traditionally, many companies simply focus on “Features, Pros and Benefits” – none of which will work IF the customer doesn’t trust you enough. Therefore, salespeople would need to build credibility during the course of the sales process, namely:

*Hear
* Do your homework and ask smart questions
* Provide security to your customers

Many salespeople tend to put too much emphasis on their company and the products they offer, so they forgot to listen to their customers’ needs, wants, and concerns.

To make sure customers spend more time talking, salespeople would have to ask smart questions. Typically, customers expect sellers to have done some basic research on customer websites. Sales people can improve this by reviewing customer annual reports (if they are publicly traded companies) or the source of news reports on these customers. If a potential customer is a competitor of a current customer, you can get more information from the current customer. Web 2.0 social networking sites are also a great source of information.

While some sales managers may argue that spending too much time on the internet will eat up selling time and is therefore detrimental to sales. However, going to a client and not knowing what the right questions are will make the client feel that you are unprofessional and incompetent, even worse. Sales managers will need to strike the right balance by allocating enough time for research and selling.

Ultimately, customers will often have negligible concerns about buying from you. Rather than avoiding those concerns for fear that addressing them will hurt your sale, the opposite is likely to be true. If customers have any unanswered questions or concerns about your products and services, they will be:

* Less likely to buy
* Buy less
* Conduct a hard bargain on your price

So as you approach the final stages of your sale, look for symptoms that show the customer is nervous or restless. Then try to address such concerns and provide any reassurances.

the politics of truth

Perhaps the biggest destroyer of trust is “overpromising and underdelivering.” The causes of this destruction are two:

* Sellers make promises to customers about things they can’t (or aren’t sure they can) deliver
* Companies that deliver lower than expected product quality levels to their customers

For the former, sales managers would have to make sure salespeople don’t over-promise their customers just to get the sale or hit their sales target. Doing so will severely damage the trust between the buyer and the seller, and make it really difficult for future sales efforts to succeed.

For the latter, nothing demotivates salespeople more than having to answer customer questions to which they have no answer. No amount of sales effort will be successful if the company does not invest enough in quality to ensure that customers get what they pay for. When companies deliver shoddy quality, not only will there be a decrease in sales, but there will also be an immediate increase in sales staff turnover. It’s not a question of “if”, it’s just a question of time. After all, who wants to sell for a company they can’t even trust?