When Trust Is At Risk, Everything Is At Risk!
Author of Intentionomics: The Science of Intentional Trust
(Amazon top 10 best seller in 2 categories of business health and self-help inner child).
Most of us get that trust is important in sales and customer service… and in fact, in every aspect of our business and personal life. If leaders aren’t trusted, performance, productivity and profitability is at risk. If an individual or collective team members aren’t trusted, again, performance, productivity and profitability is at risk. And certainly in sales and customer service, if the salesperson is not trusted, the potential to win more new, repeat and referral sales are at risk.
Put simply, when trust is at risk, everything is at risk!
The problem is, while most of us get that trust is important, few leaders or their teams, when asked, are able to clearly articulate their process for building trust. This is a problem because if you can’t clearly articulate it, you can't measure it, and if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
Here are 3 common sales myths that put trust at risk:
Myth #1: Body Language
The reality is some of the much touted ways on how to read and interpret body language will potentially cause you to dis-engage with your clients and lose sales! While it can be a lot of fun on stage, and I’m not denying there is some science upon which body language is based, what’s often missed is that the more you are consciously focused on trying to interpret the body language of others, the less conscious attention you’ll have to be focusing on your intention to genuinely help the client. This puts trust at risk.
Myth #2: Questions Are The Key To Success In Sales
Since the big shift from traditional pressure based sales techniques to what’s often now referred to as ‘soft selling’ (just as an aside… there’s nothing ‘soft’ about selling, and this approach is losing more sales than winning them because it promotes passive selling rather than professional selling), one of the major focuses has been on asking better questions – that “questions sell and explanations tell”. Again, while there is no doubt asking better questions is good sales process, most salespeople struggle to articulate why the questions they ask are important for the client, and not just important for them to get a sale… this flaw in questioning puts trust at risk.
Myth #3: Great salespeople don’t close sales, people buy
While most of the traditional pressure-based closing techniques simply don’t work in the consumer-savvy and business-to-business savvy world we live in today, this nonsense about great salespeople not closing sales is one of the major causes for the much-maligned response from potential clients “I will think about it!” Great salespeople DO close sales, and they do it in a way that people want to buy. Great salespeople take the personal responsibility to create the right kind of buying experience for their customers where they have earned the right to make a confident recommendation that the client buys and buys now! Poor sales process will provide the customer with alternatives and choice – the problem with this is choice kills the sales, unless there is an intentional recommendation. Clients are looking for and need professional advice and without advice… trust is at risk.
These are just three of many other common myths that while each do have positive foundations, are more often than not being implemented with flawed understanding and unintentional application. This puts trust at risk… and when trust is at risk, everything is at risk.
To help you better understand how to implement an intentional trust model that is grounded in validated scientific research, please click on the link below to watch this 4 minute video presentation on The Intentionomics Trust Model that demonstrates People Get Your Truth – over time, your intentions, promises, actions and results will either promote you or expose you!
