The role of trust in relationship-based selling
“As the world shifts to virtual, the challenge is building client trust.” I almost fell out of my chair when I heard a Sales VP say this.
Building client trust has always been challenging; it’s not a new hurdle to overcome. It can seem harder when we can’t meet in person, but prospects don’t trust you simply because you meet face-to-face, shake hands, or share a meal. They do trust you when you share close contacts.
Trust is key in referral sales strategies—in any sales strategy, really—but trust must be earned.
The Emotional Advantage in Referrals
Building client trust is a challenge, but there’s a simple solution for overcoming it. Use a trust-based sales strategy like asking for referrals.
If your team is selling the same-old, same-old way—with standard demos and loosely veiled discovery questions like “What keeps you up at night?”—then sure, building client trust is hard. This is true no matter how they’re connecting with prospects. Your team will botch the meeting either way because most of their outreach is cold. There’s no relationship, no connection, and definitely no trust.
There’s a saying in sales: Clients buy with emotion and justify with fact. That’s why building trust in sales relationships is our most important job. It’s also why a referral selling strategy is key to building a pipeline full of qualified leads.
Emotional connections in sales are transferable. Most of us don’t trust strangers—whether they’re right in front of us, on a video call with us, or on the other end of the phone line—unless someone we trust has told us those people are trustworthy. When we have a referral introduction to our prospects, trust has already been earned and relationships have begun to form, before we even meet them.
(Image attribution: reeball)
The Power of Trust in Sales
Referrals enable us to start business conversations from a place of trust. Then we must continue to deepen emotional connections in sales, to continue proving we’re worthy of our clients’ and prospects’ faith in us.
Trust is a word we use indiscriminately, but we do not trust indiscriminately. How do we define trust? How do we get our arms around such an emotional word? That’s a tough question to answer, because it depends on the person, and sometimes it depends on the times.
For me, trust is earned by doing the right thing, even when the right thing is unpopular. Being trustworthy means having the willingness to push back when you know someone is headed down the wrong road. It means pushing back when a client tells you what they want, and you know the consequences will be dire if you don’t speak up. It means helping someone when they need help, without expecting anything in return. In a word, it’s fidelity.
(Image attribution: gstockstudio)
Buyers don’t naturally trust salespeople, because many of our peers are arrogant and never stop pitching. In fact, just 18 percent of salespeople are classified by buyers as “trusted advisors” whom they respect, according to research by Steve W. Martin. The rest only care about selling products, not about the people and businesses they’re selling to. At least, that’s what many prospects have come to believe. They hear the word sales and think of the stereotypical used-car salesman.
Top salespeople are different. They show empathy and listen carefully. They understand that their job is to help their clients solve problems. They ask smart questions to uncover those problems and apply their experience and expertise to find solutions. And if they can’t help, they refer someone who can. In doing so, they are continuously building trust in sales relationships and earning future referrals.
Skills That Help You Build Emotional Connections in Sales
To tap into the emotional advantage in referrals, it’s important to keep building your emotional intelligence skill set. According to Colleen Stanley, founder and president of Sales Leadership, there are two EQ skills that accelerate referrals:
- Delayed Gratification: In a “me want it now” world, emotionally intelligent people put in the work required to develop and deepen relationships with their referral sources, thereby earning the right to ask for referrals. With existing clients, who already know the value of their expertise and solutions, that right has already been earned. But with the rest of their professional networks (especially new connections), it takes time to earn trust.
- Self-Awareness: Salespeople know they should be asking every single client for referrals, but many don’t do it, because they are not AWARE of the self-limiting beliefs that hold them back. They fear asking for referrals because they don’t want to appear desperate or pushy. They fear the timing isn’t right, or that (gasp) people will say no. Colleen believes increasing self-awareness helps people change negative self-talk to positive self-talk—for example, “My clients are eager to give me referrals.”
Bottom line: Increase your EQ skills and you will increase referrals.
Trust-Driven Referrals are Unstoppable
Relationships built on trust give you an edge over your competitors, who often don’t even get a chance to compete. After all, why would prospects bother shopping around if they already trust you? The ultimate sales app is you. It doesn’t require a smartphone, a tablet, or even a computer. Plus, it’s 100-percent free to use by anyone on any platform.
Despite what you’ll often hear from sales tech gurus, your success isn’t determined by the number of devices that connect you to the outside world; it’s determined by the number of relationships that connect you to your prospects.
As the Harvard Business Review puts it, “Research suggests that … inbound strategies can attract interest, but referral selling closes deals. It’s not about chasing quantity—it’s about securing quality conversations with decision-makers who are already predisposed to trust you.”
(Featured image attribution: iftikharalam)