If you ask any sales professional what the number one factor is in convincing a prospect to work with you, the answer will always be trust. Building trust with your prospect early on in the sales process is vital. So in this week’s video, I share 7 ways to build trust with your prospect. Hit play on the video or keep reading!
1. GREET PROSPECTS WARMLY
The way you greet a prospect will say a lot about you as a person and if it’s the first time you’re meeting the prospect, this will form how positive their first impression of you is. It’s key that you make a great first impression because this is what your prospect will remember and once a first impression is formed, it’s hard to change a negative one into a positive one! So, greet your prospect with a warm welcome- shake their hand, make eye contact, smile and speak with a friendly tone. Doing this will instantly begin to build trust with your prospect.
2. TALK SLOWLY AND LISTEN INTENTLY
If you speak too quickly, you’ll risk your prospect doubting what you are telling them. However, if you speak slowly and concisely, your prospect will understand what you are saying to them and they’ll have no reason to doubt you. Similarly, listening to your prospect intently and allowing them to speak will show them that you care about them and what they have to say, further building a mutual trust.
3. KEEP TO YOUR WORD AND FOLLOW UP ON ACTIONS YOU SAID YOU WOULD
There’s nothing worse than saying you’ll do something and not following through and keeping your word. So, to build trust with your prospect, if you say you’ll do something by a certain time, for example send through a proposal or call them on a particular day, make sure you do. There’s no quicker way to break your prospect’s trust than not keeping to your word. My advice would be to under promise and over deliver!
4. MAKE SURE YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE IS RELIABLE
If your product or service does what it says on the tin and solves a pain point for someone, then ultimately your prospect will naturally build a trust in you because they’ll have seen it working for other companies. Show them that they can trust you by sharing testimonials and success stories from other customers. If you can deliver the same great service for them, they will have no reason not to trust you.
5. BE ACCESSIBLE
If you were considering working with someone or buying a product or a service and you looked online and saw that they hadn’t posted on social media for 6 months or you looked on their website and saw it hadn’t been updated since 2017, what would you think? I’m sure you’d be concerned and wonder if you could trust them as a company. Rightly or wrongly, we make judgements based on how accessible a company might be and so if you want to build trust with your prospects, you must be accessible online.
6. BE HONEST AND TRANSPARENT
It would be illogical to think that nothing would go wrong in business- even the most successful businesses have their ups and downs but it’s how you handle it that matters. If you can hold you hands up and say ‘we got this wrong, we made a mistake’ and are honest and transparent with your prospects and customers there’ll be no surprises and 9 times out of 10, they will understand. If however, you try to hide things from them and are dishonest, you will break their trust.
7. BE CONSISTENT
Take McDonalds as an example for this one- what makes them the most successful fast food chain in the world? Many would say it’s not about the quality of their food but about the consistency of their products and service. No matter where you are in the world, you know that the Big Mac will be exactly the same and we’ve all come to expect this. So, being consistent in the service you provide will help you to build trust with your prospects.
