Building total belief in the mind of your buyer is the bedrock of their decision-making. They don’t need to just feel confident that what you are providing will work.
They need to feel SURE.
They are going to have doubts. It is natural.
They want to believe but natural brain thoughts make small dents in their judgement.
They tell themselves ‘they are a bit different’ and that ‘they break the mould’. They create ‘buyer excuses’.
The majority of the time, this is nonsense but for the buyer, it’s real.
Until it’s not real. Until the seller bring’s to life the solution in a way that really builds TRUST.
A few years ago, I joined a fitness and weight loss program for a coach. I had accepted my problem (1st base of selling), he had taken some time to understand me (2nd base) and he had outlined his model and method to get results which had given me belief it could work (3rd base).
But I still had doubts. I didn’t fully trust him (4th base) that I would get the desired result I wanted.
Until I saw him do a live Facebook Q and A with Chris.
Chris was a big lad. Or he was before he started working with the coach.
For 15 to 20 minutes, the coach asked Chris to share his story. What had got him to this position? Why had he decided to act? What was stopping him from being the weight and shape he wanted?
Check. Check. Check.
Then Chris shared how the coach had been the key factor in making the change in his life. How he had been sceptical that it would work but how with daily support from the coach and weekly accountability, he had achieved the results he wanted.
They shared a before and after photo and other aspects which were RELEVANT to me and my position and it not only made me believe it but it made me Trust as well.
If Chris could do it (and he was pretty similar to me) then I could do it. I was even encouraged to reach out and have a conversation with Chris to ask him other questions. I did and he was open and honest. He said the coaches program had made a difference.
When Chris’s story was added to with Brian’s the following week (same story – big guy, wanted to change…) I had run out of excuses NOT TO BELIEVE.
The coach had been clever.
He hadn’t shown me 25-year-old men with ripped muscles to try and convince me I should join his program. He had brought a REAL example of a 45-year-old man who was fatter than he should have been and who wanted to change!
He had built belief and trust in my mind with relevance. And it worked. I joined the program and did proceed to lose weight over a 3 month period.
Why did it work and what lesson MUST you take from this?
Be relevant and bring to life the end result with someone/some company that is LIKE the potential buyer.
If you want them to buy from you then share real, RELEVANT examples that the buyer can relate to. Share customers who were the same or who had similar problems. Don’t show examples which may look fancy or impressive but ultimately don’t build trust.
As humans, we are programmed (and studies show it happening) to feel comfortable in following others. But we want others to be like us. To be people we can relate to. People that we can say to ourselves ‘they are just like me’ and ‘if they can do it then I/we can’.
Finding exact matches is nigh on impossible but they don’t have to be exact. They just need to be very similar.
So if you want the buyer to be convinced, bring to life your solution in a relevant, live way. Build ambassadors (as Chris was for the coach) and a tribe of other customers who love what you do so much that they will share with the world how good you are. Don’t just have 1 of these examples. Build a collection of them.
Build lots of your version of Chris so you can show that the outcomes you achieve aren’t a fluke. Bring them to life in a relevant way and watch the buyers excuse’s fade away.
Be relevant to build trust.
Without it, the close is tough.
The buyer wants to believe and trust.
It’s your job to bring it to life.
