Show notes
I mean, you have a podcast called Building Trust in Sales, you say, "yeah, be trustworthy." That's pretty obvious. But it's also necessary. It's necessary to be that, and to be able to convey that, and just to be authentic with it.
David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing building trust in sales. Welcome back, Jay.
Jay: Hey, David, it's such a pleasure to be with you. Sales is a huge part of our business model, trusting that system. And, a lot of times it's like crossing our fingers that it will work.
I think a lot of people would like to have a little bit more surety than that.
David: Yeah. And trust is absolutely critical to the whole experience. If they don't trust you, there's no way they're going to buy from you. Now, there are some people who are untrustworthy and people should not buy from them, right?
So if you're untrustworthy, this is not a podcast about how to appear trustworthy. I'm assuming that everybody who's paying attention to this is coming from a place of honesty and fact of being about who we are. Because trust is going to be built on that.
The trust is going to be built on the conversations that we're having, how those conversations are taking place.
Are we being candid? Do people feel like we are providing them with honest answers to questions? And sometimes in sales, that can be hard for people.
There's a balance between wanting to put our best foot forward in sales, and being completely truthful and honest. And I feel that when we're weighing that balance, being completely truthful and honest is absolutely the way to go.
Because if you start sugarcoating things, and if you start exaggerating your abilities, and that sort of thing, that's going to end up badly. And so I think in order to build trust, it has to start with ourselves. Are we trustworthy? And if we are, then how do we convey that to the people we're interacting with?
Jay: Yeah, I totally agree. And one of the things that, you know, looking at it from a consumer that really bothers me, and we've talked about this in other podcasts, is where I'm on a website, which is often the storefront now, and they're offering me a free quote or something like that and I go through the whole process, and at the end it says enter your email and we'll send you the free quote, and I'm like You freaking lied to me, right?
And the last thing I'm going to do after that is reach out to you or give you my email address.
David: Yeah, I think if people are clear about what's going to happen up front, that's usually better. I've been in situations like that myself. Now, if I see that somebody's asking questions and I start going through that series of questions, I'm kind of expecting it at the end.
But, There are a lot of sites like that, where it'll start out and it'll just ask for your zip code, right? If you're trying to find a professional in a particular area, you enter your zip code, and then they ask what you're looking for, and when you're looking for it, and how soon, and, all that sort of thing, and they do exactly the same thing.
You get there and then they want your information, and then some of these sites will pass it on to a hundred different people, and now instead of finding the one solution, now you've got a hundred people annoying you.
To me, that's a business model problem. Which creates a trust problem because now, we don't trust anybody who's asking us for any information.
So a lot of times the worst players in the market set the tone, set the stage for what we have to go through. And when you're having an honest conversation with someone, talking to them about working with them, they're viewing us through the lens of someone who is not trustworthy. And then we all have to jump through additional hoops just to get back to zero, essentially.
Jay: I love this point, but I also think there's another way to look at it, and that is that it's easier to stand out when you don't do that stuff, right? So we, in our business, we offer a free consultation. And I can't tell you, like eight times a day, customers will say, wow, I'm surprised that you actually gave us a consultation instead of a sales call.
And so I'm instantly building trust. Because we have all been programmed. "Oh, I got a free consultation. I know what this is going to mean," right?
But I'll take a chance. So I think in a lot of ways, it's easier to stand out today.
David: Absolutely. as long as you're doing exactly what you described and we do the same thing.
If somebody schedules a call with us, the whole purpose of the call is to find out, does it make sense for us to work together? Can we help you? And if we can, that's great. And if we can't, that's okay too. You know, we're fine with either decision, but that's really the essence of trust, isn't it?
Is that you have two people. who willingly want to enter into a conversation about whether or not they can work together to achieve the result that they're looking for. And if they can, that's awesome.
But, the real disconnects come from those who don't do exactly what you just described.
Jay: Yeah. And I'm sure this is obvious. I hope it's obvious, but if you can't overcome that trust barrier that we're talking about from the beginning, You're done. You're cooked before it even starts.
David: Yeah. And sometimes it might depend on what you've done and what you've said. And sometimes it might not have anything at all to do with you. It may have to do with what's going on in their head, the experiences they've had.
You know, sometimes people are just scared or they're reluctant. They're afraid to move forward with something because of other experiences they've had. And when your conversation is being compared to other conversations they've had in the past.
Something that you say, the way you move your hands could trigger something in them that makes them think, "Oh no, I'm not buying this" or "this doesn't make sense for me."
So those types of things are outside our control. But what is always in our control is being as authentic as possible when we're interacting with people, being as truthful as possible with them, obviously.
I mean, you have a podcast called Building Trust in the Sales, you say, "yeah, be trustworthy." That's pretty obvious. But it's also necessary. It's necessary to be that and to be able to convey that and just to be authentic with it.
I think also when other people are trying to get information from a salesperson, they tend to phrase their questions in ways that might be not as direct.
I find that the more direct we can be in our answers, the more completely open and completely candid we can be with our answers, the more that's going to build trust.
When we start hedging and we start using, well, this and well, if that, then that doesn't breed confidence either.
Jay: Yeah, this just jumped into my mind because I remember we'd do this all the time. When you're interested in a new car, we would never go on the lot while the dealership was open because we didn't want that salesperson experience.
So we'd wait, sometimes we'd wait until the middle of the night and we'd go on the car lot and we'd look at all the cars.
Not until we're absolutely ready did we want to, you know, interface with any of their people, because we're all expecting that same experience. Nobody's doing anything different.
David: Yeah, and that's an industry that has basically created that impression in the minds of so many different customers. It's legendary. You say car dealership, people go, "oh."
Now I know there are car dealerships that don't operate that way and they have a distinct advantage, but the challenge for many people is finding them.
Jay: Yeah, I agree. And you know, we have a guy who was referred to us And, we've used him for the last 10 years, anytime we've had anything.
His name is Lance. We're like, man, we're so glad that Lance can help us and we never want him to leave. We're like, you can't retire, you know, because otherwise we're starting from scratch. It's like when you know a good mechanic, right?
Because there are certain industries where, from the get go you're going to have trust issues.
David: Yeah, absolutely. I think another important component to building trust is doing what you say you're going to do.
Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach, I love this quote. He said, basically, if you want to be successful in sales, but basically in life, you want to do three things: Show up on time, do what you say you're going to do, and say please and thank you. And I thought, that is brilliant
And the "doing what you say you're going to do" is just so integral to that because there are so many people who don't. "Hey, I'll get back to you tomorrow" or "let's have this meeting at this certain time" or whatever it is that they say. And then it doesn't happen.
There was a guy that I did work for a long time ago. He had a repair kind of shop, sort of a fix it man kind of thing. And he had a rubber stamp on his desk with. Three big letters. It said DNH, which stood for did not happen. If somebody was supposed to do something that they didn't do, he stamped it in red with this DNH, did not happen.
And I was like, That's good. You know, that lets people know, okay, I'm actually paying attention to what you said, and I'm expecting you to follow through on it.
Jay: I love that. A big, you know, message for everybody to see. You mentioned this a little bit earlier too, and there is a danger to over promise. Especially in the sales process, right?
There is a real danger of doing that.
David: Yeah, over promise and under deliver is something that people talk about a lot, and they, well, they talk about the opposite. They talk about you want to under promise and over deliver.
I still think that's a little misguided.