Trust is such a vital part of sales, but sales leaders and salespeople still struggle to recognize and fully understand it. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Moeed Amin discusses trust-building and its impact on decision making. Moeed Amin is a Director and Founder at Proverbial Door, helping B2B sales professionals to increase their conversion rates and SME owners to scale their businesses.
The interview discusses:
- Trust issue in the sales industry
- Eight characteristics that build trust
Trust in Sales
The research has shown that 40 percent of sales professionals seem untrustworthy. Also, 25 percent of the buyers think of the sales industry as ethically and morally questionable. These results show that sales professionals still have a long way to go to prove their industry trustworthy. Trust is the convergence of character and competence. Competence can be thought to some level because it requires industry-specific skills, but the more important factor among these two is character. If people have the right character traits, they can train to become more trustworthy.
Trust-Building Characteristics
Eight evergreen characteristics build trust with people. The first one is authenticity. How you speak, act, and sell has to align with your values and beliefs because buyers can subconsciously notice if not. The second one is consistency in anything you do. That includes consistency in your approach, professionalism, quality of your relationships, etc. Next comes integrity, which is being honest and truthful. It is crucial to deliver the promises you made.
Furthermore, taking responsibility and accountability is very important in sales. Things can always go wrong, and buyers know that. However, buyers want a seller who will stay with them when things go wrong instead of transferring them to technical or customer support. Interestingly, the next characteristic is guilt worthiness. We live in a world where buyers can easily research your past. We all make mistakes, but people who openly show that they regret wrongdoings they made in the past inspire more trust in them.
Moreover, generosity is a characteristic that alone cannot build trust in people. The reason for that is because by being generous, people think that you want to buy their loyalty. However, this is an extremely significant characteristic because it shows genuine care to help others without certainty that you will get something in return. And last but not least is agreeableness. In this case, that means being empathetic. It means listening, asking questions, and trying to understand another person’s point of view before suggesting yours. Making a buying decision is a very stressful and personal decision for buyers. Thus, to influence buyers to make the best possible decision, you have to understand where they are coming from and see the world through their eyes.
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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