Being liked and trusted by customers is crucial, but don’t confuse liked and trusted in your business life with liked and trusted in your personal life. They are different and should be treated as such. In business, trust is built on a foundation of honesty, competency, reliability, and relatability. The lingering supply chain issues caused by the pandemic that we’re all continuing to deal with are certainly making it more difficult for you to establish and build on these pillars. Until the supply chain problems stabilize, though, communication with your customers is paramount. In the present environment, you can’t communicate too much. Open, active, and consistent communication with your customers and suppliers will serve you well during these turbulent times. Nonetheless, let’s dig deeper into these four pillars.
Honesty: People want to deal with others that will shoot them straight and tell it like it is. Be honest about the capabilities of your company and products. Avoid the temptation to embellish your stories. Under promising and over delivering is a good habit to get into. People’s impression of your honestly is a hard one to turn around once it’s gone south – lie to me once, shame on you; lie to me twice, shame on me.
Competency: Do you know what you’re doing? That’s a question customers and prospects alike will ask themselves. Knowledge is a key ingredient in how competent you appear to people. It goes deeper than how much you know the products you sell. That’s incredibly important but it also includes the application of those products, the industry, your market, the competition, the processes in your own location, etc. Although acquiring this knowledge is important, it’s not always urgent. So, it requires focus on your part to carve out some time daily to increase your knowledge in your chosen field. Read, listen to podcasts, grab a product at your location you don’t know very well and dig into it, set up time with your vendor reps to pick their brains, etc.
Reliability: Can you be counted on? This pillar is all about doing what you say you will do. Your performance here depends on many factors, with the most important being how organized you are and how effectively you use any time management tools at your disposal. Having a system in place to manage your calendar, task list, and a good place to take notes is a great start, but make sure to install safeguards in your system to keep things from falling through the cracks. I don’t believe we ever reach a peak of organizational effectiveness. That is one skill we should always be looking to improve upon.
Relatability: As humans, we’re more likely to trust people that we have things in common with. Look for areas of commonality when working with customers and prospects. It does not necessarily have to be something you personally have in common. You can cast a wider net by looking for things the customer/prospect may have in common with a family member, friend, or neighbor of yours. It’s also OK to show a little vulnerability. We all feel vulnerable from time to time and showing that side to people in certain situations can make you feel more relatable. You don’t always have to be right, don’t take yourself too seriously and practice a little self-deprecating humor from time to time.
I’m going to add a fifth one: Empathy. A quote which is widely attributed to Theodore Roosevelt demonstrates this: “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Humans have an innate desire to be understood, and when we let people know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, with our questions, eye contact, and facial expressions that we want to understand them, it draws them to us. Showing empathy to people early on makes building positive judgements on your honesty, competency, reliability, and relatability much easier. Happy Selling!!
