How To Establish Rock Solid Trust And Rapport In Selling

How To Establish Rock Solid Trust And Rapport In Selling Image

Many years ago, I landed a job selling medical nutrition products to nursing homes located in Southern California. And boy, did I start off with a bang. In fact, I took my prospect list the company had given me, and I contacted all 300 accounts within the first month. I was on a roll. Ready to sell at the drop of a dime.

There was only one problem:

At the end of that month, my sales were not nearly as high as I'd hoped. And for the life of me I couldn't figure out what was wrong. was it me? was it my approach? was it something with our products, or my presentation of the products?

I couldn't figure this out on my own.

So I turned to my manager named Bill Cooper.

Bill was (and is) an incredible man, who gave me a piece of selling advice I'll never forget. he said, You must sincerely like your customers.

There is nothing fancy in that sentence. But give those six words a lot of thought because they are one very important reason your prospects will buy from you, or not. And when Bill shared them with me, I realized I had not paid much attention to genuinely getting to know my prospects before trying to sell them.

I liked my prospects because I like most people. But I saw them more as a business transaction instead of living, breathing person with problems I could help solve.

My mindset shifted from trying to sell. to getting to know my prospects first and foremost on a deeper level. Finding out what problems they were having? Finding out how bad these problems were? And then (when appropriate) presenting the benefits of my products as a way to solve their problems.

Did this help me sell more?

Of course it did. because I really started to like my customers first. they felt this. And as a result, they gave me (and my products) more of their time and attention which in turn helped me close more sales.

Truth is whenever I'm approached by a salesperson, I always try to figure out if they are genuinely concerned with me and my problems. Or, if they're just out to sell something. if it's the latter then I rarely give them my business.

So there you have it.

A fool-proof way to grow your sales simply by shifting your focus off yourself and onto the person sitting in front of you.