Establish a trusted relationship through the content you provide.
1. Begin with the end in mind – design your ideal client base of the future.
2. Decide on five or six criteria that will help you identify your ‘dream’ clients.
3. Focus all your business development effort and resources on building relationships with senior executives in your dream client base.
4. Don’t cold call. Build relationships with ‘target’ prospects by providing valuable content.
5. Think like a client to identify what content your target prospect will value.
6. Establish a trusted relationship through the content you provide.
7. Be absolutely sure that you can deliver on your sales and marketing promise
8. Focus on relationship building skills, not on techniques to manipulate a relationship.
9. Build trust before trying to win business; earn the right to tell your story.
10. Don’t be afraid to show vulnerability. It demonstrates you are human. Clients want you to be human.
11. Delivery on the small things is really important – it helps to establish trust.
12. There are no grey areas with honesty. There is no trust without honesty.
13. Important relationships need investment. Think about which relationships to invest in today.
14. The two most powerful selling skills are questioning and listening – practice both.
15. Insightful questions demonstrate your knowledge and understanding more than telling me what you know.
16. Principled selling involves congruency throughout the business development process.
17. The best way to demonstrate genuine interest is to listen – really listen.
18. To listen really effectively you can’t be thinking of the next question.
19. The question follows the answer as much as the answer follows the question.
20. The best way to demonstrate you understand is to summarise what the client said – and check back for accuracy.
21. You cannot fake genuine interest.
Is there anything else you’d add to the list? Leave a comment with your thoughts below – I’d love to know.
David Tovey
David Tovey is a professional speaker, coach and author of 'Principled Selling' published by Kogan Page.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I think it’s the same with marketing David. All we really need to do is help clients to buy – by providing the right information they find genuinely useful. It’s not about manipulating them with marketing or selling ‘techniques.’
Thanks for elaborating on Tip 19. That makes perfect sense.
A great list, nicely put.
I tend to summarise it in an even more abridged way, the 3 c’s – credibility, capability, cost, when selling professional services.
Thank you. Always happy to learn how how others approach business development. Like your 3 ‘cs’.
David
For me the big question when I’m selling is “why are you talking to me” get the answer to this and I’m half way there. Great piece.
Trust is such a crucial area for sales, whether that be one-to-one or one-to-many, as in the area of sales presentations. Thanks for the great list of ideas for building that trust David.
Can I add one more? It comes from classical rhetoric and it’s the use of humility. The more you play-up your achievements and claims to fame, the more an audience or a customer can pull away from you: “Methinks they protest too much!”. Sometimes an understated delivery can be the most powerful