Building credibility in sales can be the difference between success or losing out on opportunities to conduct business with contacts. Today, we explore ways to increase your credibility while outlining things to avoid that might harm your credibility in the eyes of prospects.
How to Define Credibility, Trust and Challenges Initially
Trust is seen as an assured reliance on the character, ability, strength or truth of someone or something. In sales, it can be seen as a belief that you will do exactly what you say you will do for a prospect. When communicating with prospects your messaging should communicate a problem that your product will help to solve for the prospect. Some of the challenges in building credibility are mostly that the prospects do not know who you are initially. The challenge is, most of the time prospects may be learning about your product or company for the first time during your initial discussion, either over the phone or by email. Most of the time contacts will not purchase from someone or a company they are unfamiliar with. There needs to be a way to offer some form of proof other than your word that your product can solve their problem. One effective way is to present stories of other customers who have used your product and their thoughts on how it addressed their problems we will address this in the next section. The main goal is to build trust and credibility in a relationship that lasts throughout the sales process. Consider this article for more information.
How to Increase Your Credibility With Prospects
Credibility can be seen as a resource in sales and in some cases your success can depend on your credibility with your contacts. Here, we will explore ways to increase your credibility with your contacts. One quick way most contacts will use to determine more information about your company is to search your website or social media channels. Your companies LinkedIn profile should be updated along with your profile page. Sharing success stories is an effective way to assure contacts that others have used your product in the past and find success. The truth is, most contacts would not want to be the first to use your product to solve a problem. For more information on customer success stories consider this article. These contacts likely have a manager or supervisor they report to, and would have a difficult time convincing them to adopt a new solution that had no proof of being successful. Being authentic with prospects can start by Informing them from the beginning about who is and isn’t a fit for your services. service beyond the initial sale. Consider this article for more ways to increase your credibility in sales.
How Salespeople and Organizations Lose Credibility
In some cases, salespeople believe that the sale stops when the contracts have been signed however, most customers will expect further service for the use of your product. Most of the time you will not close a deal with a contact after your initial touchpoint with a prospect, it can take various touch points over a long period of time (6-18 months for most enterprise sales) to close a deal. Not properly logging communications with these contacts over that time can cause you to lose important points of discussion and action items. The use of a CRM is an important part of the sales process. A CRM adds to your credibility when you can reference important points of discussion from previous conversations with contacts when its relevant in future discussions. Neglecting to respond to contacts in a timely manner is one quick way to lose credibility and it can lead to lost opportunities for additional business in the future. And finally, over promising on what your product will do, but then under delivering can cause you to lose credibility and possibly the opportunity all together.
Remember, when building credibility with your contacts it is important to be authentic and honest with your prospects from the beginning about what your product will achieve for them, and how you as a sales person can support them through the process. If you are looking for more sales support, connect with me.
