Building a level of trust and credibility with your customers will help make sure you’re closing the right deals, and will foster the relationship between you for years to come.  These 5 tips will help you gain that trust, and keep it, during the sales process.

Understand Your Customer — and their Problems

To present your company’s solution as the best option for a customer, you need a solid understanding of their needs, business goals, and the problems they are currently facing. Take a deep dive into their current processes, what they are trying to achieve, and it will help you to uncover pain points and the impact those pain points are having on the business.

You can’t show the value of your solution if you don’t understand the problem your customer is trying to solve. A solid ‘discovery phase’ process will prove to the client that you are serious about understanding what they need, and wanting to be the solution to their problem, which will lead them to appreciate, trust and value your opinion even more.

Don’t Sell Just to Sell

Sometimes if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Your solution, at your price point, may just not be the best option for the buyer — and it’s always better to be upfront and honest about it rather than proposing something that may not fully deliver the outcome that the customer is expecting or hoping for. Only sell a solution if it’s actually going to help the problem and be in the best interests of the buyer, and say no if it just doesn’t make sense.  They will appreciate it and may be more willing to work with you in the future for your honesty.

Give ‘Freebie’ Tips

Giving little tidbits of ‘free’ tips and advice will show your potential customers that you have valuable insights to offer to help them make improvements right away.

Offering some immediate results (for free!) will excite the prospect with how you can really help them, while you’re qualifying them at the same time. Plus, they’ll see your free offer as a shot of confidence in your own business (“Yes, we’ll give you free advice now, as we’re so confident you’ll work with us in the future”).

Continue to provide them with value throughout the entire sales process, and give nuggets of useful information along the way. Leave your prospects with something to think about along the way.

Under-Promise & Over-Deliver

Some sales professionals think it’s best to never say “no” to the customer, or to tell them whatever they think they want to hear.  Our advice: Don’t ever promise anything you can’t deliver. Telling your customer that you can make your solution work, for a certain price, by a certain deadline, when you know it’s not possible, will only blow up in your face.

Promise only what you know to be achievable, and do what you say you’re going to do. Always follow up when you say you’ll follow up, and be clear on the next steps of the process, so the customer always knows where they stand, and what to expect next.

Prove Your Credibility & Trustworthiness

The best way to demonstrate your credibility, trustworthiness and value is with historical proof. Customer testimonials and case studies are an asset for any sales process, and will show your prospects proof that what you are promising is real and deliverable.

There’s one more big part of curating long-lasting and trusting relationships, and that’s being a personable and empathetic human. There are certain things a customer can gain from one-on-one interaction with a real person that they can’t get from a computer or from a sales-generating software platform, and they’ll definitely be more encouraged to buy a product or service from you if they actually enjoy working with you.

We hope these tips have been useful and will help you in your future sales calls and emails to prospective buyers…good luck closing those deals!

Working with (or for some, dealing with) sales is a constant part of our professional lives. Some sales reps are great to work with. Some … not so much. So we’re teaming up with HubSpot’s Research group to survey consumers on how they feel about sales and how they look for information when considering a business purchase. If you happen to be a sales professional, we have tailored questions just for you on how you approach prospects and the challenges you face today.

If you want to make your voice heard, take HubSpot’s survey today! It’ll take just a few minutes to complete and is totally anonymous.