The faster you establish trust in sales, the quicker you're going to get a decision

The faster you establish trust in sales, the quicker you're going to get a decision, let's do a little mind exercise here. First, think of someone in your business environment where you have a high trust relationship. You trust them and you feel good about them. Think about it, it could be a peer, could be a colleague, someone within business, that you have a really high level of trust for that person.

• How does it feel when you do business with them in terms of interaction?

• When you're collaborating with them?

• When you're communicating with them?

• How fast you get things done?

• What type of results do you achieve by that interaction and that partnership?

When you have a high level of trust with that person, using all those elements are pretty positive. You get results really quickly and you want to go back and have more of a collaboration with that particular person. Now let's talk about a low level of trust. Think of somebody in your business or environment or a colleague where you have a low level of trust for some reason.

• How do you feel about your interaction with that person?

• How quickly do you get things done with that person and what's your communication like with that person?

Usually it's not good. It's slow and you can't wait to get on with another experience. All of those elements are what your client is feeling about you. If they are not trusting you, then they can't wait for you to leave. They're not really listening to what you're saying. The energy level when you interact with someone with a low level of trust is very, very low. When you interacted with someone with a high level of trust the energy is very high, so all of these elements help to speed a decision and help to speed the connectivity of influencing someone towards you.

Let's look at how we can communicate trust and if you've read any books at all, please read another one called Speed of Trust by Stephen MR Covey because this is part of what he's talking about here and it's a very powerful influencer when it comes to communicating with the person that you're trying to influence towards you. Please note that we are talking about authentic influence, not just any influence. When it comes to trust, there are two pillars that Steven talks about, one is credibility and the other one is behavior, so what are the pillars of credibility? When you've got character and you've got competence. Character and competence, there are psychological elements that a person is thinking about when you're communicating with that person. You're thinking about this right now. You're thinking about what's this? What's this company's character? What's their competence level? Who exactly are they? You start to think about those things, you might not be aware of them, but you're thinking a little bit about them. So character comes down to two things, integrity and intent.

So the client, when you're interacting with them is thinking, what's the integrity of this person? How honest are they? What's the intent of this person? What are their intentions? What are they trying to get out of this? Is there something that I am missing? When you aren't really good at communicating correctly in these two areas, you're starting to reinforce poor character and you want to reinforce your communication with good character because that's obviously what's instilling the trust, so the elements behind character are integrity, your honesty, your integrity of what you're doing and what you're saying and your congruency and consistency throughout that communication is what the client's going to be looking for. What's your intentions? Are you doing this just because you got a commission to reach, are you doing this because you've got a quota to get. You're doing this for any other reason other than the benefit of the client. When you start focusing on just the client, your intent is reinforced dramatically. Your integrity is reinforced dramatically. That's why it's all about focusing on the person you're talking to. So that's the character elements.

Then we've got the competence elements and that comes in the form of capabilities and results, capability and results. The client is thinking, how capable is this person and what results have they been able to achieve? Capability comes down to, how have you performed in the past and are you relevant today? Is there a capability? Can you meet the requirements of where I am now, but can you meet them in the future too, and what results have you achieved and are they results from 10 years ago or the results from yesterday, and are they relevant results? You're ability to reinforce how capable you are, your ability to reinforce the results you've been able to achieve and how relevant you've been able to achieve those results is going to reinforce your competence to the person you're talking to, your ability to reinforce and show your integrity, show testimonials from people who've done business with reinforced your intentions of what you're going to do.

Once you partnership is actually secured and you move forward and you're both working together, what it means moving forward down the road. What's your intention down the road in terms of supporting the particular client's needs? All of these elements lead into you being a more effective influencer and pulling people towards you. Here is a 100% real life example of how this occurred just two weeks ago with me. I was getting onto a plane, a plane that I'd never flown on before, this particular airline, and I got a great price and I realized in the end why I got a great price. 6:00 in the morning, I'm at the San Diego Airport where I live and was off to Colorado. First, I got my bag and I start to board the plane when the numbers come up and I got stopped at security getting onto the plane and I'm like, no one ever gets stopped here.

Why me? They stopped me and said, well, you've got a bag you need to pay an extra $63 for that bag. And I'm like, Whoa, I've never had to do that before. You mean you're stopping me getting on the plane and have to go and pay over there instead of boarding the plane? Feeling this disruption, this confusion (after flying every week for the past 20+ years I had never experienced this before). I obviously had not read the small print of my ticket, so I went and I paid my $63. First thing I'm thinking about is, what's the integrity? The honesty of this airline? I didn't want to be thinking that, but I was thinking that! So then I got on the aircraft. I sit in my seat and I'm looking around and I have already had this weird experience with the integrity of how the airline works. Now it starts to get hot. It gets to 5:30am, 5:45am, 6:10am. The engines hadn't come on yet. The air conditioning wasn't coming on. Now I'm starting to think, Gosh, I've had to pay about another $60 for my bag. Now what's their intentions? Why haven't they got the engines on? Is it because the airline is so cheap that I'm sitting here and that they're thinking we got 100 of these aircrafts. If we turn the engines on half an hour after everyone gets in, it's going to save so much fuel. Is that the intention behind this? Again, I didn't want to think this, but I was thinking this! Then the stewardess came in. I'm sitting on the exit row and the engines finally started and we're getting some air conditioning and then she turned around and she just asked a couple of questions and then moves on. It's like, Whoa, where's the safety card? Where's the moment of me saying yes to all her questions, there was no acknowledgement and I didn't have to actually verbally say yes. So then I'm thinking, Whoa, how capable, how capable is this airline?

I'm like, this is 6:15 in the morning and I am having to think all of this, I didn't want to think all this, but they are making me think this. So then I started to think, has this airline ever had a crash before? First I am paying for my carry on bag, then the aircraft is boiling hot. Now I've got a stewardess that is not caring that I am somebody in the exit row and that I can actually definitely help to support something if something goes wrong. So now I am feeling worried, but now I'm thinking have they crashed anywhere? All of this was going on in my head, obviously everything worked out because I landed and I'm here today. But my point is that I had gone through that thought process. How many times did your client perhaps gone through that thought process with you because you haven't been communicating correctly?

This is what we're talking about in terms of influence, influence people towards you, and you'll start to close more sales, reinforce these core elements, and you will absolutely start to close more sales.

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