In building a relationship and engaging with a customer over a period of time, you ‘earn the right’ to have the conversation with them when they're ready to buy. That’s the time to then talk about your product or solution. In the meantime, we need to personalise our approach. In order to do that, we need to look to move to beyond over-automation.

Technological automation enables us to continually push our products or solutions. Whilst automation certainly has its advantages, by placing too much reliance on it, we risk the sale never actually happening. This is because automation lacks personalisation. The key is to take off your sales hat and to deliver value consistently, over time.

The personalised approach gets you ahead

Particularly in the UK, we have got a real opportunity to personalise and build trust - because we have a reputation for providing poor service. Award winning Restaurateur, Michel Roux, believes that this has much to do with snobbery and the British class system.

I think more than any time ever, this is the time for the enterprise sales community to press reset on that. Now’s the time to say that we're going to get really clear on becoming trusted partners to our most important prospects and customers.

We have an opportunity to really understand our prospects and customers, so we can do something quite spectacular, which is anticipate what their needs are. By building trust, we're no longer guessing, we’re engaged and anticipating without being assumptive.

So how do we go about actually building trust with people?

There's nobody who has done this better than The Late Stephen Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). He talked about the core elements of building trust and building credibility as:

1. Integrity - building integrity and having integrity.

Be careful what you commit to and keeping your word when you do so i.e. walk your talk. I know that my best clients do this. This is how they distinguish themselves and enjoy greater depth of conversation and get themselves in better rooms than their peers. They get access to accounts that are more effective because they take ownership of their conduct.

2. Intention - what is YOUR intention? Many organisations are only interested in what they're going to get out of a deal. Those that aren’t, stand out. MasterCard, is committed to “doing well, by doing good”.

They want to do well, they want their customers to do well, they want their merchants to do well, they want the consumer to do well and ultimately, they want their partner banks to do well, whether that's issuer aside or acquirer side.

Naturally, we must build our capability and competence - our results are a direct result of our competency.

7 Ways to build Trust

1. Talk straight - I use the term 'empathetic candour'. Clear communication is kind communication.

2. Demonstrate respect - I think that's really, really, important, especially in this day and age when finding people with good manners is becoming increasingly rare. Excelling in this area can get you a long way.

3. Create transparency - so that there's an honesty in terms of your engagement and an authenticity to it.

4. Call things out - right wrongs rather than setting up another wrong.

5. Show loyalty - giving other people credit and crediting them in their presence.

6. Deliver results - Focus on delivering your professional competency. Obtaining results for your customers and employers are intrinsically linked...

If you would like to understand more about why building trust in enterprise sales relationships is so important, check out this post.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-you-need-become-trusted-partner-enterprise-sales-adrian-evans/?published=t

If you would like to know more about Enterprise Sales Club or to discuss how I can help build trust in your business relationships and enhance your career contact me at [email protected]