The Myth of Know Like Trust #74

In this episode we talk about things you’ve been taught  to be true all your life. But are they? Things like Ben Franklin’s “A penny saved is a penny earned” or the Eleanor Roosevelt quote “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”.  These are empowering statements.  

They are shared to impart wisdom and provide guidance . I love quotes.   But every so often I bump into one that is so ingrained yet I know from personal experience it’s not true.  That’s today’s topic.  

The Myth of Know Like Trust

The statement that people only buy from those they know like and trust is considered a fact of nature. Like gravity, it isn’t questioned. And on face value it’s hard to quibble with.

If you don’t know somebody you can’t buy from them. You have to know them first. Next sales are often motivated by emotion versus logic. If the seller exhibits likability you’re much more likely to be persuasive. That makes sense. And If you don’t trust somebody why would you give them your money? There’s no argument there.

But in my experience I have found this pithy statement false. Let me show you what I mean.

But first I’d like to share a story.

About five years ago I was the sales manager for an Internet startup company. I was hiring a lot of new sales reps and was ready to move to a modern CRM. I had an immediate need to collect metrics across the sales staff. Aggregating sales report by hand was inefficient, time-consuming and frustrating.   I was experiencing true pain.

There were many vendors to choose from and we set up an appointment with one of the major players. They met with us for a preliminary meeting and did a fine job of collecting our needs and desires. They wanted to be prepared for a demonstration and I appreciated their extra effort.

You can’t ask that

A few days later we met for an online software demo. As the meeting proceeded I had some questions.

I asked about things we hadn’t   mentioned in the earlier meeting. They couldn’t answer them.   Or better put they weren’t prepared to answer them. In fact they said,

“You didn’t bring that up earlier; we didn’t know that was important to you”.

So I couldn’t help but ask “Let me get this right, I can only ask you about things we brought up last week? Am I understanding this right?”.

“Yes”, they responded.   “The sales engineer’s ONLY prepared to chat about what we’ve previously discussed.”

You Must Be Kidding

I found this to be unbelievable. I was selling software in those days and became quite adept at giving terrific demos. I understand the value of letting buyers control the demo by asking questions. I also know this requires a high level of knowledge and sophistication on the part of the seller. You have to know your software, inside and out. You have to be prepared, but that’s what professionals do. .

But this company didn’t work that way. They answered some of my questions.  In 60 minutes the time was up. And I said “Wait, I’m not done, I still have more questions”.

But the sales rep said “Sorry I only have the engineer for an hour he’s got to go to another meeting right now”.

“You must be kidding”, I responded, “What kind of blankety-blank company are you?”

The rep mentioned he would try to set something up later.  The call ended.

After the meeting some of my people were in the office next to me. They had overheard the call.  I guess we were loud. “Pat” they asked, “What were you yelling about in that meeting?”.

I felt bad because you should know something about me.  I rarely get angry. Frustrated yes, but never angry and rarely loud.  They found the entire thing funny.

But it wasn’t for me.