Trust

I’ve been very critical of sales tips during the past six months.  My column in Sales and Marketing Management Magazine about it as well.

The simple reason is that sales tips keep salespeople and their managers focused on tactics and shortcuts rather than investing the time and effort required for planning and executing a strategic approach to sales performance improvement.

When we interview high-performing salespeople, what we consistently find is their success comes as much from who they are as what they do.  The foundation of their Personal Capital—a rep’s unique customer-valued amalgam of skills, experience, contacts and knowledge—is their customers’ trust in them.   And with respect to the companies for which those top performers work—integrity is consistently the number one or number two attribute sales people must possess.

When it comes to the subject of trust in selling there is no better source of knowledge, insight and practical advice than Charlie Green.  His wonderful book, Trust-Based Selling, is one every sales manager should read.  But let me warn you.  This isn’t a typical sales tips book to be skill-skimmed or speed-read.

Trust-Based Selling can be a key component of a strategic initiative to upgrade the quality and resulting performance of the individuals on your sales team.  Once you read this book, I don’t believe you’ll look at the subject of trust in selling in the same way ever again.

Photo credit: © Lisa F. Young – Fotolia.com

What’s In Your Salesreps’ LinkedIn Profiles?

A lot has been written about how potential new employers look at a candidate’s Facebook or MySpace page.  Walter McConnell made a terrific point about a different flavor of web presence in a comment recently on the Sales 2.0 Network Blog.  Walter is talking about customers seeing a sales rep’s bio or profile on the web:

It’s widely accepted now that there is more value in being a trusted advisor with your customers than being a salesperson who competes purely on price and feature sets. What better place to advertise your expert status than a “web presence” that reflects your expertise! Having a website/blog is an obvious one here, but having a populated profile on some of the more popular web 2.0 sites is a damn good start. Having a web presence will also make others more comfortable to collaborate with you.

Yesterday: A Reference Letter. Today: The Web.

I used to recommend to sales people that they solicit reference letters from their successful customers and selectively use those with new prospects to depict the personal value they have delivered in the past. It worked for many of them.  These days, why shouldn’t a salesperson have a presence on the web?  (OK, I know a lot of reasons, but play along with me here for a minute…) Personal capital can be an effective differentiator.  Sales leaders and other executives have biographies on corporate websites or their blogs to convey their value to the customers who would buy from their companies.  Those bios project personal capital to the viewer.  Salespeople seek differentiation and credibility at the customer’s executive level.  Why shouldn’t they project their connections, experience, uniqueness and value—their personal capital—to their customers also?

Wait a Second… Couldn’t You Use LinkedIn?