We’ve all heard the expression, “Would you buy a used car from this man?”
The answer, in most cases, is a resounding no, and the reason is obvious: a lack of trust. Without establishing some level of trust, generating high-quality leads is almost impossible.
This is especially true in the world of B2B sales. A recent survey shared on HubSpot reveals that 90% of companies will only buy from organizations they trust.
Developing this trust along the buyer’s journey starts from the very first contact between sales reps and target prospects. It’s difficult to win trust in the first few moments of the B2B sales process, but it’s easy to lose it, especially if you lack a solid lead generation strategy.
There’s likely no second conversation with a prospect without establishing some degree of trust early in the first conversation. Sure, as part of sales strategy it’s tempting to lead with the value of your offering during a cold call. But first, it’s critical that your potential customers trust you, or at least feel like they might be able to.
Long before they’ve determined if your product or service is right for them, they need to feel comfortable enough to want to continue the relationship. Otherwise, you’re just wasting their time, and yours. And saving time is a key aspect of customer relationship management—even something a customer expects.
VSA understands the value of trust in successful B2B sales. It’s no coincidence that the word is prominent in our mission statement: “We are committed to being your brand’s most trusted voice, by delivering exceptional results.”
Here are four ways we’ve routinely been able to gain prospects’ trust and set appointments with high-quality leads for our clients:
1. Acknowledge the interruption
Surveys have shown that 57 percent of successful B2B C-level executives prefer to be contacted by phone, so the notion that nobody likes receiving cold calls is false. Still, most people are wary when they get a call from a stranger. Even if they’re willing to get on the phone, there’s a natural level of skepticism and often a desire to end the conversation as quickly as possible if they don’t immediately like what they hear.
By acknowledging that we’re an interruption at the start of the call, we show the prospect that we’re empathetic to how busy they are, which increases the chance of establishing trust. It lets them know we appreciate the time they’re willing to give us, and we aren’t going to take unfair advantage of that opportunity.
2. Be ourselves
The Harvard Business Review lists the three core drivers of trust as authenticity, logic, and empathy. Regarding authenticity, the authors write: “People tend to trust you when they think they are interacting with the real you.”
Our Business Development Representatives (BDRs) are skilled at letting their individual personalities emerge (within reason) during conversations with prospects. While we prepare and use scripts for all our calling campaigns, our BDRs are never robotic in their delivery and sometimes add personal touches to the call while remaining on-point with the messaging. A prospect is much more likely to engage when they feel like they’re talking to a “real person” and not somebody monotonically reciting a series of scripted lines, especially with the rapid rise of marketing automation tools.
In fact, what a sales rep says often isn’t as important as how they say it. Albert Mehrabian, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UCLA, wrote in his book “Silent Messages,” that people will trust what they hear in the tone of voice over the actual words 85% of the time. It’s imperative, then, that your tone of voice conveys sincerity, and nothing conveys sincerity in sales and marketing like being yourself.
3. Understand your prospects’ problems
If your offering can’t solve a problem or address a concern for your prospects or decision makers, there’s zero reason for them to listen. But you don’t know exactly what their problems are unless they tell you.
Maybe that conversation doesn’t happen in-depth during the first call. But it doesn’t happen at all if they don’t feel like they can trust you. Which brings us back to the importance of leading a call with trust over value.
ConnectAndSell CEO Chris Beall, speaking during an episode of his “Market Dominance Guys” podcast last summer, described it like this: “The tradition in sales prospecting is to lead with value, which is in the first part of a relationship, a failing proposition because the other party is not ready for a value. You can’t listen to a value cleanly because in order to listen to value, I have to be prepared to confess my problems. And I do not confess to somebody I don’t trust.”
4. Build trust through content
According to software review website TrustRadius, B2B buyers consult an average of 6.9 information sources before making a purchasing decision. That means the more quality content you can provide throughout the sales process, the better.
Prospects want to know exactly whom they’re considering buying from. There’s a reason HubSpot lists the “About” page as the second-most important page of a business website, behind only the homepage. Information about a company’s history, vision, leadership, and culture can be vital for building trust with potential customers.
VSA typically supplements our cold calling efforts with email campaigns that contain exactly this type of material about our clients, as well as links to webinars, case studies, customer testimonials, or any other resources that might pique a prospect’s interest.
Conclusion
In our current virtual world, establishing trust is more important than ever. Great sales teams understand this and integrate it into their sales training. Video communication platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams now allow prospects to conveniently meet with companies anywhere on the planet, creating more competition for B2B products and services than ever before.
Having an outside partner that knows how to build trust from the start can go a long way toward helping you fill your pipeline and meet your sales goals.
If you’re looking for help building relationships with potential customers, give us a call. We promise you can always trust us.