In today’s overly competitive markets, where products tend to look the same and many companies struggle with their image, it is commonly believed that the key differentiator is your people.
It is now ever so important that your client-facing individuals (sales, product experts, leaders, marketing, and so on) establish a genuine rapport with clients, to help dispel rumours and differentiate your organisation from the competition.
The way to succeed with clients is through trust; being trusted by developing trustworthiness. Although the concept of trust is not innovative or new, the actual application is new, as it is rarely fully recognised or taught (and being trustworthy can be taught).
Some business leaders believe that trust-based business relationships are the single best route to corporate and personal success.
Trust-based positioning
The only way to be trusted in business is to be worthy of trust – to be trustworthy.
The core of positioning trust is the belief that if you behave in a trustworthy manner, your clients will reward you. In practice, it means you must continually measure decisions and actions first by what is good for the client and, second, by what is good for you and your company. It means you must, for example:
• Occasionally look past the transaction to the relationship.
• Be willing to work with your clients as willingly as you would work with your co-workers.
• Behave transparently to your clients with respect to data, processes, even internal performance metrics and motivations.
The benefits of being trustworthy to your clients are enormous and you will be very profitable because of it. But if you set out to be profitable through trust – trying to make trust a tactic or a tool – it will fail. Being trustworthy means being willing to put the client’s interests ahead of our own. If you’re only doing it with the intent to make money, then you become selfish and untrustworthy. Hence the paradox: You actually have to care.
Those who do behave in a trustworthy manner tend to consistently apply four basic principles in all their business-development efforts:
1. Client orientation for the sake of the client
True client orientation means we seek to address the client’s best interests. If that means another company is best for a particular transaction or product, we say so, knowing that in the long run we get credit for being client-focused for the client’s sake.
2. A medium-to-long-term perspective
This means a focus on the relationship, not the transaction.
Acting with the medium-to-long-term perspective means the economics of a particular transaction should be discussed in terms of fairness in the long run, rather than in competitive terms.
A couple in a marriage quickly compromises on who takes out the rubbish, rather than belabour it to get the best deal. There is much more at stake in a serious relationship than getting the best deal in each transaction.
Focusing on relationships fosters transactions, but transactional focus alone – in isolation from others – can choke relationships. That doesn’t mean we can’t focus on transactions, just that they can’t be viewed in isolation from the stream of transactions over time that define much of the relationship added value to both the client and your organisation.
3. A habit of collaboration
Client-facing individuals demonstrate trustworthiness by constantly involving the client-to-be.
• Don’t speculate about what clients are thinking – ask them.
• View business development processes themselves as things that can be done collaboratively, rather than as a competitive exercise in putting the best face forward.
• Value meetings over phone calls and phone calls over letters and emails.
• Practise putting all issues on the table for joint discussion, rather than negotiating on them from competitive positions.
4. A willingness to be totally transparent
Nothing destroys client trust faster than the client-facing individual who appears to be withholding information or trying to control the client. When you don’t know something, say so. Be willing to be open about your pricing policies, product offerings and expertise.
What you lose in control over perceptions is more than compensated for by the goodwill you get for being transparent.
Trust will enable you to:
• Convert more prospects into clients and more current clients into long-term clients.
• Create a greater sense of ease and comfort in client interactions.
• Gain a deeper understanding of the client’s personal and business objectives, and steer you away from product pushing.
• Elevate client-facing individuals from a “relationship-based relationship” to the “trusted adviser” relationship.
Trust is a powerful tool in the relationship skills toolkit.
Trip Allen
Director
Egyii
www.egyii.com
