Addressing the Lack of Mutual Trust between Salespeople and Prospects

Do you trust salespeople? According to HubSpot research, only 3% of people do. That's a shockingly low figure. It begs the question: why is there such a lack of trust in the sales process? In episode 14 of the Straight Talk About Sales podcast, Addressing the Lack of Mutual Trust between Salespeople and Prospects, Dr. Nadia is tackling this issue head-on and offering solutions to help sales professionals build trust with their prospects and clients. Through her experience working with sales teams, she has noticed a lack of trust on both sides. She shares her insights on how to reverse this trend and create a positive sales experience. Join us as we uncover how sales professionals can rebuild trust in the sales process and create a successful customer journey.

Why so many people consider salespeople to be trustworthy 

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Hi there. It's dr. Nadia. And oh my goodness. So today we're talking about trust and more so not just trust, but honestly, the lack of trust that I see in the sales process.

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So as you and your team are looking at your of sales goals for this year, for how you're going to interact with prospects and clients and really building those key relationships, trust is a very integral part of that. But here's the thing. Here's something that I found very interesting, however, not surprising. According to HubSpot research, only 3%, only 3% of people consider salespeople to be trustworthy. Only 3%.

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So when you look at how you're building out relationships, how you're going about building out your different processes and really starting to build out your client or customer journey, it's very important that you look at ways in building trap. But one of the things that I've also noticed that in addition to people, our prospect, even maybe some of our clients, we were able to woo them over really like, no, you could trust me. But in that one of the things that I've also seen. So we have that piece and like I said, it's interesting but not surprising that salespeople really aren't trusted. And there are a number of different reasons as to why that is the case.

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And we're not going to talk about those today because what I want to talk about is how we as sales professionals don't always trust our prospects. Right? Now you look at this and you're like, wait a minute, Dr. Nadia. What?

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But I want you to take a moment and just go with me, right? Think about it. Think about some of the things that you've heard, maybe things that you've learned, maybe even things that you've implemented in your sales conversations, in your sales processes, decisions that you've made, things that you've thought about and pay attention to, how you didn't trust the potential people that you would get an opportunity to work with. And seriously, I want you to think about this and you may think about some of the things that, like I said, you've heard or maybe even you've learned. I remember recently I was supporting an event and we're talking about we're always talking about the sales piece and who's a good fit and what some of the feedback that we're getting and all of that good stuff.

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And part of that was so in all honesty, things weren't going where we wanted to go, right? Just to be honest, it was just like, what's happening? What is going on? Where this doesn't feel like it's yet landing? And some of the conversation then went around, how do we as a team, as a sales team, really start to pull into people we feel would be great for this offer to help them move forward?

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And there began to be some pushback between the team and some of the leadership. And I ended up being the Go between person. So I got a lot of it right on both sides. And part of that feedback, though, was, well, are you as a sales team buying into the story of the prospects clients? And I was like, saying it was so much me buying into the story, right, and I won't go down that rabbit hole.

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I just wanted to bring that up as an example because later, after the event and, you know, everything's kind of simmered down, I started to think about it, and it even came up in some other conversations of how we as the sales team being guided to not trust, right? If I'm having a conversation with a prospect and a prospect says whatever they say to me and it's not a yes, right, what is it? At what point am I buying into a story? Or at what point am I then being trained, conditioned, taught, expected to somehow shift that person's decision? And to me, that demonstrates the lack of trust in that person's ability to make a decision that is right for them, right?

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And so if I'm coming from a place of service and this person says whatever, they say, I don't know, my dog got yesterday and I don't want to do this right now, like I'm grieving, whatever the case may be, at what point do I just say, okay and believe them, right? That doesn't mean that you don't continue to do things to build and strengthen that relationship to answer any questions that they may have. So in our method that we teach here at the Doyan agency, it's about not overcoming objections. But I'm, like, people do have clarifying questions. Like people have genuine questions.

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And if there is a way that say whatever your initial recommendation for working with them was, if there isn't a way that that's going to work, then by all means come back to the table to see if there is a way that you can serve them right that is coming from a place of service. And there are ways to do that. And depending on how your organization is set up your offers, a lot of times it's a lot easier said than done, right? So when you think about how you're going to work with a potential client going into those conversations, I want you to really think about, well, if this doesn't work out right, like, what are some other options or ways that I can serve this person versus having a mentality that whatever they say I've heard that one too. The first excuse isn't the real excuse, right?

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Okay, great. But I want to reframe that because you're right, there may be a question behind the question. And so there are ways to ask questions. They ask a question, you ask a question and they make a statement. You get curious, you ask questions.

Sales teams and prospects can build strong relationships

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But I want you to definitely pay attention to your beliefs, which is some of the keys I wanted to share with you as you're looking at, oh, wait a second. They don't trust me, and I don't trust them. This whole relationship is about to be a whole hot mess, right? So here are a couple of things that I want you to do with yourself. And if you have a team with your team to really start to address this and pay attention to these things because they creep in, they're really sneaky.

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And going back to my team in that particular event, no one is like, a bad person, right? Like, I don't consider anyone that I work with to try to be manipulative or any of that kind of stuff. But it was interesting to start to pay attention to some of the things that we just sometimes say or do or assume. And that come up, especially in times of high stress that we don't necessarily aren't paying attention to. Right?

Techniques to shift the narrative around sales and trust

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So with that, the first thing I invite you to do is to actually take a look at your belief systems. What are some of the things that you actually believe? Like, now that we are talking about this and we brought this up, what are your belief systems and where are some of those things creeping in that you just haven't really even paid attention to? You just like, this is what I do. And you're like, oh, my goodness, right?

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I want you to take a moment to evaluate that, and that will be a great exercise to do with your team, if you have one. The second thing is I want you to then go back and audit your client journey. Look at your client journey. One, look at where those belief systems that aren't necessarily 100% in alignment showing up, but then also look for those opportunities where you can add value and build trust. There's so many things that we get to do before we get into the conversation because we know our prospects, our future clients are savvy.

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We have so much information at our fingertips, right? And so how do we leverage that as a tool versus feeling like that's something that's holding us back? Leverage that to your advantage. So go back and look at your customer journey. What are those different touch points and those different things that you have going on?

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And are there some of those sneaky little pieces in there where there's an element or a hint of, oh, wait, I don't trust. And I'm making decisions from a place, a lack of trust versus really trusting that the people that I get to have conversations with, that I have the opportunity to chat with about possibly working with them, that we're building trust on both sides. I trust them and I'm building and demonstrating that I and my team and my company, my organization, are trustworthy. Right? So we want to take a look at that.

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And then the final thing is I want you to also go back another great exercise to do as a team and update your conversation guide. So if you're new to me here at the doing agency, we don't believe in sales scripts. We don't like them, but we do believe in conversation guides. And part of the conversation guide are questions. What questions can you ask as you are guiding your potential clients, your prospects, through that conversation to really get to know them, to really better understand their needs and how you and your team can best serve them?

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And so taking a moment to go back and look at that again, we don't have an overcoming objection section to our conversation guys. It's clarifying questions. So that's a great place to add additional questions to help you uncover. Is there something that I missed? And conversation that was misunderstood, that wasn't clear?

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Are there other concerns that hadn't come up yet to this point, and now we have an opportunity to address them and talk about it? I want you to take a moment to really address that. So then again, you and your team are now equipped to address those in a way that builds trust and cohesiveness and excitement. So when your prospect and you finally decide that this is a yes, and we have this opportunity to work together, everyone that's feeling good about it, everyone is walking away from the table, excited to move forward versus having that niggling in the doubt, like, I don't know. Right?

[00:11:23]

So you have these opportunities to really stand out for your prospects and to really start to shift again the conversation and the narrative around sales, that salespeople can be trusted, right? And that whatever those doubts, whatever those other experiences that people have had and they're bringing to the table, they get to experience something different when they interact with you and your team. And so that's really important to do. But I found it really interesting that there's just a lack of trust on both sides. And it's really fascinating when you think about moving forward and working with clients, it's like, they don't trust me and I don't trust them.

[00:12:11]

That, my dear, could be quite problematic. So would love to get your feedback and thoughts on where are some of the things that you've seen or even heard or you're like, oh, Dr. Nadia, right. You got me. I started to notice some of the things in my own mindset that are definitely influencing how I interact with prospects and then make the commitment to change it.

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No judgment. We've all been there. We've all seen things. We're all picking up things. But this is our opportunity to shift it.

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And season two is really going to be more about having these conversations, not only just for you, but also for your team or your future team to really position you to move forward. But let's change the narrative about sales together. All right? I look forward to another great episode coming up really soon. I'm really excited about the guests that we have for season two, and I look forward to having you tune in again for our next show.

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Take care. This is Dr. Nadia signing off. Bye.