You have a new lead ! How exciting . Now you want to sell to them quickly , don ’ t you ? Actually , focusing purely on making a sale isn ’ t the most effective way to sell .

The first thing that you need to do is to try to establish trust with the prospect . Once you have established trust , the selling becomes easy . This is why so many leads and sales in the field trade business come from personal recommendation . These all start with a level of trust already established .

Sales as a profession

In UK popular culture we seem to imply that anyone in sales is a scam artist . The truth is that sales , when done properly , is a profession like any other . We all know that making sales by scamming customers doesn ’ t pay off in the long run . That approach is never the formula to build a really successful business .

Some of us are naturally great at selling , and some of us struggle more . It ’ s good to understand just where your talents lie . If you keep unexpectedly losing quotes , maybe you ’ re not so good at sales and need to seek extra help .

Establish trust

As mentioned , the most important thing to remember when selling is that you have to establish trust . To do this you have to :

• Be easy to deal with

• Deliver what you promise

• Not lie

• Make sure your prospects understand your capabilities and track record

The first three of these points are about the personal experience your prospect will have with you and your business . Although online reviews are very important , a prospect ’ s personal experience will be the most powerful influence on how they regard you . And online reviews are

anyway based on the personal experience of previous customers with you and your business .

In establishing trust , you don ’ t need to set the world on fire . All you need to get your prospect to believe is that you are decent people who will do a good job at a reasonable price .

Be easy to deal with

Being easy to deal with isn ’ t just about answering the phone and getting back to prospects quickly . It ’ s also about following up requests for quotes in a timely manner and visiting to look at the job at a time that is convenient to the prospect . Actually , it ’ s about behaving exactly as you would like someone to behave if they were pitching to you for work .

Try to work in a way that is convenient to the customer :

• Find out the way your customer likes to be contacted and when . Some prefer email , some mobile , some like

to be called in the evening , some just during the working day .

• You may want to visit 9am – 5pm during week days , but this may not work for them . If you are prepared to visit evenings and weekdays , you will likely win more work .

Use email or better still an app from my company , Powered Now , or one of our competitors . A system can hugely improve your electronic communication with customers which leads to benefits all round .

Deliver what you promise

If there ’ s one way to destroy trust it ’ s by disappointing people . The way you disappoint them is to fail to meet their expectations .

The way to handle this is to make sure that you set their expectations correctly . In fact , the process of setting customer expectations starts from your first contact with them , whether that ’ s at your web site or on the phone .

If you can give a ball park range on price , do so and the customer won ’ t be shocked when your quote arrives . If the prospect is becoming interested , don ’ t say you can start immediately if you can ’ t . It ’ s easy to promise the earth , but good business comes from getting the customer to expect what comes next , and then delivering on it .

Disappointing customers is never a good idea . I always pay my bills . But I also work on the principle that a business can wait for their payment as long as they have made we wait for things they had promised .

John McLouglin , a highly experienced gas engineer who has unfortunately passed away , talked about promises in this way . “ Don ’ t break a promise . One way to not break a promise is not to make it in the first place .”

Don ’ t lie

I have recently had some major landscaping work done on my garden . It hasn ’ t been done badly and the company that I used is one that I have used several times before .

Unfortunately , there have been a couple of points of fairly minor disagreement . Each time the principal of the business has told me something that frankly isn ’ t true . I didn ’ t press the point because I can ’ t be bothered with the conflict and they have