Trust! Get it or forget it.
Trust is the single biggest motivator of buyer behavior and one of the key components to establishing a successful buyer/seller relationship. Trust! Get it or forget it. Do your potential clients believe what you say? Do they trust you as an excellent attorney and trusted advisor? Not putting your client’s interests ahead of your own is a recipe for disaster.
Clients overwhelmingly buy from people they trust. These client relationships are longer lasting, more efficient and more efficient than relationships not built on trust. But building trust takes time, and the only way to do it is to sell in a trustworthy manner.
So, do you have a specific, well-thought-out plan designed to overcome this obstacle and build greater levels of trust with your clients? In the past, clients had negative perceptions of salespeople because selling itself had been associated with manipulation, dishonesty and trickery. That stereotype of untrustworthy, lying professional still comes back to haunt your profession today. But attorneys can play a critical role in its dismantling. You may be the most honest attorney on the planet, but if your clients don’t perceive you to be trustworthy because of sloppy sales skills and negative selling behaviors, it doesn’t matter.
Do you follow these four principles of selling to build trust?
- Begin and end from the clients perspective and walk in their shoes
- Think in the long term; the relationship is the client
- Behave in a collaborative manner and openly conduct honest conversations with customers
- Be transparent and trustworthy in all meetings and phone calls
Knowing, understanding and possessing the traits that the clients like are the best way to gain trust and close the sale. So, in addition to being honest, you need to be knowledgeable, punctual, solution-based and customer-focused, just to name a few. It’s the way you relate to others that determine your customer’s level of trust.
I see attorneys destroy client trust in the sales process and rarely recover, but it does not have to be that way! Always check your behavior. Focus on trust-building activities with customers by creating an action plan and then continually focus on executing that plan. Once you’re able to increase your trust factor with buyers, you will also see an increase in sales. Attorneys who fail to put an emphasis on developing trust and rapport do a disservice to their customers and leave the back door open to their competition.
The most efficient way to build that trust is to put clients first; always. You must do this by design, not by default. In today’s highly competitive marketplace, your clients have many options, and they are looking for an attorney they know they can trust to work in their best interest. It’s not what you sell, it’s how you sell.
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Need a “911” Coaching Strategy Call? If you are struggling with closing business and keep running into the same business obstacles and issues, let’s chat.
This 911 attorney coaching call is not a free coaching call. That would be irresponsible of me to offer you, as change doesn’t happen overnight, and certainly can’t happen on one phone call. Purely a chance for us to get to know each other, see where you are in your business, and see if it makes sense to work together. I want to serve you deeply, and in order to do that, we need to have a frank conversation about your practice first.