Do You Trust Me?
Closing a sale is not just about checking off a list of procedures and delivering a detailed presentation to your clients. Trust plays an important role in whether your client will have the project for bidding or give you the deposit before walking out the door. In this episode, Sam Wakefield gives an example of how you can gain your clients’ trust. He talks about a mindset of trustworthiness and authenticity that extends to your conversations and dealings with others.
We’re going to talk about that little circle of trust. How do you build it with your client? I’ve got a great story that is a testament to, one, how powerful the system is, but two, also being a person that’s trustworthy which is a powerful thing to be. It has nothing to do with manipulating or influencing. It has everything to do with being a person worth buying from. Until you become a better person, better people won’t buy from you. It’s directly proportional. We’re going to talk about trust, how to develop it, and the things that inspire trust in others.
I launched my group coaching program and my private coaching program. You can go to www.CloseItNow.com. That will immediately take you to where you need to be to enroll in those programs if you’ve gotten some value from any these other podcasts. If not, stick around. We share lots of free tips and tricks. Sign up for a free discovery call. We get to spend 45 minutes to an hour together to help you work through your struggles, your friction points that you’re having right now with your in-home sales, for HVAC, or in-home sales in general. Even if it’s something else, sales are sales. The psychology, the principles, and the skills are the same. It doesn’t matter necessarily what you’re selling. That is interchangeable. In fact, I’m giving a keynote talk to a group of business networking event. That is going to be generic sales training, but it’s the same principles. I know every single person is going to get some value because that’s how I lead. I lead with value first because I’m a servant to you guys. Without you reading, I wouldn’t be here. I’m thankful for you guys, paying attention and getting some value from this.
Establishing The Circle Of Trust
Let’s talk about trust. How do you establish that circle of trust? As I was leaving an appointment, a thought hit my mind of developing trust. What is it that does that? What develops the trust between you and the client to the point that they say yes to your company, to you as the representative, to your project as the right project? There is no magic bullet. There is no one thing that develops that trust. Raise your hand if you’ve been looking for, “What are these major sales tips and tricks that are going to triple my income immediately by doing this one thing?” Have you ever seen those ads on Facebook, YouTube, or any of those commercials where they say, “Do this one thing and triple your income instantly?” That is a load of junk. It’s a load of malarkey. There is no one thing that develops trust. That’s ridiculous, other than getting out there and working three times as hard. That is not what this podcast is about. This podcast is about working less and selling more. It’s about working more efficiently and being more productive, working in your flow in what you’re good at and what you specialize in. It’s being the best at that and making more money because people instantly see your value.
When you show up in your full person, in your power, in person as your best self and you show up to serve as your best self with what you know how to do best, people will write checks for you all day long. It’s absolutely true because it happens to me, my team, and everyone I work with. Every single top performer in the industry or in any other industry will tell you the same thing. Show up as your best self, show up with the servant’s attitude, and show up to find the best interests of the client with zero emotional attachment to the outcome. That is the reason they’re top performers. That’s the reason they consistently close deals. Their close rate is double the close rate of the average of the industry. The average sale is two to three times what the average sale is in the industry.
All of these reasons are because they show up with their best self with the perspective that, “I’m here to serve the client no matter the outcome. If that’s a high-end system, a basic system, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. I’m only here to discover what their problems are and then offer a solution to solve those problems.” The circle of trust is not a single thing. It’s a combination of all of the things. It’s the compound effect of all of these things put together. Give yourself a high five and say, “I can do this. This is me and I lead with a servant’s heart. I sell with a servant’s perspective.”
Gaining Client Trust: For the homeowner to be interested in you and your company, you have to be authentically and genuinely interested in them as well.
The Story
Let’s get to the story. It was an 8:00 AM appointment. I’m there a couple of minutes after 8:00. I show up and it’s an older gentleman. I noticed a lot of extra cars in the driveway with out-of-state license plates. It was a normal interaction with him and several other people started coming in. They’re getting ready for their day, going into the kitchen, getting coffee, etc. He introduced me to his wife. Every single person there except for the homeowner, the man I’m talking to, is deaf. He signs language with all of them. They were all going out on an adventure, to a coffee shop or something to see some friends. I asked him once they left, I was like, “I have to know your story. How did you meet your wife? Did you know sign language before you met her or did you learn it because you met her? You’ve got to tell me.”
He tells me this story about meeting her in college. He needed an elective that was an easy one. He took American Sign Language as an elective in college for a couple of extra hours. She happened to be one of the people in the class. He’s like, “It’s the ‘70s. She’s got long blonde hair and wears miniskirts. It was like in the cartoons when she walked in, the wolf with his eyes popping out of his head.” I was getting him to tell me about his life, not because I was trying to artificially build rapport by asking about obscure things. I was interested in that story. It’s not every day that you go into a sales appointment where the people are deaf so you get to listen to sign language.
My sales appointments are like this, if I happen to yawn in the middle of an appointment, I yawn. I’m not trying to hide anything. I’m absolutely transparent as possible.” Sales in our time right now is so powerful when you’re authentic. For the homeowner to be interested in you and in your company, you have to be authentically and genuinely be interested in something like that when it comes up. Ask the question of, “How did you meet?” and listen. I got to listen to their story and it was so cool. I let that derail me a little bit from the visit, but it’s okay when something comes up like that. I’ve talked before about not being fake about building rapport. When situations like that arise and you’re interested, you’ve got the time. It was the first appointment of the day. He was sitting down and we were having coffee at the kitchen table to visit for a little bit. It’s okay when you know you’ve got the time constraints that you can manage that, that you can do it. As we went on, we talked about some different things. This gentleman ended up being the pastor of a deaf church for 40 years. He still, as a retired senior citizen, runs the largest deaf youth group at his church’s organization in all of the United States. We talked a pretty good amount about that and my background as well. We had a connection there.
More importantly, I still finished the appointment in the order that the system goes. I followed the system because the system works. I still did the introduction and the credibility piece for the company, for myself. I got into the project that we’re talking about including equipment and the changes I wanted to make to the ductwork to optimize his house the best. We got to the close, showed him all of our pricing and he said, “I think this one is going to be the best fit for me.” I said, “We have to include this and this.” It’s been 25 years in the house. They need some updating. He agreed and we got our pricing together. I offered him some discounts and promotions. We got down to the final price and I asked him, “Will you trust me with this project?” He said, “Yeah, I sure will.” I said, “What day can we do it?” We booked it, got it knocked out, and got a deposit check out the door.
Gaining Client Trust: Talk to people like they’re intelligent because they are, but you don’t have to use a tone of voice that is condescending.
Here is the crux. This is the trust piece. You know that you’ve gone through the system properly, you’ve ticked off every single box, and more importantly, you’ve authentically shown up, been transparent, interested, and showed up with your best self when this happens. This gentleman says, “In 45 years of being a homeowner, I have never one time ever said yes to anything without getting other bids, without going through the process. I’ve never said yes to a project on the first visit when the person comes out. This is the first time I’ve ever done this in 40-plus years of being a homeowner. I trust you.
It’s refreshing to have that trust and know that I’m going to be taken care of, even though I haven’t gotten competing bids and I haven’t gone through that process.” That moment was so powerful. I realized that to be trusted, you have to be trustworthy. There’s no substitution for that. There is no shortcut. There is no magic bullet. You cannot fake that level of conversation. We went from a first date, basically a blind date. He didn’t even get online. All he knew about us was what he saw in the yellow pages, the actual book. To go from a blind date to proposing marriage and signing up for a $12,000 project in over an hour. For him at the end of it saying, “Forty-plus years, I’ve never one time gone with the first person that came out, not taking other bids and sign right on the spot without at least thinking about it overnight.” He said, “But I trust you,” and that’s valuable.
Stop Being Weird And Start Selling
How do we develop that? We develop that by being trustworthy person, showing up real. The tagline for Close It Now is, “Stop being weird and start selling.” Stop being weird, don’t put on that weird fake salesman voice. You don’t need it. Have a conversation, talk to people like they’re intelligent because they are. There’s no reason to have any type of tone of voice that is condescending. Treat people as if they are special because, at the end of the day, every single person on the planet walks around with a sign above their head that says, “Make me feel special.” Everyone wants to be heard. We all want to be heard. Treat someone as if they’re special. Truly listen and listen to understand what they’re telling you, not to already be forming a response before they finish talking. Don’t do that. Be that trustworthy person. That’s when you can walk out of a house with them saying things like, “I’ve never done this, but I trust you. I don’t know why but I trust you. I believe what you’re saying.” You have that connection. You’ve established the connection and that trust factor. You can’t buy it. You can’t find it on the store. There are no tips or tricks that are going to get you the trust factor other than earning it. You have to earn it and the only way to do it, is be that trustworthy person. You give trust and they give trust back.
That’s my message. It’s a heartfelt one. It was such a cool experience to have that conversation with somebody, talk about hit home. It emphasized the power of being a real normal person. Build your personal growth. Listen to podcasts and listen to books. Become somebody better. For things to change, you have to change. For things to get better, you have to get better. You can only do that by reading, by listening, by paying attention, by doing courses, all of the things that are going to make you a better person. If you can find yourself a mentor that’s nearby, do that. It’s so invaluable to connect to somebody who’s already there, who’s already achieved, and is achieving where you want to be. Don’t take criticism from someone that you wouldn’t take advice from. That is powerful. Find someone who’s achieving. Find someone who is successful in what you want to do. With this industry, if you can find somebody nearby, do it.
If not, connect with me. Let’s get connected. Go to CloseItNow.com and shoot me a message. Let’s have a conversation. My passion is to inspire, encourage, and motivate you to take a step outside of your comfort zone, and take a step outside of the things you’ve always done. If you keep doing the things you’ve always done, you’re going to get what you’ve always gotten. You’re going to get the results that you’ve always gotten. You have to do new things. You have to use new words and take new actions to get new results. My goal is to see you as the top earners in your company, the top earners in your area or in the country. I want to see you as crushing it out there every single day, showing up in your peak state, your peak performance, and your peak potential to blow the doors off of everybody. My idea of competition is their doors are closed because you win all the sales. You closed them all. Close them now. That’s my message. I’m fired up. I hope you are, too. Shoot me a message, find me at CloseItNow.com, and get connected. Let’s stay in touch. Join the online community.
