It seems like yesterday when I sat in a room
with a handful of developers at Xerox and together we created a sales model that
would be a key component for not only the sales force at Xerox, but their clients as well.
It was a model that would be used for decades and considered a cornerstone of the
sales training world of Xerox. Although we had a healthy mix of people on this team
and spent a great deal of time together, the model was not perfect as it still missed a
little something called, `trust'.
I know, you are asking yourself, "You call yourself some kind of sales guy, how
could you miss something as basic as trust?"
Oh yee of little faith, it's easier than you may
think. You see the real mistake we made was
thinking that if we methodically built a
consultative model, the model itself would build
trust. We thought if we built a model that taught in a repeatable, predictable fashion…
… we would build trust with our clients. We were close, but where is the trust in
that list of criteria? I'll tell you where it is -
it's subtly contained within all the pieces above - and that's not good enough. The fact
is, you can build any consultative model you'd like, but without specific steps that
address trust, the process becomes anemic. So
let's fix it now. If you want to build trust with your clients or your friends, there are
three things that you can do. |
