Decision-makers want to talk with people who are credible information sources. Whether a salesperson or CEO, if you are credible and have valuable information decision-makers want to talk with you. If you have not yet earned personal credibility you will not get a meeting with anyone influential.
You earn credibility in three simple ways:
Demonstrate your product/service. If your product lends itself to physical demonstration do it. Product demonstrations are the most common display of what people consider to be selling. For established products that are easy to transport, live demonstrations are the norm like with PCs, tractors and other hard goods. For larger or newer products, videos have become more the norm like with industrial cranes, electric cars or commercial airliners.
Service demonstrations show how an engagement works along with results you have created for other clients, if possible. Workflows, videos, and ROI calculations are also good tools to show the benefits of your services.
Educate your customers to help them be better, whether or not they are yet customers. By educating prospective customers you show yourself as a subject matter expert (SME). Decision-makers and key influencers see SMEs as advisors rather than just sellers and they always want to see advisors.
One of my managers at Microsoft, Steve, had a wealth of experience and knowledge from years of working in various product management roles. He had a lot of market knowledge and customers considered him a SME in many areas of the IT industry. His status as a SME put him in demand by our customers which made him part of the benefit of buying from Microsoft.
Advocate for partners and peers who can offer help to your prospective customers and clients. Helping your customers, by introducing them to providers other than you, shows you as a SME interested in the customer’s success. You show that a long-term relationship is important to you even if you do not make a sale today. Advocating for others also shows that you are collaborative and confident enough to bring someone else to the party.
After winning significant business at Boeing we had the opportunity to win more revenue by including our software development tools. This was in the early days of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software and it was clear that Boeing would be better off buying versus building a solution. The group with whom we worked didn’t have the expertise to know all of their options and they lacked the expertise to build software. It was an easy call that earned us lasting credibility leading to years of repeat business.
When you demonstrate, educate and advocate, you earn unshakable CREDABILITY in the minds of your customers leading to more wins and more lifelong customers.
©2016 Rick Wong – The Five Abilities® LLC
