Module Three Building Trust

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Module Two — Building Trust and Sales Ethics

Learning Objectives

Explain the importance of trust.
Discuss the distinguishing characteristics of trust-based selling.
Discuss how to earn trust.
Explain how the knowledge bases help build trust and relationships.
Understand the importance of sales ethics.
Discuss three important areas of unethical behavior.

Module Outline

Developing Trust and Mutual Respect with Clients A. What is Trust?
Why is Trust Important?
How to Earn Trust
Expertise
Dependability
Candor
Customer Orientation
Compatibility/Likeability
Knowledge Bases Help Build Trust and Relationships
Industry and Company Knowledge
Product Knowledge
Service
Promotion and Price
Market and Customer Knowledge
Competitor Knowledge
Technology Knowledge
Sales Ethics
Image of Salespeople
Deceptive Practices
Illegal Activities
Non-Customer-Oriented Behavior
How Are Companies Dealing with Sales Ethics?
Summary

Summary

Discuss the distinguishing characteristics of trust-based selling. Trust means different things to different buyers. It can be defined as confidentiality, openness, dependability, candor, honesty, confidence, security, reliability, fairness, and predictability. It is the salesperson’s job to determine what trust means to each of his or her buyers. Salespeople must ask their buyers what trust attributes are their greatest concerns.

Explain the importance of trust. In today's increasingly competitive marketplace, buyers typically find themselves inundated with choices regarding both products and suppliers. Buyers are demanding unique solutions to their problems that are customized on the basis of their specific needs. This shift toward relationship selling has altered both the roles played by salespeople and the activities and skills they exercise in carrying out these roles—the selling process itself. Today's more contemporary selling process is embedded within the relationship marketing paradigm. As such, it emphasizes the initiation and nurturing of long-term buyer-seller relationships based on mutual trust and value-added benefits. The level of problem solving activity common to relationship selling requires deliberate and purposeful collaboration between both parties. These joint efforts are directed at creating unique solutions based on an enhanced knowledge and understanding of the customer's needs and the supplier's capabilities so that both parties derive mutual benefits.

Discuss how to earn trust. Buyers are constantly asking themselves whether the salesperson truly cares about them. Salespeople can answer this question for the buyer by performing trust-building activities. Trust can be earned by demonstrating expertise, dependability, candor, customer orientation, competence, and compatibility.

Explain how knowledge bases help build trust and relationships. Salespeople do not have much time to make a first impression. If a salesperson can demonstrate expertise in the buyer's industry, company, marketplace, competitive knowledge, and so on, then the buyer will more likely be willing to listen to the salesperson if he or she brings valued experience to the buyer.

Understand the importance of sales ethics. Salespeople are constantly involved in ethical issues. A sales manager encourages his or her salesforce to pad their expense account in lieu of a raise. A salesperson sells a product or service to a customer that the buyer does not need. A salesperson exaggerates the benefits of a product in order to get a sale. The list can go on and on. How a salesperson handles these situations will go a long way in determining the salesperson's credibility. One wrong decision can end a salesperson's career.

Explain three important areas of unethical behavior. Three of the more popular areas of unethical behavior are deceptive practices, illegal activities, and non-customer-oriented behavior.

Deceptive practices: Salespeople giving answers they do not know, exaggerating product benefits, and withholding information may appear only to shade the truth, but when it causes harm to the buyer, the salesperson has jeopardized future dealings with the buyer.

Illegal activities: Misusing company assets has been a long-standing problem for many sales organizations. Using the company car for personal use, charging expenses that did not occur, and selling samples for income are examples of misusing company assets. Some of these violations discovered by company probing also constitute violations of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) law and are offenses that could lead to jail or heavy fines.

Non-customer-oriented behavior: Most buyers will not buy from salespeople who are pushy and practice the hard sell. Too much is at stake to fall for the fast-talking, high-pressure salesperson.

Understanding Professional Selling Terms

Trust / Industry knowledge
Openness / Company knowledge
Dependability / Product knowledge
Candor / Service issues
Honesty / Service knowledge
Confidentiality / Promotion knowledge
Security / Price knowledge
Reliability / Market knowledge
Fairness / Customer knowledge
Predictability / Technology knowledge
Expertise / Ethics
Contribution / Express warranty
Customer orientation / Misrepresentation
Compatibility/likability / Negligence
Competitor knowledge / Basis of the bargain

Developing Professional Selling Knowledge

What is the essence of trust for a salesperson?

Students’ answers will vary. The answers should include some description of the buyer relying on the salesperson’s words or actions in situations where such reliance involves risk to the buyer.

If trust means different things to different buyers, how is a salesperson to determine what trust means for each buyer?

The salesperson must determine what trust means for each buyer by asking questions, listening to the responses, and making general observations. This is the only way the salesperson will be able to learn what trust attributes are critical to relationship-building for a specific buyer.

Why is trust important to a salesperson?

Today’s customers are more sophisticated, more informed (or at least have access to more information), and more aware of traditional manipulative “sales tactics.” In addition, buying organizations are interested in taking advantage of efficiencies associated with using a smaller number of suppliers. Salespeople who understand these characteristics know that the stereotypical type of selling (e.g., manipulative, pushy, aggressive) is ineffective and that building mutually beneficial relationships with their customers is the only way to compete in the new millennium. Trust is important to a salesperson because it is essential for building these long-term relationships.

How might a salesperson go about earning trust?

Students’ answers will vary, but they should include discussion of the basic building blocks of trust, including expertise, dependability, candor, customer orientation, and compatibility/likeability.

What does it mean for a salesperson to have a customer orientation?

Customer orientation means the salesperson will not sacrifice the interests of the customer in favor of his or her own. In other words, it means looking out for the customer. This requires salespeople to be honest, candid, and fair when dealing with the customer.

How would you rank the five trust builders in order of importance?

Students’ answers will vary, but should include each of the five components (expertise, dependability, customer-orientation, candor, compatibility).

Explain why expertise is such an important relationship builder.

Expertise is such an important trust builder because it gives the salesperson credibility and is associated with several of the other trust builders. Credibility affords the salesperson a degree of the buyer’s trust prior to the salesperson actually earning it. Expertise may help the salesperson earn the buyer’s trust through the other trust builders. For example, salespeople with greater expertise are more likely to have greater competence and/or make more significant contributions.

How do knowledge bases help build trust and relationships?

Knowledge bases help build trust and relationships because they empower the salesperson to use the trust-building variable more effectively. For example, as salespeople gain more product knowledge, they are better able to demonstrate expertise and customer orientation (by more precise matching of solutions to needs) and make a stronger contribution.

Do you think certain knowledge bases are more important than others? Why?

Students’ answer will vary.

What are the three areas of unethical behavior? Discuss each.

The three areas of unethical behavior are deceptive practices, illegal activities, and non-customer-oriented behavior. Deceptive practices refer to any attempt by the salesperson to mislead or otherwise deceive the buyer. For example, a salesperson may exaggerate a product’s benefits knowing that the buyer’s decision will be based on (or that the buyer is relying on) those exaggerations. Illegal activities refer to a variety of activities in which the salesperson knowingly breaks the law. For example, a salesperson padding an expense reimbursement report is breaking the law. Non-customer-oriented behavior refers to actions taken by the salesperson that 1) are in conflict with the buyer’s interests, and 2) are done so when other options are available that are more customer-oriented.

Building Professional Selling Skills

Relationship selling is directed toward achieving mutually satisfying results between buyer and seller that sustain and enhance future interactions. In the past several years, there has been a growing recognition that adversarial, “me-against-you” buyer-seller relationships are often unproductive for both parties. The director of Xerox's training university in Leesburg, Virginia, says the biggest change in its sales training in the past decade is that “we spend a lot more time on what the customer thinks is important.”

Competition has intensified, technology has advanced, and pressure to improve productivity has soared. Given these changes in the marketplace, many firms are cutting down on the number of approved vendors. People are busier than ever, and there is no time for the misinformation and posturing often associated with the old style of selling. In a nutshell, it is increasingly productive to work closely with customers.

Relationship selling requires a different set of skills and attitudes than for transaction-oriented selling. Questioning and listening become more important than talking. High-pressure sales approaches and gimmicky closing methods are taboo in relationship selling. Personality matters, but not as much as appealing to the buyer's rational side in an interesting, well-illustrated, concise manner.

To initiate, develop, and enhance customer relationships, salespeople must demonstrate their trustworthiness. As detailed in the introduction to this module, research has identified at least five characteristics of trust-building salespeople:

Expertise—The ability, knowledge, and resources to meet customer expectations.
Dependability—The predictability of your actions.
Candor—Honesty of the spoken word.
Customer Orientation—Placing as much emphasis on the customer’s interests as your own.
Compatibility—Rooted in each party’s perception of “having something in common” with the other. Admittedly, an emotional factor such as this is difficult to pin down but is a powerful force in some buyer-seller relationships.

What are your ideas about how you can improve your trust-building behavior as you interact with customers? Use the following worksheet as a guide of how you might use each of the trust builders.

TrustBuilding Worksheet

Expertise: ______
Dependability:______
Candor: ______
Customer Orientation:______
Compatibility:______
Others:______

Students’ answers will vary but should reflect an understanding of and the ability to apply each of the trust builders. Example: “I will demonstrate customer orientation by making sure I 1) understand the buyer’s needs, 2) develop a solution tailored to those needs, and 3) clearly communicate the pros and cons of the solution to the buyer.”

Sales professionalism requires a truthful, customer-oriented approach. Customers are increasingly intolerant of nonprofessional, unethical sales practices. Assess the following actions a salesperson might take with regard to their legality, ethicality, and professionalism.

Please circle your response for each category.

Salesperson shows concern for his or her own interests, not those of the client.