Trust is a requirement for every sale. Some kinds of sales require a small amount of trust

such as selling clothing in a retail setting. Other sales require much more trust such as

when you buy financial services, a house or a new car. In B2C sales the higher the sticker

price, the greater the trust required. In B2B sales less trust is needed for commodity

sales than for value added products and/or services.

Being trustworthy is not something you can play fake-it-till-you-make-it. Being trustworthy

is about how you see yourself, your personal integrity, your commitment level and your

sense of self-esteem and your ability to work in the best interest of others. It’s also

about how others see you.

Here is a fact that applies equally to B2B and B2C selling, the less we try to make the

sale and the more we make trust the sale, the more successful you will be in sales.

The most powerful component of trust is your low level of self-orientation, and if you’re

curious, self-orientation approaches zero. At that point, you’re orientation is the

client both personally and professionally.

Trust-based selling is a practice, not a process. It’s about relationships and not transactions;

and it’s about serving clients, not serving the seller. Being trusted is all about values,

mindset, attitudes, and behavior. Being trustworthy means you keep doing the right thing for the

client, in the end, that will be in your best interests too.

Trust can be measured by four key factors. These include credibility, reliability, intimacy

and self-orientation. Credibility is all about what we say, our skills and credentials. Reliability

is all about the actions we take and our predictability. Intimacy is tied to how comfortable people

are confiding in us, and our empathy. And self-orientation is about our ability to work

in the best interest of another.

Based on a national survey of over 12,000 people on the subject of trust here are some

findings worth noting.

1. Expertise Does not Equal Trust: Your expertise in something doesn’t guarantee people will

trust you. So emphasizing your expertise isn’t a way to build trust.

2. Women Think They’re More Trustworthy 3. We trust older people

4. Balance is Good: People are considered more trustworthy when they rank all four trust

components very close together. 5. We All Think We’re Experts: Even though

expertise is the least effective strategy for gaining someone’s trust, it’s the

one that people use the most often. 6. Trust can be taught, by focusing on your

strengths in each of the four trust components.

Often we intend more than one thing when we use the word trust. We use it to describe

what we think of what people say. We also use it to describe behaviors. We use it to

describe whether or not we feel comfortable sharing certain information with someone else.

And we use the same word to indicate whether or not we feel other people have our interests

at heart, vs. their own interests.