You or your team regularly have sales conversations and you want to know how you can immediately improve the outcome of those conversations. The answer to that is, make sure you become a ‘trusted advisor’ in the eyes of the customer. What is needed for this are three roles.
Three roles
If you want to be a trusted advisor in the eyes of your customer, there are three roles you must adopt. Maybe good to know, I have no idea where the words ‘trusted advisor’ come from, but you often hear this term in sales land. I see three roles that you must assume for a trusted advisor. If you apply these three roles, you will immediately see an improvement in your sales.
Trusted advisor
The term trusted advisor consists of two words:
1. ‘Trusted’, someone who is reliable, someone you trust
2. ‘Advisor’, someone who gives advice
If you give a customer advice based on the best intention, skills and abilities. When you give advice to a customer and you know it is best for that customer. Does that customer follow your advice? In most cases yes.
Role 1: Friend
Where do many sales people go wrong, especially the hard sales? If they forget the first role as a basic attitude: friend. First and foremost, you are your customer’s friend. I sometimes get resistance to this from a sales team that believes: ‘I am not my customer’s friend at all’. Yes, your basic attitude is that you are a friend.
Because what does a friend, a good friend, do when you have a problem that needs to be solved? A good friend listens to you and is empathetic: ‘Tell me, how are you, let’s sit down for a moment’. Have a cup of coffee and make a connection: ‘I see that you live beautifully, in a beautiful building’. As a friend you are able to connect with your customer. You check in with the customer: ‘How are you doing, how nice that we are here, we don’t know each other yet, but my intention is to start a friendship with you.’ A friend doesn’t betray you either. A friend will never put his foot in the door in his own interest at any cost, which is the association for many sales people. A friend has your best interests at heart and you feel that in everything.
Being a friend to someone is a basic attitude. It’s not a trick you can learn by creating a gate. There are techniques to connect very quickly, but the attitude of a friend, that’s what matters. Are you prepared to take off your own ‘hat’, put yourself in the customer’s shoes, stand next to the customer and look at what the customer needs now?
Role 2: Trainer
The second role is that of trainer. There are things your customer doesn’t currently know about your industry. Things that are very relevant for the customer to know before he makes a purchase. As a trainer, you teach your customer things that they do not know yet, for example: figures from your industry, facts that are relevant, what you should pay attention to when purchasing this product or service. As a trainer, you train your client during the conversation. You help your customer understand why something is relevant and why he should take steps.
A trainer thinks about how he structures his training. How he structures his sales conversation or presentation so that the customer learns what he needs to know to make a choice for the product or service.
What is important for the customer to know when choosing a product/service?
- Relevant information about your product or service
- In which you are distinctive compared to others
- What your Unique Selling Points are
- The context in which you operate and in what context this is relevant
- Figures from your industry that are relevant
For example, when I have a sales conversation about my ‘Work Happiness’ training, I ask in passing during the conversation: ‘Did you know that 17% of people in education have burnout complaints? The customer’s answer is usually: ‘No, I didn’t know that’. Based on this background information, it becomes logical for the customer to invest in this training.
Role 3: Coach
What does a coach do? A good coach reflects. When you are talking to a customer, the customer is making a decision in his head:
- is this a good investment?
- do I want this investment?
- will this investment help me?
Then it is important that you remain in contact with the customer during the conversation. That he feels like you are there for him.
Mirror
Customers often have a number of (pre)judgments in their thinking, which causes them to believe that perhaps they should not do it. In that case, you help the customer make the decision, for example by mirroring. What could you do as a coach? You could suggest the following to the customer: ‘Yes, my product or service is more expensive. But can I ask something? How long will you use it for? Ten/fifteen/twenty years? Don’t you think it is relevant to make a choice for the long term and not for the short term?’ That’s what a good coach does. The customer’s response to this may be: ‘Oh yeah, I haven’t thought of that yet. Yes that is true. I have to put it in a different context, reframe it and reflect on myself’.
The friend listens, the trainer teaches something and the coach reflects. The essence is listening – asking questions – listening. Everything starts with listening: What is on the customer’s mind? What is behind the customer’s experience? Do you really understand the customer and do you have the best intention to help the customer make a choice in his and your interests? Where everyone has a good feeling? Is that what you want to do? If so, you are a trusted advisor.
