In this post, I’m going to explain in simple terms why trust is the most important deciding factor when people want to buy something from you and your business… And how quite literally, it can transform your business and what you charge almost overnight.
Without trust you…
Are an ‘also ran’, meaning you are a commodity that is judged purely on price, and anyone who’s been in business long enough knows, these clients and customer are often the worst. They…
- Are the hardest to convert from prospect to client
- Don’t take into account your experience or ability when judging who to choose
- Are the least likely to get the most benefit of what you do, because they’re less committed
And there are a whole host of other negatives a lack of trust gives you, that I am sure you are aware of.
Bottom line, a lack of trust impacts your profit margins and your new business/client generation.
With a higher level of trust…
People are on the front foot, meaning they are ready to listen to you and your offer.
- Clients who trust you are way easier to convert into prospects
- Clients already believe in what you do
- You can increase profit margins and refer more new clients to you
The clients that are referred to you, anre often a dream to work with, and get the best results This further reinforces how good you are at what you do, which creates more trust and more unsolicited referrals. But…
There’s another HUGE benefit for clients who trust you
The clients who know like and trust you, as well as the benefits I’ve already mentioned, can also ethically be persuaded to refer you to others, including under-the-radar hard to get new business, you’d never normally get.
So I’m also going to give you tips on how to ethically and honestly create more trust in a way clients will love…
- So you can potentially create your own free salesforce 24 hours a day 7 days a week, even while you sleep.
- So you can see about raising your prices and making more money for doing the same amount of work or less.
- So you can leverage that trust and become the go-to person in your niche for serious people who want to put in the effort for reasults and are willing to pay what you charge
In fact, when you learn how to ethically and honestly leverage trust… what I call ‘unwavering trust’, you’ll almost definitely have to put your prices up to quell demand like I did when I first learned this time-proven strategy over 20 years ago.
The ‘nice’ problem you may have with this strategy
A nice ‘problem’ most people would love to have. And I can tell you from experience, it gives you huge ‘breathing space’ and catapults you get to the next level in business way faster.
Before I learned the simple truth of what makes people buy from you, I was literally broke and homeless after a big recession hit and my business collapsed in a big recession.
I almost gave up business completely and got myself a job.
Just 60 days after learning how to leverage this trust, I had my business back. In fct I more than got it back.
I doubled my turnover and quadrupled my profit from pre-recession.
Think about this for a moment. Before recession I was doing Ok. Recession hits and I lose 80% of business overnight. That was the nail in the coffin for me,
I learned how to leverage trust and I doubled turnover from when things were going well… only the rececession was deeper than ever, and I 2x’d turnover.
When I leveraged trust in this way, I had to very quickly double my prices overnight in what was supposed to be a competitive market, to be able to cope with the influx of new business, which had the effect of increasing profitr margins by 4x.
And when business kept coming in, I I had to raise prices again. Sigh… it was tough!
Seriously though, I was very nervous of doing this at first, as I was worried it would all come crashing down in front of me.
But it didn’t. The gray train carried on rolling.
So…
How does trust make business so easier? Take a look at this…
Imagine for a moment you want to buy something or want a coach or consultant.
You don’t know anyone who has used coaches of consultants, so what do you do?
Most likely you go online, and look up reviews of coaches or consultants, in the niche you are looking for, and look at reviews. Another great form of trust, but less potent that what I am talking about here.
- Trust makes or breaks businesses.
- Trust enables you to be the go-to-person in your niche
- Trust enables you to charge way more than the competition.
Allow me to explain why this is so important and see if this resonates with you
Imagine YOU are in this scenario
Lets imagine for a moment you’re in your car with your family or kids. If you don’t have kids or family you travel with that’s ok, imagine it’s friends or whatever fits with you.
You’re on a long trip to see friends or family. You’re driving through a small village, you park up in the parking lot while you get out to get a bottle of water. As you get out of the car you notice oil dripping out of the bottom of the car.
Assuming you know nothing about cars, in this day and age what do you do?
First off, if you have a device next to you, you might google it, because it’s convenient and quick to get answers often. As you look through the answers, or maybe on youtube, you realise you’re out of your depth, there are loads of answers, and you need to be able to get to where the oil is coming from before you can diagnise the problem.
You’re in an area you don’t know, in a small town and don’t have breakdown cover.
Then a man comes over and says “hey I see you can’t start your car”
You answer and tell them about the dripping oil and you have no clue what the problem is… and they ask if you have cover. You say “no”.
They seem nice and relaxed and genuinely caring, you relax a little inside and listen.
The man or woman says “ there’s a garage just around the corner literally. I know them personally and they do all the mechanics for me and my family on cars and have done for many years. Always been great, never rip you off, and are very reasonable. A little bit more than the one round the corner, but you always know they’re honest.. way better than the garage you may have seen on the way into to town. I and a few locals have had problems with them. They are known to rip you off”
You thank the man, and say you’re going to go there.
He says “say George Gillespie sent you, he’ll look after you I promise. We go back a long way”
So, what often happens now are 2 things.
- You look up Gillepsie’s garage and look at their reviews, just in case this person isn’t telling the Truth.
- You go straight to the garage he recommends
All things being equal and with high reviews, where will you go?
For most of us, that’ll be Gillespie’s.
We’ve already been told Gillespies are honest. They’re proven and they’re good people. They can be trusted. But they’re slightly more expensive?
So why Gillespies?
Why?
Because even though you’ve just met the person, they have local knowledge and have proof this company are likely to be good. There’s very little or at least less risk for you.
Choose elsewhere and you’re taking a risk. You’re going against what others have suggested, who seem like they’d be good to be around.
This boils down to human nature.
The need for trust is embedded into our DNA
Imagine you’re living in prehistoric times, and yes I know there were no cars back then!
Imagine something else you might need, or someone you might need for a reason.
You live in a clan, and psychologically there’s a vested interest in the clan staying together for lots of reasons.
- Hunts are more effective in a group, you’re less likely to starve
- Safety is more effective against rival clans who might want to invade and maybe even kill you
- And dinosaurs or other predators who might want to eat you.
So if someone in the clan recommends something, you’re likely to get a good honest recommendation or referral to someone who can help with your problem.
Going against this advice has the potential to:
- Put you at risk.
- Your family at risk.
- Your clan at risk and
- Putting the clan at risk can be dangerous to you, with you being expelled and left to fend for yourself
In the 21st century, this is obviously unlikely.
However what I am suggesting is, referrals or recommendations from a trusted source and accepting them is baked into your DNA.
It’s difficult to go against advice from a trusted source.
It difficult for people to take a risk and use someone who is not trusted. When we have a clearer, safer and proven option we are much more likley to go with that option.
The difference in modern day times is, if someone recommends something to you, and you don’t take the advice and it goes wrong, then it’s just embarrassing and might cost us money. You get to look silly in front of your peers and family and friends. You don’t normally get to die!
This TRUST factor is what makes the crucial difference to people’s purchasing decisions.
THIS is the referral difference, because recommendations and referrals are “trust factors” that carry a lot of weight.
In Fact: Going against a referral or recommendation is psychologically tough because as savvy marketers know, people are more motivated to avoid pain than to seek pleasure. The threat of pain from making a bad decision is often more of a motivation that the potential for pleasure.
So the thought of making a bad decision when there’s an alternative good and proven decision that is likely to make us look good in the offing, just doesn’t cut it.
The need to trust is baked into our basic human nature, baked into our DNA for thousands of years, and it still operates as much now, as in caveperson days.
And when trust is in place, and…
When you are the go-to person in your niche…
Then business takes on a whole new meaning and gets way easier.
With trust in place, if a client recommends you to others, your chance of receiving a business referral is XXX times higher than for someone who isn’t recommended.
According to trusted advertising think tank Nielsen Institute who measure ‘trust’ in advertising personal recommendations from a trusted source, is this is by FAR the most trusted form of lead generation there is on the planet.
It’s twice as effective as the number 2, and…
There’s nothing then that even comes close to this form of marketing to create a sale.
The most trusted form of marketing on the planet is referrals
And as you’ve just seen, trust in sales is everything. On average the more trust you have, the more sales you get. And referrals or referral marketing as many people call it, is THE most trusted form of marketing there is.
When you understand how to genuinely and ethically create trust, authentic trust I can’t emphasis ‘authentic’ enough, then you are going to get a LOT more business, epsecially when you marry this trust up with a strategy that gets people to want to refer you new business to others.
And yet, even though business owners, consultants and coaches know referrals are incredibly powerful, they rarely if ever have a strategy in place to leverage it for sales, in an honest ‘non cheesey’ way.
When you prime people to want to refer you in an ethical way, you are on your way to getting existing clients…
To become your own personal sales force 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
These people will recommend you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, even while you sleep. Can you imagine how powerful that is?
Imagine you do a days work, and you have 10s or even 100s of people recommending you to their friends, families and colleagues when you’re not around.
These people are normally already trusteed by the people they are chatting with. They’re in the right place to recommend you to others, at precisely the right time.
But that’s not all, this kind of trust factor in business gets way better…
When someone trusts you, and you refer them to someone you yourself trust, this trust carries forward.
What do I mean by that?
I mean when someone recommends or refers you, some of the trust they have in place, carried over to you.
What’s the impact of this?