Salespeople’s trustworthiness problem

(2 minute read)

Most of the salespeople in B2B sales are not seen as trustworthy by the buyers … because most of them are not. Traditional sales training teaches us how to manipulate the customer to get the deal closed, make the customer feel valued, respond to customer objections, and so on. Additionally, most companies adopt the” management by objectives” approach over the “management by values” approach. All those push salespeople to look for closing at all costs.  

On top of it, very few companies can provide a purpose to their employees, which would help them to have more meaningful objectives than just numbers. As a result, our performance is measured only by our numbers. (To be clear, I do not say that the numbers are unimportant. They are not the primary and sole focus in sales, at least in modern sustainable sales models.)  Therefore, all sales teams focus on numbers, and their energy goes there. Finally, they end up as manipulators because they would like to hit their targets no matter what happens.

So, it is no surprise that they do not seem trustworthy to their customers. But how can a salesperson break this pattern? The answer is humility. For a long time, humility has been misinterpreted among the sales community. It was a sign of weakness as a salesperson is supposed to convince the customer that they are the most knowledgeable, trustworthy, and expert person in the field. They are supposed to have all the answers to give confidence. So, they started to pretend to be someone they were not. If the salesperson is good at acting, the customer sees it after the closing; if not, they even do not go further than the first meeting. In all cases, it becomes visible to the customer at some point.

When a salesperson talks about their past achievements, the customer sees the ego. When they talk about what they are targeting to achieve, it is their pride. If a salesperson stays at the present moment (now and here), they can engage in an honest conversation with the customer. That level of engagement with mindfulness is humility. Asks real questions, listens deeply answers, learns from the customer to make sure to come up with the best possible proposition to help the customer on making the best buying decision.

When you do so, the customer feels confident. As Jeffrey Lipsius describes it in his “Selling to the Point” book, the customer gains the confidence to trust the salesperson.

As you can see, all this has nothing to do with the salesperson’s knowledge about the product, competitors, market, etc. It is purely interpersonal communication with a genuine interest in learning. The more the salesperson looks for learning, the more they will gain the customer’s trust. Their selling performance will become their learning performance. And in the long run, the more deals they will close. 

So, how about using humility as a superpower in sales?