Improve sales effectiveness. Bridging the gap between seller and buyer

Improve your sales effectiveness and KPIs by bridging the trust gap between seller and buyer.How sales & service organisations can open up great sales opportunities by improving their customer trust building capability.!!October 2012!!

This publica,on and results are copyright mext 2013. HuTrust and the 6 drivers of trust are copyright and trademark of ifm/mext. Copying and publishing by any means is not permiCed without express permission of the copyright holder except as permiCed through the Australian copyright act and for informa,on purposes.

All images copyright Istock and used under license by ifm & mext

We work daily with sales professionals. Consult to them, train them and workshop with them to improve their sales effectiveness.

As part of our ongoing research work to better sales improvement approaches we surveyed over 970 sales and business development professionals globally.

We also surveyed 1800 B2B customers.

The results show great opportunities to drive sales performance through active trust building.

•  By mext and Huthwaite International •  www.huthwaite.com.au Adam Thorp •  www.mextconsulting.com Stefan Grafe •  www.hutrust.com

part of the Asia Pacific mext/duxton group

A topic that pops up time and again is:!

trust


Over 95% of you consider trust critically important to selling 95% consider trust critically important, 4%

important and 1% not important to !•  Selling!•  Repeat purchase!•  Customer loyalty!!


You got it right there. Your customers perfectly support that.


82%will use its products frequently

If clients trust you and your brand…


78% will look to it first for the things they want



78% will give its new products and services a chance



83% will recommend it to others



47% will pay more for its products or services



47% believe it will inform them about products

and services they’ll like



Trust is the most powerful driver to buy.



Trust is also the driver of your ‘soft’ KPIs.

Being able to trust you is immensely valuable to your customer. That’s why it’s valuable to you.


Quite rightly many organisations want their sales and business development professionals to be the trusted advisor…



95% of sales professionals are very confident in their ability to build and manage trust.!

79% of sales professionals are very confident in their ability to build and manage trust in their company.!


but

Why then do customers consistently trust us sales professionals significantly less than we think they do?


Sales and business development professionals tend to overrate their customer’s trust.

In our surveys sales professionals rate their trust as an average of 8 – being well trusted.

However, all our customer studies in B2B show that customers rate us as an average of 6.3 (5.2-6.8 depending on category). A gap of around 20%.


Why do we consistently miss out on great sales possibilities without even knowing?

The trust effect: A 20% increase in trust improves buying propensity by 400%

I would recommend this brand/product

I would go out of my way to buy this brand/product

I feel connected to this brand/product/company

Avg b2b


The way we tend to rate our trust higher than it is, we assume a much higher propensity to buy from us and connection to us than is true.

This leads us automatically to show the wrong behaviours, message incorrectly and assess wrongly where the customer is in their decision making process.

Low trust (7) doubles the customers commitment to you. If your customer would rate you 8 instead of 6, their commitment to you quadruples – and so forth.

That should be reason enough to properly understand how your customer behaves at each level and know precisely how to shift that trust just that little bit each time.



because

1) If we measure customer trust at all, we tend to do it wrong.

The gap.Using the wrong scale, we interpret the attitude of a large part of our customers incorrect.Customers giving us a 5 and 6 don’t distrust us, but neither do they trust us.

Typical interpretation

What customers really mean

Distrust Neutral Trust


Typically organisations consider everything above the midpoint as ‘trust’ or ‘satisfaction’.However, customers express only the slightest level of trust by ticking 7 and above.

The result is significantly skewed, because a huge proportion of customers tick 5 and 6 and merely mean they are neutral.

This gives us a false sense of what our customer’s commitment to us is – and thus what we need to do to better sell.


2) Our understanding of trust is lacking, out-dated or wrong.


Despite huge advances in the understanding of trust, many still believe they build sufficient trust by• Being transparent • Communicating• Being honest• Being punctual• Building an intimate relationship• Being customer oriented

We continue to believe that ‘trust takes a long time to build and only a second to destroy’.

Heard it before?It takes you in the wrong direction!


3) We consider ‘trust’ a talent, not a skill


Trust is still considered fluffy and emotional.A God given talent rather than a skill.

While most managers know the importance, they are lacking robust and effective frameworks to give their teams the crucial trust building capability.


4) We don’t understand that improving trust is the key to directly improving sales effectiveness AND our sat/NPS KPIs.

More trust = More Sales + More satisfaction + More advocacy (NPS)


Many sales professionals still doubt that slightly increased trust translates directly and immediately into sales improvements.

Most organisations also have not been able to connect sales performance with the achievement of soft KPIs like satisfaction and the NPS.

While a ‘focus on satisfaction/NPS’ to drive measurable sales improvement is difficult, operationalising them through trust building is intuitive and proven to improve both sales and KPIs.



now what

Trust is driven by six clear facets.Scientifically correct, statistically and practically proven.Trust is not fluffy and intangible. It is clear and understandable.


Trust is driven by 6 clear facets.Trust in stabilityTrust in future development,Trust in a relevant way of relating to usTrust in a relevant benefitTrust in an appealing vision and purposeand Trust in the right competencies.

These 6 facets were developed by a team of psychologists and practitioners with over 6000 interviews, with supervision by Professor Salber, the father of the most recent psychology theory and validated through statistical analysis and practical application with leading organisations globally.

The approach is calledThe exercises were great. Everyone has their

own style. This training shifted their perspective fundamentally and they could apply it intuitively.

The guys already have better results with it.T sales team manager one week after kick off

training.


Once you know how trust really works you can’t go back.

Trust building is a skill. Effective immediately. L


Understanding and building Trust can be learned and improved (even if you are already great at it).

By understanding how trust really forms, sales professionals can intuitively workshop and define their personal, product and brand trust drivers.

Improving their confidence and ability to build that trust that improves their sales even more.

‘I used the HuTrust® outcomes with a client I had to visit the same evening. The conversation was very different and I was able to sell to a much higher value.’!Senior Sales Manager and HuTrust® workshop participant.


Can you say confidently:• What trust is?

• What your trust level is?

• What exactly your customer wants to trust you for in each of the six

facets of HuTrust®?

• How, and how well, you deliver on that?• If you deliver better and different than the competition?

• How to build and manage sales effective trust in every interaction?



no?


Learn itJoin over 1000 sales and service professionals who attended the HuTrust® training this year already &

improve your sales effectiveness immediately.!

The 6 components of the model were great. I could clearly see how to change our approach with our customers using the HuTrust Model. Truly the most effective training this year. Thanks.Sales Director

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Get started. Get the book on Amazon. See what trust is made of and how you can build it better!

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Duxton Consul1ng Singapore Email: laurenz.koehler@duxton consul,ng.com Address: 26 Duxton Rd. Singapore 089490 Phone: +65 6323 3340

Chris1na Eisenschmid Email: chris,[email protected] Address: Nymphenburger Str. 14 80335 Munich Phone+49 (0) 89 20209610

Concerto Marke1ng Suite 250 – 128 Has,ngs St. West Vancouver, BC V6B 1G8 t: 604-‐684-‐8933 f: 604-‐684-‐8934

Who Group Australia M.Dudley Email: [email protected] Level 2, 1 Southbank Blvd Southbank VIC 3006 03 8636 4000

Tred Interna1onal Adam Thorp, Director Mobile: 0417 584 599 Phone: 02 9300 6439 www.tredinterna,onal.com Email: info@tredinterna,onal.com

Global contact: mext Consul1ng Australia Stefan Grafe, Managing Partner & HuTrust® Developer Stefan.grafe@mextconsul,ng.com 165 Cremorne Street Richmond VIC 3122 +61 3 94285417

For further information and HuTrust® usage, please contact:

Business

Improve sales effectiveness. Bridging the gap between seller and buyer