Becoming Essential

Because your relationship is only so strong, and your trust is only as deep as the most difficult conversation it survives, trust is essential for insight selling success. To reframe how a buyer thinks, and influence what a buyer does, sellers must guide them out of the calm sea of the comfort zone and into riskier waters. Leaving the comfort zone, however, can be, well, uncomfortable for buyers. If they go there, they prefer to do so with people they trust.

Perhaps the most cited part of our What Sales Winners Do Differently research is the list of the top 10 factors that separate the winners of major sales from the second-place finishers. But deep in the data—in the parts that the journalists don’t write about because it’s not new—is the point that trust is (was, and will be) essential for success in selling.

In our research, trust was one of the six key drivers of client loyalty. It was one of the top 10 factors sales winners demonstrate. And, when the buyers didn’t trust the seller, it was one of the top factors that influenced buyers to choose the other provider.

Lest you think it’s only a small percentage of sellers who the buyers didn’t think were trustworthy:

Of the second-place finishers (the sellers the buyers didn’t select), buyers did not trust approximately 40 percent of them.

When we talk about trust with sellers, frequently they say, “Well, my buyers trust me already. I’m trustworthy!” That’s a natural way to feel, but after doing some critical thinking in the area, most sellers agree they can do a better job building trust.

This book isn’t just about selling, though. It’s about insight selling. This raises the questions, “What effect does trust have on the insight selling process?” and “How do trust and insight work together?”

The Difference Trust Makes

The fact of the matter is, people will accept the advice of insight sellers only to the extent they trust them. Sellers who focus on advice, persuasion, and being provocative without considering how to build trust see their insight selling efforts crumble like a house without a foundation.

As trust grows and deepens over time, great things happen:

1. Trust gets you direct access to power. Imagine for a minute someone has been working with you for decades. You’ve been through thick and thin together. Because of this person, you’ve achieved some of your greatest successes. You might not talk frequently, but then you get an e-mail that reads, “I came across something a few weeks ago that I think you should consider. Can we talk?” Of course you say yes. If you sent this person the same e-mail, you’d get the same response.
2. Trust gets you indirect access to power. Same situation as before, except this time the person who has been working with you for all this time asks, “I know you know the folks who lead your European division. I came across something a few weeks ago I’m guessing they might like to know about. Would you mind making an introduction?” When trust is high, people say yes.
3. Trust gets your advice taken. When people trust you, they’re more likely to take your advice. If the last 27 times you told someone, “This will work. It’s a good bet,” it turned out exactly as you said, then that person is likely to accept and believe the twenty-eighth piece of advice you give. Even if a product or service is brand new and untested, when trust is high, if you make the recommendation to proceed, your advice will carry much weight.
4. Trust gets you selected. Let’s say buyers buy into an idea. Sometimes there’s still competition to beat. It’s possible they might buy into an idea, but you didn’t bring it to them. Assuming you are a good fit, the more trust they have in you, the more the other options are risky in comparison.
5. Trust is the foundation for success with difficult conversations. Imagine someone you have worked with for a long time and trust deeply says, “I don’t think you’re going to want to hear this, but I know you’re thinking that path A is best. I know you’ve invested a lot in it already, but I have to say I don’t think it’s a good idea. In fact, I think it’s a pretty bad idea.”
   1. You might be defensive. You might be upset. You might even snap back. But will you stop listening and toss this person out of the meeting? Probably not. Even if it’s one of those times you really don’t want to hear it, you’ll still hear it and, probably (at least eventually), appreciate it. If this person is knowledgeable and has your best interest in mind, you’re probably listening.
   2. Now imagine someone you just met says this to you the exact same way. This person doesn’t know you. You don’t know if this person knows your industry, your business strategy, or anything at all relevant to the decision at hand.
   3. You might just stop listening and toss this person out of the meeting.
   4. Same situation, same delivery, different trust, different result.

Three Key Components of Trust

Trust is the sum of three factors:

• Competence
• Integrity
• Intimacy

Trust Takes Time

“It’s impossible to get serious face time with executives.”

“Even getting 15 minutes with a senior executive can take 15 months.”

We hear things like this all the time from sellers who want to get more time with decision makers but haven’t yet cracked the code. They say they’d look forward to more intimacy with buyers but that buyers don’t have time.

It’s a common misconception that senior executives don’t have time. Based on extensive research in the area, we’re prepared to reveal a startling fact: Decision makers have 24 hours in each day, and a statistically significant number of them manage these days in bundles of seven called weeks.

Shocking, but true: 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

What may actually be interesting is how they spend this time. They don’t meet only with internal colleagues, they don’t meet only in 15-minute blocks, and they don’t disappear into the nights and weekends to spend extended time only with their families.

Many executives pour their time into meetings and relationships. Executives often tell us that their relationships with people across companies and industries—colleagues, partners, and vendors alike—are essential to their success.

They have long meetings with people outside their organizations. They have breakfast meetings, lunch meetings, and dinner meetings. They ski, fish, take in games, and go to the theater. They maintain relationships over time.

They are, indeed, doing all these things and more. The question is this: Why aren’t they doing them with you?

Through the past decade of research and practice, we’ve learned that the best relationship developers get extended time with senior executives when they do the following:

1. Establish a peer dynamic. Under no circumstances should you come across as subservient or obsequious to a senior executive. This doesn’t mean you need to be arrogant. It does mean you must have confidence in the value you can offer from a business perspective and confidence in yourself personally that the C-suite is where you should be. Sellers who spend time with C-level executives have, in a word, gravitas.
2. Get over personal hang-ups. If you tell yourself any of the following, you’re in trouble:
   • Senior executives’ time is more important than mine.
   • Senior executives aren’t my peers.
   • Senior executives don’t want to be friends with me.
   • I don’t want to be friends with senior executives.
   • I’m not interesting enough or don’t provide enough value to be worthy of senior executive attention.
   • I’ll just be too nervous; I’ll mess up.
   • I shouldn’t talk about, or ask about, anything personal.
   • I shouldn’t ask them to grab dinner and then go to an event with me.
   • I won’t get through, so why bother trying?
   1. Often the greatest barriers to establishing ongoing, rich relationships with senior executives are personal hang-ups. If relationships with top people are what you want, don’t psyche yourself out of your chance.
3. Jump the impact hurdle. Often sellers don’t understand that senior executives can have a pretty high hurdle for what business impact they actually care about. One time a friend of ours was sure he was going to win an engagement that would save his client $10 million. Then he lost the deal. When he asked why, the client said, “I get that I could do this and save $10 million, but I’m working on $50 million problems v now.”
   1. In this case, the seller knew his impact model and communicated it well, but the ROI wasn’t big enough for the executive to care about it.
4. Remember that they’re people. Like Soylent Green, senior executives are people. They have emotions and personal interests. CEOs have kids, like (or don’t like!) sports, want to be seen as successful, are passionate about politics, and want to retire, drink fruity drinks with umbrellas, and read Central Intelligence Agency thrillers.
   1. Are you going to connect with everyone? No. Perhaps you head down a political conversation path and find you have nothing in common. Next thing you know, you both love coaching kids’ soccer and conversation ensues. And then you joke with each other about how the other is wrong about politics.
   2. A partner at a major services client of ours met someone on a plane and ended up talking about how they’re both cancer survivors. They have been close for 10 years and ended up doing a lot of business together. Did they plan it this way? No. Was the partner in any way exploiting cancer? No. It was a real connection and led to a real, long-term friendship. This happens.
5. Don’t fall into common conversation traps. If you make common conversation mistakes, you can lose executives as early as hello. Common mistakes include:
   • Asking irrelevant or too general questions
   • Going on too long
   • Making the executive educate you on background you should have learned earlier
   • Not listening
   • Not providing ideas
   • Not knowing your capabilities cold
   • Relying too much on slide presentations or materials
   • Seeming uncomfortable or stilted when talking to them because they’re so important
   • Jumping the gun on trying to close sales too forcefully or quickly
   • Being irrelevant
   1. Any of these conversational failings will bar your entrance from continued time in the inner circle.
6. Don’t give up or make assumptions. It might take a while to get time with senior executives. Don’t give up. Those who make it to the top are dogged about getting there.
   1. Often executives will take meetings only through trusted connections. Work your way up through lower-level contacts or other trusted relationships.
   2. Although less common, it is possible to get through without a referral. If you don’t have the contacts who can get you in, reach out directly. Do it enough and you’ll get through to some. (You don’t need to get through to all.)
   3. Don’t give up and you’ll get your first audience. Heed the advice throughout this book, and you’ll get the second, the third, the fourth, and so on.
7. Craft a meticulous personal brand. Getting quality, extended time with senior executives is all about being invited to the inner circle. Make no mistake, you will be judged as to whether you deserve to be there. Create a reputation as a known, deeply knowledgeable leader in your area. Create relationships with other executives and influential people. Make sure anything you put forth is of the highest quality. All of these signal whose league you’re in.
   1. Ultimately, if you want time and relationships with executives, you have to make sure they see you as being in their league. It’s up to you to do what you can to get there and stay there.

In sum, this chapter makes a small point that, for those who take it to heart, will find a big impact. A seller’s ability to apply insight selling—to get time with executives, to dissent, to have one’s advice accepted, to overcome perceptions of risk of doing new things—all depends on trust. The more buyers trust you, the more insight selling will work.

Chapter Summary