People buy from those they know and trust. Establishing a trust relationship with your potential clients takes time, but it is well worth the effort!

Think about the last time you bought a service from someone new, that had a substantial positive impact on your work or life in some way. If you were spending a good chunk of change (and perhaps investing a good bit of your time) on that purchase, chances are you did some research first: learning what others had to say about them, contacting them directly with questions and observing how they treated your inquiries, maybe even buying a smaller product or service from them first. All to determine if this person was someone you could trust to deliver what they promise.

Your potential clients are no different! They are going to want to know if they can trust you to deliver, too. Here are three specific ways you can work on building trust relationships, and how it will help your business:

1. Getting to know your customers helps you more deeply understand what it is they need — making it a lot easier to tell them how what you are selling is going to meet their needs. Find out where they “hang” out, on discussion forums, social networks,  etc., and get involved. Add value to the conversation — but if you are doing it right, you’ll be doing a whole lot more listening than talking.
2. Connecting with your customer on a personal level helps them see you as a person, one who has some things in common with them. People will trust you, and ultimately buy from you, if they feel you are like them. This means being sincere and transparent — not pretending or making something up. If you can’t make that trust connection with one particular person, don’t force it — move on to someone else.
3. Keep up the trust relationship after they become a client, too. Clients who know and like you, and have benefitted from what you have sold them, will tell others about you! It will be easy for them to recommend you because they are recommending a trusted colleague, not an impersonal business or product. If you’ve done a good job of providing them with something that makes their job or life easier, they won’t be able to wait to tell someone else!

Last 5 posts by Terri Zwierzynski

• 31 Time Management Tips - December 18th, 2008
• Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus - December 14th, 2008
• And now just for fun... - November 27th, 2008
• The Grateful Life of a Solo Entrepreneur - November 17th, 2008
• Can a Lifestyle be a Niche? - November 4th, 2008

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 21st, 2008 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Networking, Interpersonal Skills, Client Retention. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.