The speed of trust

I was recently listening to an audio program by Stephen Covey called “The Speed of Trust”. In it Stephen makes a very interesting and powerful point when he says when trust goes up speed increases and cost decreases. What this really means in business is the more a potential customer trusts you, the easier it is for you to close a deal and the less it will cost you to do so.
I was doing a business review with a client recently when he revealed to me the company had about a 20% closing ratio with cold market prospects but an 80% closing ratio with referral prospects. The trust factor attached to referral business allowed him to be 400% more productive. This is what Covey was referring to with his message.

What would a 400% productivity increase mean to your business? The obvious answer is you would be more profitable, but perhaps also you would have more time to spend with your family. The average business person is working at over 120% capacity today and still not getting everything done. Perhaps the time has come to increase the trust levels with the people you do business with to make your life easier.

So what are some of the activities you can do to help increase trust levels? One thing I try to always stress with me clients is when interacting with prospects make a large number of your interactions have nothing to do with business or attempting to sell them. I work with several financial advisors, which is a very competitive field. Let me use this as an example of how to interact with prospects without trying to sell them something.

Let’s say you have a prospect, Jim, who you know is an avid fisherman. Why not clip some magazine articles you saw and send them to Jim. Perhaps call Jim to introduce him to your friend Steve who is a fishing guide. Show your prospects you care about them as people and not just a dollar sign. Trust is build when people honestly believe you care about them, so go out of your way to show it.

Another great way to build trust is to become an industry expert. Offer to give speeches at your local chamber of commerce, submit articles for local newspapers or volunteer at the local high school. Sharing your expertise with the community without asking for anything in return is a fantastic way to brand yourself as an expert. This will allow you to be seen as a trustworthy source of information.

You will notice a common theme for building trust; it is giving with out worrying about what you are getting back in return. The universe will take care of you, build the trust first and your life and business will get a whole lot easier. Clients who trust you will pay you more and spend less time “thinking it over” so you can spend more time doing the things you want to do.

Cheers,
Chuck

More money less time

I wanted to take the time to talk about the importance of specialization. On the surface this seems like a very straight forward concept; in the hospital the Neurosurgeon gets paid more per procedure than does the general practitioner. However, when it comes to your business this somewhat simple concept often gets blurred the minute a customer walks in the door with an open cheque book.

I have a question for you, when was the last time you said to a potential customer you were not the best fit for them? Does this happen for you daily? Does it happen weekly? If you answered no to this question and you have a mature business I would wager you are not specialized enough and are selling yourself short in the marketplace.

Simple math will tell you it is easier to have 2 customers who pay you $5000 each as apposed to 5 customers who pay you $2000 each. I know some of you are saying well why can I not just take both the $2000 customers and the $5000 customer? The answer is because while you are dealing with the $2000 customer it is one less $5000 customer you can take care of. The law of abundance states you must let go of smaller customers to allow your business room to handle the larger ones. To learn more about the law of abundance I would recommend you check out Randy Gage’s work on the subject. http://www.randygage.com/products/prosperityseries.html
So, you want to take on bigger customers but you are just not quite sure how. The simplest way to do this is to double your prices. If you do nothing but this you will make more money per transaction and require fewer customers to remain profitable. I am sure by now I have lost some of you, who are thinking there is no way you can double your price. The reason for this is you do not have a big enough belief in yourself. If you do not believe this can be done take a look at Starbucks.

It was until Starbucks came along that any thought they would be willing to pay $5 for a cup of coffee. Why would anyone pay $5 for coffee when you can go to dozens of places and get it for $1.50? Starbucks realized they were not in the business of selling coffee; they were in the business of selling atmosphere. Though no one would pay $5 for coffee, they sure would pay $5 for atmosphere.

So how can you change the way people think about your business and make it more marketable? Change the atmosphere, change the culture, change the application and you may just be able to double your prices. Even if you lose 40% of your customers your business will still be more profitable and your work load will be greatly reduced.

Cheers,
Chuck