Follow up on trust

A few weeks back I promised to come back with some ideas on building relationships -- building trust -- in a digital world where voice mail, email, caller ID and a host of other gates are keeping the salesperson at bay. Doing it better than any crotchety, old gatekeeper could have done, too (God bless her soul). Here's what I've come up with:

Nothing.

Well, at least nothing new. I have participated these past three weeks in a sales sharing program that FCPNY is sponsoring as a member benefit called the Training Table Forum. Each Friday morning, sales people from our member publications have been joining the call, sharing what is working and not working in the marketplace. And what is working are the basics, applied liberally in a professionally persistent manner. There is nothing new to building relationships and building trust. It takes the same levels of commitment to providing integrity, quality and value in our dealings with others. God bless our souls.

One thing we need to recognize and do more of today, though, is marketing before we try selling. And I'm not talking about huge ad and brand campaigns. Sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer (www.gitomer.com) says cold calls are not how we break through to new business today. You do it by treating existing customers right, by networking through them and groups like Chambers of Commerce and putting yourself out there as a market-giver, not a market-taker. (Yeah, I have a man-crush on Gitomer). In The Speed of Trust, author Stephen M. R. Covey writes about the "Principle of Contribution." It has to do with companies being good citizens and giving back to the markets they operate in with programs that fix social ills, address community needs and help others with nothing sought in return. Both make great points, and what Covey talks about in a corporate sense, you can do on a personal level. When you do what is right, when you give of your time and talents and are genuinely interested in what others do, people will find you and business will find you, too.

If you find yourself in need of help with sales, training or any other publishing business matter, give us a shout at FCPNY -- toll-free at 877-275-2726 or by email at tcuskey@fcpny.com.

Thanks...and may God bless your soul.

Trust me...please!

I heard a commercial while driving in to work this morning for Reputation.com, a service that manages what folks are saying online about you or your company. The commercial said something to the effect that 90% of people believe what they read online about your company, so the inference is that you best be sure that everything out there about you is positive. I did not catch the source of that statistic because I don't think they gave it.

On the other hand, I read a promotional piece this week from a publisher I know that cited Research magazine. The stat: seven of ten people say print advertising information is most important when making a purchase. Consumers still trust print in spite of all the market and media changes. 

Okay.

The real fact here -- and I say this without scientific basis -- is that there is so much information available to us today that you can likely find a study or research to back up most claims made about anything in media. And that's nothing new. There were many times in my own old selling days (B.C. or Before Computers) and when riding with a sales rep where a prospective advertiser would pooh-pooh your readership study or market report. 

"You come in here with your stuff that says you're the best, the TV guys come in with their stuff that says they're the best, and radio and everybody else," was a common comment made by these poor business owners (who probably spent as much time dealing with eager ad reps as they did anything else). And they were right. So how do you separate yourself? How do you develop folks to believe in what you say and what your company says?

Trust. You have to build trust. Build a relationship based on honesty and truth. And that, too, is nothing new; it's just changed. I love Jeffrey Gitomer (www.gitomer.com) who is famous for pointing out that we spend too much time training sales people to sell instead of training them to help people buy. "People don’t like to be sold, but they love to buy!" is the Gitomer mantra. I believe that they love to buy when they deal with someone they can trust, someone who makes them feel very safe and comfortable when they open their wallet to spend. Gitomer also says "You don’t earn loyalty in a day; you earn loyalty day by day." In my own current sales career (A.D. or After Digital), I find this to be the most difficult aspect of today's market. There are too many faceless gatekeepers out there now with voice mail, e-mail and websites that lead nowhere when trying to reach out to someone you think your product can help. How do you build trust in that environment? 

I'm going to look for answers to that question and share them in upcoming blogs. If you have suggestions or ideas, send them to me at tcuskey@fcpny.com and I will pass them along. Thank you.