Building Trust and Sales Ethics

1. Building Trust and Sales Ethics Developing Trust and Mutual Respect with Clients

2. Learning Objectives L 4 L L L L 1 2 3 5 Explain what is trust. Explain why trust is important. Understand how to earn trust. Know how knowledge bases help build trust and relationships. Understand the importance of sales ethics.

3. Key Thoughts • Trust is crucial to developing successful relationships with customers. • Build trust by being competent, compatible, candid, customer-oriented, and dependable. • You must have the initiative and motivation to learn about your company, your customers, and the markets in which you and they compete. • Professional salespeople, by definition, must be ethical or theyare not professional.

4. What is Trust? The extent of the buyer’s confidence that he or she can rely on the salesperson’s integrity.

5. Trust refers to the degree to which one person can rely on another when the former is dependent on the latter.

6. Why is Trust Important? A fundamental competitive strategy of a growing number of organizations is to build long-term mutually beneficial relationships with their customers. The ability of thoseorganizations’ salespeople toearn their customers’ trustis essential to the successof that strategy.

7. How to Earn Trust

8. How to Earn Trust Expertise: The ability, knowledge, and resources to meet customer expectations. Expertise must translate into observable results and contribution for the buyer.

9. How to Earn Trust Dependability: Predictability of a person’s actions. Predictability: The extent to which a salesperson’s behavior that can be foretold on the basis of observation or experience by a buyer. The salesperson must also demonstrate an ability to handle confidential information.

10. How to Earn Trust Candor: Honesty of the spoken word. It means being upfront with others, especially with regard to issues/factors that may impact those others. It takes only one misleading event to lose all credibility.

11. How to Earn Trust Customer Orientation: The act of salespeople placing as much emphasis on the customer’s interests as their own. Salespeople with a customer orientation advise rather than “sell”.

12. How to Earn Trust Compatibility: A salesperson’s commonalities with other individuals. Customers generally like to deal with salespeople whom they can feel a bond.

13. Readiness to Earn Trust

14. Knowledge Bases Help Build Trust and Relationships Companies provide extensive training to prepare salespeople for the field.

15. Training

16. Industry Knowledge Knowledge Need: the dynamics, structure, culture, and forces that affect the industry or industries in which they work. Benefit: ability to 1) develop and execute effective selling strategies, and 2) be viewed as a market information resource.

17. Company Knowledge Knowledge Need: understand their company’s culture, mission, goals, policies, and procedures. Benefit: ability to effectively and accurately represent the company when interacting (e.g., negotiating) with its prospective and current customers.

18. Product Knowledge Knowledge Need: a thorough understanding of their product offerings and the various sources of value they provide Benefit:be perceived (by the customer) as experts and capable of accurately matching solutions to the needs of the customer

19. Service Knowledge Knowledge Need: understand their company’s service capabilities, including limitations, fees, time-frames, and the value they add Benefit: ability to match their company’s service capabilities to the needs of their customers

20. Service Knowledge Areas

21. Promotion and Price Knowledge Knowledge Need: understand the details of, and how to manage, promotional programs and the pricing policies of their products Benefit: ability to 1) facilitate their customers’ participation in promotional programs and 2) effectively negotiate terms

22. Market and Customer Knowledge Knowledge Needs: understand the markets they serve and their customers, including needs, personalities, and communication styles. Benefit: ability to 1) develop and implement effective selling strategies, and 2) clearly communicate relevant solutions.

23. Competitor Knowledge Knowledge Need: their competitors and respective market offers and how they are perceived in the market. Benefit:to position their products against those of their competitors’.

24. Technology Knowledge Knowledge Need: understand how utilize sales technology hardware and software (e.g., internet, CRM, laptops, smart phones) Benefit:to leverage technology to me more competitive . . . work smarter not harder

25. Technology in the Sales Effort

26. Ethics Clearly Right Ethics refers to right and wrong conduct of individuals and institutions of which they are a part. Ethical Dilemma Clearly Wrong

27. What is Ethics • “…that behavior which is the ‘right’ thing to do, given the circumstances” • Four principles: • Honesty • Integrity • Fairness • Concern for others

28. Image of Salespeople

29. Unethical Behavior

30. Advice for Salespeople

31. NonCustomer-Oriented Behavior

32. Categories of Unethical Behavior

33. Methods for Ethical Decision Making • Teleology – morality of decision based on the consequence (Consequentialism) • Egoism (self-interest) • Utilitarianism (greatest good for greatest number) • Deontology – morality of decision based on intentions (Categorical Imperatives) • Relativism – morality of decision based on individual and past experience • Absolutes – morality is the same for everyone

34. Five Common Ethical Traps • The False Necessity trap • The Doctrine-of-relative-filth trap • The Rationalization trap • The Self-deception trap • The Ends-justify-the-means trap

35. Doing the right thing! • Is the action you are considering legal? • How would you see the problem if you were on the opposite side? • What are alternate solutions? • Can you discuss the problem with someone whose advice you can trust? • How would you feel if your family, friends, employer, or coworkers learned of your actions?