5 Ways to Build Brand Trust

Recently, LinkedIn released their State of Selling in 2020 report. If you haven’t read it, please download it here. There was some buzz floating around the day it published about Trust in the Selling process. And it got me thinking that trust is not just about the seller, but about the brand as a whole. We know that buyers today will research their needs, find the general solution, investigate vendors, pricing and more before they even make contact. Whew, with so much happening before salespeople can even get involved, where and how can you jump into the buyer’s realm of conscience during their journey? Below, I’ve outlined 5 key ways to interject trust intro your brand experience so that even the coldest of calls can turn into solid business.

1. Go the Digital Mile

It goes without saying that peer insights are more valued than any other form of referral. We know that asking colleagues is the first course of action. But, what is the next step we take if they don’t have a solid option for you? According to a Qualtrics report Statistics to Know in 2021, 91% of 18-34 year olds trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. This holds relatively true across a myriad of industries and products/services. With such strong data, it makes sense that you should put an emphasis into gathering feedback from your happy clients on business pages for Google, Bing, Yelp, Clutch, etc. 

If the next question becomes “when is the right time to ask a client for a review?” think about the first 90 days with them as your honeymoon. That is the best time to ask for their two sentence opinion of how great you’ve been together, with the sun up and birds chirping your praises. In fact, this should be built into your onboarding process as a step that has to be checked off by the account manager. Hell, even give them an incentive that they can’t get bonused until they send the ask.

Lastly, you need to display these reviews proudly on your site and across social media. If you’re worried about showing less than stellar reviews, there are filter tools available for 4+ stars on your website. But know that everything, good, bad and ugly will still be posted on the main source, your Google Business Page, for example. And that’s perfectly OK - we’ll get into honesty and integrity a little later on in this post.

2. Get On Your Soapbox

Seriously. For small business entrepreneurs up through major corporate C-levels, it’s a necessity to share your opinions and thought leadership with prospective buyers. Remember that notion that buyers are already getting to know you and your brand before ever making contact? Content that displays your expertise should be one of the ways they learn about possible solutions. Don’t let them get to the same conclusion from your competitors’ viewpoint. To take your content a step further, throw in a third party on your blogs/white papers/ebooks to validate your stance. Influencers are for more industries than fashion and beauty, they also exist in B2B spaces and have impressive followings. Invite them to take part in your thought leadership so that audiences see not only you are well versed in the topic, but that you have respected community leaders backing you up as well.

Share, share, share: If content is King, distribution is Queen. Create a dispersal checklist of how you get your words out there… social media channels, cross-post to industry specific forums, create a deck and send it local groups for their resource libraries, apply for speaking engagements on the topic, secure byline articles with key SMEs. The point is to be everywhere, communicating “7 times, 4 different ways” as my previous CEO, James Hwang at 1Path, would say. (One of my favorite takeaways from my tenure there.)

3. Authentically Arm Your Sales Team

With so much content flowing out of your marketing department, it can be hard for the sales team to keep track. Every quarter, host a “customer content journey” session with your sales team. Map out the sales steps and interject content into the process FOR them. At each step, outline which case study, whitepaper or blog makes sense to share given the topic and sales stage. It’s not that sales people are lazy (they work more behind the scenes than most people realise) but they do need need guidance on extending brand trust into relationships and aiding them with the correct tools is essential. Going to the next level, arm them with templates they can use in order to point prospects in the right direction. Want to highlight certain features or value propositions? Now is your chance to build messages they can use easily and efficiently to nurture conversations.

4. Pull Back the Curtain

Where possible, show REAL numbers to the client. Is there an agent that can be installed for free 30 day monitoring to demonstrate number of hacking attempts, file storage, data usage, etc.? Unlocking insights to their own environment can be more powerful than any sales deck. If you have a SaaS product, give them the power to drive a demo for themselves so they can experience the value you bring first hand, instead of relying on you to show them. I can’t tell you how disappointing it is for prospective buyers to be told all about an impressive set of features a certain software should have but then not get the chance to dive in and discover for themselves what it’s all about. When we talk about trust, that is a HUGE ask to the prospect. You’re essentially saying, “trust me, it’s there and will do exactly what you imagine from a ten minute overview.” Will it really? Are you listening to your prospects and providing them with a unique solution to build authentic trust?

Next, display a sense of honesty above all else. I can’t say this enough. Even if your product or service is not the best option for the buyer, tell them that during the discovery phase, especially if they ask a direct question. Don’t beat around the bush or try to divert them. They are smarter than that and you owe it to them. The report from LinkedIn shows only 40% of buyers believe salespeople, which means having integrity in the sales process is table stakes. 

5. Encourage Active Solution Selling

Avoid the pitfalls of sales teams running through the same solutions for every customer. Is the ultimate goal to sell the same widget or services bundle without customization? From an operational standpoint, of course. But how you get there differs for each prospect. Truly understanding the pain points of the client and personalizing the message builds trust with them. They think, “hey, this sales person gets me. They understand my headache and can give me something to take the pain away.” Buyers can see right through a canned response and will turn off immediately if they think the sales person has cut corners or doesn’t understand their business. Remember, honesty above all else builds integrity and providing a unique solution to them ahead of your competitors will make you stand out from the crowd. 

Ultimately, there’s a lot at stake now that the economy has drastically shifted during the pandemic. Sales cycles are taking longer, there’s a lack of in-person connection that sales used to rely on and there’s a greater chance of drop off than ever before. But building trust throughout every experience in the customer journey will help to close this newfound gap. If you need more advice on how your business can achieve these goals, just reach out. We’re here to help.