The know, like & trust myth of business DEBUNKED

There’s a popular idea in business that if people know, like and trust you, they’ll want to do business with you. The logic goes that if you know lots of the right kinds of people, get them to like you, then build up trust the customers will follow. It’s clear, simple and very believable advice. It’s advice that’s especially popular in the world of social media and so-called social sales. In fact, it’s advice I’ve been guilty of believing and spreading. Today, I want to debunk that myth. (As the philosopher Osho once said, if you never change your mind about anything, it simply shows you’ve never learnt anything.)

Here’s why I believe it’s time to change the know, like & trust mantra to what – until I think of something more catchy – I’m calling notice, desire, exchange. Please note, I’ve written this article from my perspective but you can flip the he’s and she’s or the boyfriend’s / girlfriend’s round to suit; I hope the point still makes sense.

Can you remember your first teenage crush? Maybe it was a teacher, classmate, or a stranger you saw on the bus everyday. As a young man I wanted a girlfriend more than anything. Unfortunately, I was shy, clumsy with words and terrified of speaking to other people. So despite my desperate desire, having a meaningful conversation with a woman – let alone getting a girlfriend – permanently eluded me.

I tried desperately to meet girls so they would get to know me, like me and eventually trust me enough to let me be their boyfriend. I was the nicest guy you could imagine; polite, endlessly friendly and unfailingly helpful. And within a few months, I had results.

The results were; no girlfriends; no friends that were girls; and, very nearly, no friends period.

In my 20s, I became best friends with a guy who was to me what fire is to ice. If girlfriends were cash, he’d be Apple – which is currently sitting on $205.7 billion of liquid assets. Over the coming years, watching my friend in action, I realised that everything I’d previously been told about how to meet girls was, while well-meaning, ultimately misleading. While I got nowhere relying on advice like; ’just be yourself’ or ‘tell her how you feel’ or ‘just go up and talk to her’, my friend got dates, romance and EVERYTHING in between on a non-stop basis.

Over the past years, I’ve spoken to and consulted for hundreds of business owners and I’ve come to the conclusion that many SME business owners are still trying to attract customers from the same flawed paradigm that I was using to try and attract a girl. Like a teenage boy at a school disco, some SME business owners are trying to be so nice and helpful the high school prom queen falls in love with them. And, unfortunately, that simply won’t happen.

Here’s the bottom line, that girl you’re after will never date you because she likes you. She will only go out with you because she desires you or the fun and life-enhancing experiences she’ll have spending time with you. And for her to desire you, you have to be attractive. If the girl you want doesn’t want you back, hanging around and being persistent won’t help. Your only hope is to become more attractive; to become so attractive that she starts wanting you back. And as I learnt, attractiveness is an entirely different thing from how physically good looking someone is.

In the same way, if the customers you want don’t want you back, your only hope is to become more attractive. If they don’t want you now, they’re not going to want you in a year. Just as a girl will not go out with you because she likes you, customers will not buy from you because they like you. They will ONLY buy from you because they WANT you, desire you and fantasise about your products and services. They will ONLY buy from you because they are emotionally attracted to you and emotionally hooked on the solutions you offer.

If you want more customers, you MUST master the art of becoming attractive. Fortunately, like anything in life, you can learn how and become a master at it through study, practice and dedication. Here are 5 ways you can make your business more attractive to customers (that I learned the hard way).

1. Do NOT be yourself

The popular advice that well-meaning parents give their children hoping to attract the affections of a new heart-throb is to ‘just be yourself’. Technically, this may be true but it’s so wildly misleading as to be completely useless. People are complex characters with characteristics ranging from optimism, humour and selfless caring to hideous self-pity, jealously, rage, anger and cynicism. The last characteristics in that list are universally regarded as unattractive.

So don’t be yourself. Take only the best bits of yourself and amplify them for all the world, and the target of your affections, to see. If you’re thoughtful and introspective, exude an intoxicating sense of artistic brooding. If you’re awkward and clumsy, wear it as wild and mesmerising eccentricity. If you’re desperate for a partner, transform your loneliness into an effervescent energy for socialising, rapport-building and good times.

You can share your less attractive characteristics within the boundaries of a mutually supportive relationship. But if you put them on show for everyone to see, it will just make people run a mile. Take your unattractive characteristics and keep them under wraps until it’s useful and appropriate to share them, then take your naturally attractive characteristics and amplify them 10—fold.

In the same way, your marketing should not be half-hearted if you want it to attract customers. Take all the best results your company has produced for your clients and SHOUT about them. Be 100% certain of the value you offer your customers and the vital importance that they buy now. Not in 6 months. Not next week. NOW!

This is not about deception, hiding or being fake. This is about identifying the qualities you have that are attractive and letting them shine for all the world to see, take delight in and benefit from.

2. Do NOT protect your reputation

Wherever my lothario friend went in his home town, his reputation as a womaniser preceded him. I lost count of the number of times women would gossip about how much they disliked him and found him sleazy and unattractive. To my astonishment, I also lost count of the number of times those same women ended up on a date with him weeks later.

Early 20th century film star Errol Flynn was regarded as one of the greatest seducers of his generation. Hollywood was awash with tales of his outrageous antics, wild parties and scandalous behaviour. His reputation as as a womaniser preceded him wherever he went. And yet he never attempted to control the gossip about him because it created insatiable intrigue in the minds of eligible ladies he met on Hollywood’s party circuit, especially because he appeared to be so faultlessly charming, courteous and polite on the surface. Women couldn’t help but wonder if this apparently polite man could really be such a scoundrel and hell-raiser. They wanted to know more.

Being talked about was my friend, and Flynn’s, greatest asset in finding and seducing eligible ladies. And being talked about can be your greatest asset in finding and seducing new customers. There’s a reason Richard Branson was so fond of wild publicity stunts when leading Virgin in a battle against the big established airlines. The more he was talked about in the press, the more customers he got.

It was Branson’s mentor Freddie Laker who advised him not to take on the likes of British Airways in a head-to-head battle of paid-for advertising. It was a battle he could not possibly win. BA would sooner run at a loss until Virgin had been driven out of business than lose in a war of advertising attrition. Instead, Branson used free publicity to get into the hearts and minds of potential customers by being willing to let his reputation run wild.

Being talked about is a good thing. It’s very much the essence of social media. Sure, you want it to be for the right reasons but controlling your publicity and communications to the point that it’s bland, boring and utterly inoffensive defeats the purpose of it. And almost every high-profile person who gets talked about positively by fans also gets talked about negatively by people who don’t like them. As the popular trope in high school movies goes, the gorgeous object of you affections might technically know who you are but she can’t learn how amazing you are if she doesn’t notice you. I know that there are Burger King restaurants out there. But I never notice them because wherever I go, I see McDonald’s.

3. Do NOT be nice or likeable, ever!

As children, most people are reprimanded whenever they’re noisy, boisterous or aggressive and told repeatedly to “be nice”. Being nice is the plain vanilla white bread of both adult and business relationships. I’ve never known a guy who won the affections of his dream woman because he was nice. Sure, he may be a nice guy but he didn’t attract his partner because of that quality. He attracted his partner because he was confident, charismatic, charming, caring or funny. But not because he was nice. NEVER because he was nice.

As a teenage boy, and sadly well into my 20s, I learnt the hard way that if a woman describes you as ‘nice’, you’re chances of dating her are between zero and very zero. If a woman describes you as ‘nice’, you are permanently confined to the so-called ‘friend-zone’; a special kind of hell where the unrequited love of your life spends all her time tantalisingly close to you but never lets you move beyond a platonic hug. If you’re in the friend-zone, romance is OFF the cards, forever. She chats politely with you while she goes out and goes home with the guy she desired.

Again, being nice is not a bad thing. But it’s not attractive.

Whether it’s in life or business, by all means be kind, supportive, empathetic, caring, helpful, selfless, compassionate and considerate. But don’t ever be nice. Let the girl know, with total confidence and no apology, that you’re not interested in only friendship (unless, of course, you are ONLY interested in friendship).

In the same way, let the potential customer know that you’re not interested in having a nice meeting. Nice meetings help no-one. You want to close some serious business because it’s a win-win for both of you. Whether it’s a nice meeting or not is irrelevant. If you close a deal, you’ve agreed a deal where both parties win. If you talk but don’t come to a decision, everyone loses. You lose because you don’t get any business and your potential customer loses because they don’t get a solution to the problem they’re dealing with.

4. Stop excusing your failures, start explaining them

Over the past year, I’ve run hundreds of consultation sessions and heard experienced business people say all of the following, and more:

•  Google AdWords don’t work
•  Facebook advertising doesn’t work
•  Linkedin doesn’t work
• Twitter doesn’t work
•  Networking doesn’t work
•  Cold calling doesn’t work
•  Telesales doesn’t work

The idea that any of these platforms or methods which have generated billions of pounds in revenue and ad spend for businesses around the world ‘don’t work’ is ridiculous. Of course they work, but only if you learn how to make them work and deliver the results you want. What these people might more reasonably say is ‘we couldn’t get it to work in the way we wanted so we stopped trying before we figured it out’.

Saying an entire method of sales, marketing or lead-generation ‘doesn’t work’ is the business equivalent of the often-repeated mantra of the lonely-singleton that ‘internet dating doesn’t work’ or ‘going out doesn’t work’. Ask any of the thousands of people who have found their dream partners online or in nightclubs and you’ll get a very different story. Again, the reality is that internet dating or meeting people at parties hasn’t worked for them yet.

I don’t like the shouty 'NO EXCUSES' and 'WHATEVER IT TAKES' mantras of hyped-up motivational speakers because they encourage people to overlook and dismiss their excuses, rather than dig deeper into them. Once you start questioning your excuses to really understand what is happening, you uncover explanations. These explanations might look something like this:

•  We didn’t target our Google AdWords campaign effectively enough.
•  We didn’t run our Facebook ad campaign at a sufficient scale to get meaningful data on its performance.
•  We didn’t have a clear enough objective for using Linkedin to know if it really worked or not.
•  We didn’t use Twitter long enough to really learn what we were doing.
•  We didn’t treat our networking as proper work and, therefore, it was unreasonable to expect any ROI.
•  We were using the same hopeless cold calling scripts as everyone else is using to also get ZERO results.
• We didn’t explain our product sufficiently to the telesales team so they were unable to handle objections.

As my friend explained to me, if a girl is not interested in you, it is always your fault. It’s never because she’s moody or unreasonable or stupid for not seeing how great you are. Blaming anyone for your failures distracts you from the business of become more charming and more confident. It distracts you from the business of learning how to build rapport more quickly, of how to put people at ease so they enjoy speaking to you. It distracts you from the business of how to read other people and judge their mood and adapt your communication accordingly.

If your marketing or sales isn’t working, it’s not the customers’ fault. It is yours. This can be painful to acknowledge but the good news is, through regular failure, continuous feedback and improvement, and persistence over time, you can get the marketing message that exactly chimes with your ideal customer and makes them want you back.

5. Be supremely confident

If you’re mobile phone doesn’t look like the picture below, with a regular stream of appointments dropping into your inbox, you are missing opportunities. Every one of these is a qualified appointment with a customer who I know has a problem I can solve. They’ve chosen a time to speak that is convenient for me and also for them. How much easier would your life be if ideal customers were queuing up to come to you, instead of you chasing them?

Andrew was a tax advisor offering specialist advice to British companies operating in Asia. His company’s clients had a lifetime value of around ￡150,000 each. Andrew wanted 30 new customers within the year. His biggest problem, he said, was that his tele-sales teams could no longer get to speak to decision makers as regularly as in years gone by. “It’s harder and harder to speak to people on the phone with cold calls,” he told me.

The truth is, people still take calls. But they’re less likely to take calls where they see no value. And where they’re worried they’ll be sold to or pressured into buying something they don’t want. And if they take the calls, and don’t see any value within seconds, they will switch off and you’ll have lost the opportunity before it started.

Remember, asking a prospect ‘how are you today?’ adds ZERO value, in the same way that asking that mysterious stranger that intoxicates you ‘how are you today?’ will not make them think you’re mysterious or intoxicating. People were not taking calls from Andrew or his company because they saw no value in doing so.

In the same way, that confidence is one of the most attractive qualities in another person, so it helps give potential customers certainty that they have made the right decision by speaking to and buying from you. In life and business, people are attracted to confident people.

Putting it all together

Ask yourself this question; do you know, like and trust your friends? I’m going to assume the answer is yes. But do you regularly give them money in exchange for goods and services? I’m going to assume the answer is no. Being known, liked and trusted in business or relationships is a wonderful and extremely important thing. It always has been and always will be. I’m not suggesting for a moment you should abandon it.

What I’m suggesting is that on its own it doesn’t encourage a mutually beneficial exchange, whether it’s of products or services for money in business or of love and affection in a relationship. To do that, what you have to offer must be noticed clearly, be desired and an exchange must take place. Unrequited relationships are so painful because no exchange takes place. Just as failed sales are so disappointing for both parties because no exchange takes place.

Trust is built in business so that people are certain they will get results if they commit to an exchange of money for skills, expertise or products with you. In a relationship, trust is also of little value by itself. It’s needed so you can enjoy the process of sharing thoughts, feelings, and experiences together. Without this kind of exchange, the trust on its own is of no value. If you trust your partner completely but never spend any time together the trust is largely valueless. If you trust the salesman in front of you completely but don’t buy, the trust is also largely meaningless.

So by all means build trust, but don’t forget that it’s not an end goal in itself. It’s a necessary step to help you achieve a profitable win-win exchange. Whether that’s of money and services, or romance, affection and love. You still have to go for the close.

In summary

We live in an age of unprecedented opportunities for salespeople to get past gatekeepers and attract key decision makers. Tools and technology for finding and communicating with potential customers on a massive worldwide scale are available to any salesperson with a mobile phone. The people investing in learning exactly how to use these tools effectively are the people building long-term profitable relationships with customers.

If you’re not investing and learning how to use the latest tools and technology, you are sitting by yourself at the school disco desperately hoping Ryan Gosling or Rihanna will come and ask you to dance. Sadly, as appealing as the fantasy is, it will NEVER happen. The good new is, if you learn how to master the art of attraction (in life or business), you can get your Ryan Gosling or your Rihanna. Sure, there may be ups and downs along the way, but anyone who tells you that dream romance or business contract is out of your league is 100% wrong.

Do you want ￡60K B2B sales leads? ￡3K/month contracts? Ideal customers in 30 minutes? You can achieve all of this and more IF you use Linkedin effectively. To find out how, sign-up for my on-demand webinar  here.

Until the next time, stay magic!

Tom

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tom Mallens is a consultant and trainer in social media marketing and a DISC behaviour profiler – the world's leading system for helping companies build strong teams, managers and leaders who enjoy their work and perform brilliantly). He is author of the book Get Past The Gatekeeper and director of manufacturing sales business Fibrecore, which sells aluminium honeycomb and panels to the automotive, marine and composites sectors