Two Trust Building Ways to Open a Conversation with a Prospect

Trust is an essential quality every services provider must establish in the niche they serve to build a successful practice.

So how do you immediately build trust with a prospective business owner client when you open a conversation with a prospect?

There are two ways to do this, and to do it in a client-centered way which springs from a generosity mindset.

Have a "Best Fit" Conversation Instead of a Sales Call

Words matter. Words determine mindset, particularly when those words are spoken aloud or written.

You should go into any conversation with a prospect with the idea that the dialogue you’re about to have is not a sales call. You’re not selling anything.

You’re an expert, on hand to assist that business owner get to solutions which best fit their needs. Those solutions may include the full breadth of your services. It might include a smaller piece of what you have to offer, or even nothing at all.

For your purposes, the conversation you’re about to have is a “best fit” conversation, not a “sales call.”?

You should clearly state, therefore, that you and your firm may or may not represent the ideal solution to their problems and issues. Even if you are 100% convinced that you are, you don’t know that for sure until you have a comprehensive value conversation.

Offer a statement such as, “We need to have a conversation to see whether I’m the best fit. If we decide I’m not, then I’ll help you find someone else who is.”

You are genuinely offering yourself not as an unctuous sales person simply trying to ring the cash register, but as a professional of value. You are someone who maps out solutions, and that's what clients want, resolutions to their problems.

If a client perceives that you genuinely see yourself as a finder of solutions, whether that involves a sale for you or not, their trust in you will deepen.

Establish the Value to Price Relationship

Beyond the "best fit" conversation, the other expectation you want to lay out is the framework of the economic relationship you will have with that prospect should they become a client. You must clearly establish that you are focused on delivering outcomes which have high value for them, and that this value will be significantly greater than the price they will pay to receive it.

Here’s an example of a statement which does that:

“Ms. Client, if we decide I’m a great fit for you, let’s then agree that we will only enter into this relationship if we can determine together that the value of the solution I craft for you significantly exceeds the price you pay.”

All clients will agree with this framework, because it’s what drives all transactions between a buyer and a seller. No buyer will make a purchase unless the value they perceive receiving exceeds the price they pay. That's true for any product or any service, including what you offer.

With such a statement, you are clearly marking yourself, in the mind of the prospect, as a solutions professional bringing value to them and their business. Such a statement further deepens trust before you get into a serious value conversation which defines their needs.

Here’s the value to you, as the services provider, of creating this framework at the very beginning: small and medium-sized business owners come to a conversation with a services provider with price at the forefront of their mind. You should establish a basis for how that price will be evaluated. They will compare your pricing, if you get that far, with something, and you want them to judge your pricing relative to their perceived value of the transformation you'll help them achieve.

You are establishing your firm and the services you provide as an investment, not a sunk cost.

The One Reason You Shouldn't Follow My Advice

Don’t follow this advice if you don’t honestly believe in it! Clients are very perceptive. They know when the words coming out of someone’s mouth are not an essential element of the fabric of who they are.

Laying the groundwork for a value conversation with these two openers is not some sales gimmick. You must enter a conversation with a prospect genuinely believing that you might not represent the solution that this business owner needs.

If you consistently carry yourself with such an attitude, you will naturally attract clients to you. Even for those prospects who you don’t end up working with, you’ll leave them with genuinely good feelings about you as a professional. You might even receive referrals from them!

#trust #trustedadvisor #value #professionalservices #pricevaluejourney

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This post is adapted from John's forthcoming book,?The Price and Value Journey: Raise Your Confidence, Your Value, and Your Prices Using The Generosity Mindset Method, will be released later this year. The book covers topics like value and adopting a mindset of value, pricing your services more effectively, proposals, and essential elements of growing your business. For more information on the book, as well as John's podcast,?The Price and Value Journey, go to pricevaluejourney.com.

John Ray advises solopreneur and small professional services firms on their pricing and business development. John is passionate about the power of pricing to change the trajectory of a business and the lifestyle choices of a business owner. His clients are professionals who are selling their “grey matter,” such as attorneys, CPAs, accountants and bookkeepers, consultants, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners.