Charles H. Green

Books

The Trusted Advisor

(Free Press, October 2000) explores the paradigm of that very special business relationship, using the professional services paradigm as a basis. The book is a blend of thought and practice, clear ideas and practical suggestions. The book addresses the components of trust (via the trust equation), the process of trust creation (including the most common trust-breaking mistakes), and a series of key trust "tools," both mindsets and skillsets.

On the practical side, the book includes a number of lists—in fact, enough lists that we made a "list of lists" at the back, which has proven to be very popular with action-oriented readers.

Trust is not a squishy, fog-sculpting "soft" concept—at least, it doesn't have to be. We think you can think clearly about it, put it into serious action, and generate measurable improvements in your business and life and those of your customers and clients

Trust-Based Selling

(McGraw-Hill, 2005). "Sales" and "Trust" rarely inhabit the same sentence. Customers fear being "sold”--they suspect sellers have only their own interests at heart.

Salespeople themselves know this dilemma. On the one hand, we want to do right by our customers. Yet we want to get the sale. It feels conflicting.

Is this a built-in conflict? Are we doomed to “caveat emptor?” Or can sellers serve buyers’ interests and their own as well?

Trust-Based Selling is a paradox, but not an oxymoron. People demonstrably prefer to buy what they must buy anyway from those they trust. And they trust sellers who put the buyer’s interests first. Hence the paradox: to get the sale, stop making that your objective.

Sellers actually have to care about the customer. Not for sustainable advantage, or as a poker chip in a competitive game, but as an end in itself--not a means to an end. You can’t fake trust. The trick is—you actually have to care. The solution is simple to state, hard to live.

The only reason it sounds radical is that it's so uncommon. This book aims to make it more common.