Sample selling isn’t just for ice cream and perfume. I have argued that it works for intangible services, mainly because the seller has expertise beyond the buyer’s range, and sample selling makes it appear less threatening. But not everyone buys that. Consider a phone conversation I had not too long ago. It went like this: […]
New headlines daily grace the front pages (or screens) of our news outlets that make us question just how far our trust in (fill in the blank) has fallen. Whether it’s politicians or social empires like Facebook, it seems that as individuals we are now in a constant state of “well who shouldn’t I trust […]
When you think of business development, what is the first thing that comes to mind about the purpose behind it? If you thought “to drive sales,” then this post is for you. — It’s a special kind of person who finds his or her way into an expertise-based advisory career. They are, of course, what […]
Do you go into sales meetings – even meetings with your existing clients – with a slew of prepared questions? Do you constantly find yourself asking question after question in a meeting? You may be thinking, “Duh, of course. Aren’t we supposed to? How else are you going to demonstrate value added, explore hypotheses, prove your […]
When I wrote The Trusted Advisor with David Maister and Rob Galford, it became reasonably successful within several months. (Amazingly, it still ranks #11,014 – as of this morning – on the list of all books on Amazon. That’s all books, including Harry Potter (#218), Capital (#16,000), etc. I’ll take long-sellers over best-sellers any day […]
Every day, I’m a little bit blessed by the interest and the thoughtfulness of our readers. Here’s an excerpted email that got me thinking. The Email Dear Charlie, I took your free Trust Quotient (TQ) assessment. As I read it, the survey is presented as an evaluation of individual trustworthiness based on, among other things, […]
“It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.” You’ve probably heard that. But – you’ve also probably heard the exact opposite. You’ve heard, “You’ve got a limited amount of time to impress them; use it.” But you’ve also heard, “Let the client do most of the talking.” And you’ve probably heard, “You’ve got […]
A while back I wrote a very critical blogpost about Volkswagen. I was, of course, hardly alone in doing so; the scandal they incurred at the time created major tremors in the business world. But in the years since, I’ve been trying to think in different terms – in particular, what must it have been like to […]
How do you open a sales call? Do you strive to establish credibility? Thought leadership? Make a positive first impression? Establish trust rapidly? There are lots of answers to that question, and I’m going to suggest most of them are sub-optimal. And, I’m going to suggest, there is one single Best Practice way to do […]
When you offend someone, someone is offended. That seems obviously, trivially true. But the two are very different events – each touching on a part of the human experience, and each teaching us something about trust. The Social and the Psychological Disrespecting someone is a social violation: it is not a nice thing to do. […]