4/1/1: 4 Random Thoughts from me, 1 tools to help Sales Engineers, 1 quote for motivation

4/1/1 Building Trust is Hard, Losing it is Easy

March 31, 2022

By Ramzi Marjaba

4/1/1 Weekly

4 Random Thoughts, 1 Tool, and 1 Quote

As a human being, I’ve worked with people I don’t like, I don’t click with, or we don’t see eye to eye. I always give the benefit of the doubt, worked with some form of trust and even though the personal relationship was not strong, I knew I could trust them. However, as soon as the trust is broken, it doesn’t matter how much the personal relationship is strong, from that point on, I was always wary of working with them. I could still function with them, I just would not believe anything they tell me.

Now imagine that happens with a customer, where you broke the trust!

That is the topic of conversation in this week’s podcast with Richard Jackson. Check it out below.

#206 Building Trust Through Genuine Care for the Customer

Also, check out the youtube video where I give tips on how you can lose your customer’s trust.

Let’s dig into this a bit with the 4/1/1

4 Random Thoughts From Me:

1- Put yourself in their shoes. What is their job? My customer’s job is to test their equipment so they can help their customers. Their job is not to buy from me. They need my product to help them do their job, but not more than that. So when you reach out to customers, talk to them, know that even though it’s your priority to help ease their pain by selling your product, they might have multiple pains which have a higher priority than what you can help with.

2- If you break a person’s trust, it’s much harder to get it back. I shared a story on LinkedIn of a recent experience when I assumed something about my customer and provided a solution that although would work for them, they hated one aspect of it. It broke the trust and I had to work extra hard to gain that trust back

3- When I work with customers, I am not thinking that I should build trust. I’m focused more on helping the customer and building a complete relationship with them. I’ve become friends with some and not with others, but they all know now that I will go to great lengths to help them (not at the expense of my employer obviously). This has made my job so much easier. If I say something, they know it to be true.

4- Saying NO is a big trust builder. I’ve been working with one customer who has been asking for a specific feature. Lots of back and forth and they were holding up deciding until they hear about the feature. I jumped on a call with them and informed them that the product they are using doesn’t have new features coming in often. So it’s highly likely that the feature they are asking for will not come in, and they should make a decision based on that. You can feel the immediate trust built on the phone. I was thanked for my honesty and it felt strange to them. We got one of 2 orders from them, although the second order’s status is still unknown

1 Tool:

I mentioned the SE Hotline in a previous email. This is a place where once you sign up, you would have your dedicated coach. Someone you can message at any point to discuss what you are going through. Someone to guide you on how to achieve your goals as a Sales Engineer. If this sounds interesting, check out the Beta Site below. We are looking for Founding members to be our first clients and help streamline the process.