Trust-Based Selling: Using Customer Focus and Collaboration to Build Long-Term Relationships (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Imagine that you have recently moved to a new city and must find a pediatrician for your two-year old child..." (more)
Key Phrases: trust creation process, elevator question, fake listening, Trust-based Selling, Wall Street, Andy Grove (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Sales based on trust are uniquely powerful. Learn from Charles Green, co-author of the bestseller, THE TRUSTED ADVISOR, how to deserve and, therefore, earn a buyer’s trust.

Buyers prefer to buy from people they trust. However, salespeople are often mistrusted. TRUST-BASED SELLING shows how trust between buyer and seller is created and explains how both sides benefit from it. Heavy with practical examples and suggestions, the book reveals why trust goes hand-in-hand with profit; how trust differentiates you from other sellers; and how to create trust in negotiations, closings, and when answering the six toughest sales questions. TRUST-BASED SELLING. a must for anyone in sales, is especially invaluable for sellers of complex, intangible services.

From the Back Cover

Rarely are the words "sales" and "trust" used in the same sentence. Why? Buyers are often skeptical, fearing that sellers have only their own interests at heart, Most sellers honestly want to do right by their customers--yet still want and need to get the sale. Is it ever possible for buyer and seller to trust each other?

The answer, says bestselling business author Charles Green, is yes. In his previous bestseller The Trusted Advisor, Green and his co-authors explain how to increase dramatically the levels of trust in client relationships. In his new book Trust-Based Selling, Green zeros in on the single most criitical application of trust to customers--selling--when buyers decide whether or not to become a customer. Green shows how the sales process is a powerful opportunity to create trust. No matter what your business--law, advertising, software, banking, telecom--behaving in a trustworthy manner during the sales process creates customer trust, while at the same time enhancing the odds of getting the sale.

You'll begin by examining customer buying habits, the often-overlooked impact of trust-building on the selling process, and the tremendous profit impact of selling from trust. Green outlines the principles of Trust-based Selling^®, showing how to create trust from first introductions to proposals to negotiations to closings--even while responding to the Six Toughest Sales Questions. He shows how to apply the Four Trust Principles and the Trust Creation Process to any traditional sales process model for dramatic results:

• You and your sales force will become more mindful of customers' issues and situations, as well as their concerns, desires, and fears
• Customers who trust you will become more open to your ideas, explore more options with you, and streamline decision-making
• You'll achieve enhanced creativity, more buy-in, greater honesty, and fewer misunderstandings by fostering collaboration with customers
• You will be able to focus on the relationship, not the transaction--which ultimately builds trust and then yields more transactions

Complete with real-life examples from a variety of businesses, Trust-Based Selling is the authoritative guide selling in a world that is interconnected and dependent on trust relationships.

Build customer relationships based on trust

and earn their business for life!

What buyers really want--even when they don't say so--is a seller they can trust. In this follow-up to his bestseller The Trusted Advisor, Charles Green points the way to a culture that values the relationship over the transaction, builds trust in the sales process, and focuses on doing the right thing for the customer. Trust-Based Selling shows how applying trust principles to customer selection, negotiations, proposing, presenting, pricing and closing leads not only to better business results for customers, but also to greater customer trust and far greater sales effectiveness and profitability. Green explains how to:

• Adopt the four fundamental principles of Trust-based Selling
• Move from being seller-focused to client-focused--and stay that way
• Collaborate rather than compete with your customer
• Convert hostile or suspicious customer questions into opportunities to increase trust
• Care about customers for their sakes--thereby increasing your sales and customer retention rates
• Develop the perspective that "the relationship is the customer"

"If you want to earn the trust of your customers, I suggest you read this book."--Jeffrey Gitomer, bestselling author of The Sales Bible and The Little Red Book of Selling

"At last, a sales book based on how sophisticated, intelligent people actually buy. An important contribution that challenges the effectiveness of much of current sales practice, and shows how to do it better."--David Maister, author of First Among Equals and Managing the Professional Services Firm

"Green has written a rarity--a practical book which talks about the critical role of trust in selling, and how to be honest and successful at the same time."--Ken Roller, Director, Strategic Relations, Intel Corporation

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (November 17, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071461949
• ISBN-13: 978-0071461948
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #142,094 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Conversation Tools, not sales tricks, February 23, 2006

By	John D. Hubbard "Jack Hubbard, Chief Experien... (Elgin, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Imagine, a sales book that suggests asking elevator questions versus making an elevator speech. Ponder a book that highlights principles versus process. Consider a book that recommends selling by doing not telling. This does even scratch the surface of what Charles Green discusses in this soon-to-be classic, Trust-Based Selling.

As a performance consulting firm we are tenacious to read anything that will help us help our clients. There have been numerous books we have read and recommended. None approach the tenants in Trust-Based Selling. Mr. Green has captured what is means to have a true client focus. His approach is practical and honest. It addresses principles you live not techniques you turn on and off because you went through a sales training class.

If collaboration, selflessness and transparency with clients are values you live by or wish to do so, Trust-Based Selling will help take those standards to new levels.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Man is Dead On, April 4, 2006

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a salesman for many years I agree with everything that Mr. Green says. In fact I remember a particular sales call where I took my vice president to visit the vice president of a company with whom we were doing business. The customer had issued a requirement for a computer printer. I had brought one of our printers with us and given it to one of his teckies on the way to the meeting.

The customer asked, 'is this printer any good?'

'No, its a piece of s**t. But it's the cheapest piece of s**t that meats your specs.'

'It's really that bad?'

'Well,' I said, 'it prints OK after you get paper in it, but putting paper in it is difficult.'

The customer smiled a little. "Yeah, I used to have one, I could never get the paper in it.' Then he turned to my VP and said, 'That's why I like to do business with him, he doesn't lie to me.'

They changed their specs and down through the years I sold them an awful lot of printers.

I think that this story illustrates what Mr. Green is saying. Make a friend, a trusted friend out of a customer or prospect and you can expect to get returns far beyond what you might expect, but only if you are a trusted friend as well.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must for All Salespeople, February 6, 2006

By	Fredrick Bondurant - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Charles Green has nailed the fundamental issue in sales today. As a 25 year veteran of the insurance industry, I can speak first hand to the challenge of overcoming the negative salesperson stereotype. The secret is to become "a radical truth teller" and to put the interests of buyers first. I especially liked the author's themes of collaboration and transparency. Sellers of intangible, experiential services will benefit greatly from Mr. Green's chapter on "Sell by Doing, Not by Telling."