How to Build Trust Over the Phone

“I make cold calls and sell our services over the phone. One of the top objections I get is – I’VE NEVER HEARD OF YOUR COMPANY BEFORE – How can I build trust and overcome this objection?”

This was a familiar objection when I started selling by phone. In solving this problem, I found that the three most common causes for a prospect to have distrust are:

1. Self-serving
2. Not sounding professional and
3. Asking for too much too soon.

When a prospect doesn’t trust a salesperson, it has less to do with the fact that they’ve never heard of the company before and has almost everything to do with the fact that the salesperson is trying to make a sale rather than help a prospect solve a problem.

How to Build Trust Over the Phone: Step #1: Help – Not Sell

Your first step is to have the right mindset. I know a lot of pressure is put on salespeople to hit their numbers, and it’s easy to focus on nothing but closing (or setting appointments, etc.). However, as a professional salesperson, you MUST recognize that even though you need to produce, you must control your anxiety to “hurry up and get a sale.”

When you realize that focusing on your prospect’s needs will ultimately help you reach your own goals, you’ll notice that more prospects will start to do business with you and get less and less of the “We’ve never heard of you before” objection.

How to Build Trust Over the Phone: Step #2: Come Prepared with Intelligent Sales Questions

Another critical factor that causes prospects to lose trust in a salesperson is when the salesperson seems to be asking non-sequential sales questions. Each one of your qualifying questions should link to the next question. You’ll have a productive conversation when you have the right questions and ask them in the proper order and in the right way (tone). But if you seem to be searching for questions to ask or asking questions that don’t make sense logically, it will raise a red flag for your prospect.

How to Build Trust Over the Phone: Step #3: Avoid Asking for Too Much Too Soon

This last one kind of goes hand-in-hand with the first two. When you are more focused on wanting the sale, you are positioning yourself as a person that only cares if you get the deal and less if it’s the right solution for your prospect’s needs.

I’ve also found that when in this type of sales mode, salespeople skip the intelligent qualifying questions and ask just enough to see if this is the right person to try and get a deal out of them. It all adds up to fear, and rightfully so for the prospect.

So the short answer to “How to Build Trust Over the Phone” is to have a sincere interest in seeing if your prospect has a problem that you can help solve with your solution by asking the right questions at the right time and in the right way.

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