Trust issues seems to be one of those catch-alls that people seem to explain away complex situations. (Example) “Well, it didn’t work out because they just have trust issues”. I don’t want to use this article as explaining away complex salespeople and selling situations by using trust issues. However, I do believe that trust and lack of trust has its place when it comes to process.

Process?

To me there is nothing more useful and glorious (that’s right – glorious) than a well-crafted sales process (you can imagine with a line like that, I am a lot of fun at parties). The way you know a sales process is good verse bad is in its scale. If you are able to add people and those people are able to produce, then the process you have is good. That means if you have four reps with a million dollar quota each ($4M per year) and you add two more qualified reps (qualified is important – they have to have the skills needed to do the job – finding the skills to do the job is a totally separate article, but it has been my experience that managers hire people they like or are not threatened by instead of someone qualified) to make the annual production $6M.

Trust

The thing I like about salespeople and working and coaching salespeople are their independent nature. Being proactive, goal oriented and just on fire for selling is the best job a person can have. It’s the only profession that will reward you on a frequent basis for being smart and productive. That independent nature can get reps into trouble when they don’t trust. Keep in mind (especially sales leaders and managers) that the process has to be proven. If the process is proven you then coach and teach to trust, not to style. I don’t know why a manager will help a rep pick and choose their words or memorize a script to the point that each (the rep and the manager) have lost sight of the true goal of finding good fit clients and getting them involved with your product or service. It’s almost like the rep and manager are satisfied with focusing on the events and not the process.

Trust Issues?

It is no wonder that salespeople have trust issues because the process does not scale and is not proven. When you have to produce and there is no proven track record, I would have trust issues too.

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