Handling Your Customers’ Trust Objections

In every aspect of your business—and your life in general—the importance of trust cannot be overstated. Making sure everyone trusts you to do what you say you will is a cornerstone to building a successful career.

Your potential client has to trust you enough to be comfortable saying “yes” before they’ll say “no.” Before they come to that place of trust, you may see a lot of “maybes.”

Figuring out why they’re saying “maybe” is the key to unlocking their true trust objection. The hesitation usually comes from one of three places.

To use myself as an example, when I’m meeting with a potential client, I’m selling our sales coaching and training services. If I get to the end of a conversation and the person says, “Can you send me some more information about coaching?” or, “Can you think of someone I could call that could be a good introduction to your services for me?,” then I know they’re wavering on whether or not this will work for them. I then evaluate which of these three things I’m really hearing from them:

1. They haven’t bought into you.

When a prospect says something in the vein of, “I’m talking to other companies as well,” or, “I’m still evaluating other companies,” that usually means that they haven’t bought into you (or your company) on a personal level yet. In this instance, I stop to think, how was my rapport? How honest have they been in their answers with me, and what does that look like?

A possible solution to this type of trust gap is to express that you understand how important it is that they have a full picture of their options. Ask who they’ve talked to so far and—after they’ve spoken with all their options—offer to evaluate everything together to help them find the best fit, even if it isn’t with you.

2. They haven’t bought into your products or services.

When you hear “I don’t think this will work for us,” the prospect is expressing doubt or a lack of confidence and trust in the value of your products or services. When this happens to me, I have to ask if they’ve really bought into the idea of our coaching program.

If they haven’t had a coaching experience before, then all they have to go on is whether or not they trust me, which leads us back to step one. But once they’ve bought into coaching as a service and they’ve seen it work for other people, they will be willing to have that conversation.

A possible solution to this type of trust issue is to dig into what they’re not understanding about your product or service. How can you prove to them that it has value and has worked to ease the pain of other people in similar situations?

3. They don’t think your products or services will work for them.

If you get a, “I don’t know if your product/service is the answer to our problems,” then the trust breakdown is coming from their lack of belief in the efficacy of your product or service. For us, if a prospect has had a coaching experience in the past and it wasn’t a great one, they may not be sure coaching can work for them.

Instead of sending them information or giving them names and references to call about our services, I go back to asking more questions. I dive deeper to learn what they expected to get from me. How did I miss the mark or not meet the bar, and how can I close that gap?

A possible solution for this trust problem is to revisit their pain or need and review what they’re really looking for. They’re going to make a decision in the end based on whether or not your product/service is worth more to them than the money in their pocket—you’ve got to prove to them you can fix their problem.

Trust Objections are Everywhere

Building trust with potential clients is no easy task, but it’s a vital one. If your relationships aren’t built on a solid trust foundation, you’re never going to close the deal. If you’re meeting with resistance from prospects, take a little time to dig in and figure out where your trust gap is coming from and how you can close it and win their business.

Until next time—go sell some stuff!