If you go to any sales seminar, you will be taught important sales skills such as how to overcome objections and close the deal. The problem with this training is that you will not likely learn the real objection from the customer. Why? Because the customer may be telling you that your price is to high. Yet time and time again consumer surveys indicate that people do business with people they like and trust.

It is not that price is not important, but a customer is not likely to react to a low rate if they do not trust the messenger. And if they do not like and/or trust you, they are even less likely to let you know this is the reason why they are not interested in your services. It is much easier to say to you that they received something better somewhere else instead of you sounding like someone with whom they did not want to do business with.

There are many keys to the creation of trust. In this article we will address only one of these. That is confidence. If you do not have confidence and the customer does not feel this confidence, it will be virtually impossible for them to trust you. What are signs of lacking confidence? Over the phone it can include:

• A hesitation in delivering answers;
• Not knowing what to say when;
• Talking instead of listening (or rambling is a better description);
• Lack of a confident tone.

Ask yourself, how confident do you sound when you speak to your client or prospect? If you are not confident, why not? Is it because you do not know what you need to know or you have a hard time projecting what you know?

If you are lacking confidence–how can you develop the confidence you need?  In the next part of this series we will introduce you to ideas you can implement to meet this goal.