Earning Trusted Advisor Status—and Benefits
Many sales leaders urge their salespeople to become trusted advisors—but just telling them to do so doesn’t work, obviously!
And the stakes are high. A Salesforce study showed that 95% of customers say that if they trust a salesperson and company, they’re more likely to become loyal clients.
So what does it take to achieve trusted advisor status—and the rewards that come with it? Let’s explore three key principles that point the way.
1. Creating the Trust in Trusted Advisor
We’ve all seen the pronouncements that “relationship selling is dead,” but salespeople know that trust—the very foundation of relationship selling—is the foundation of strong advisory relationships with customers.
Building trust requires both a mindset and a set of actions. As a mindset, salespeople must truly believe helping customers solve problems is their job. Customers can sense when a salesperson is more focused on making a sale than on the customer’s needs and priorities.
In addition to the right mindset, trusted advisors know how to demonstrate their sincere interest in helping the customer—showing empathy, demonstrating credibility and competence, and anticipating and addressing concerns that the key contact, and his or her stakeholders, have.
In fact, building trust starts before the meeting. The Salesforce study showed that 78% of B2B buyers seek salespeople with knowledge of their industry and needs. The biggest mistake a salesperson can make is asking a customer, “What keeps you up at night?” Customers expect salespeople to do their research and at least have a sense of what their primary concerns might be.1
These actions and mindset help salespeople approach the buy/sell process with authenticity, passion, and positive intentions. Building trust is about who the salesperson is and what he or she does—how the salesperson communicates through actions focused on customers and their needs.
2. Facilitate the Customer’s Buying Process
Sales executives have drilled into salespeople the importance of following a systematic “sales process.” What gets lost in translation is that selling is about helping customers buy—in a way that works for them.
Salespeople who blindly adhere to a specific five (or seven or nine) sales process steps are the antithesis of the trusted advisor. Trusted advisors help customers navigate their own internal buying processes and committees. In short, they help customers buy the way they want to buy, not in the way the salesperson wants to sell.
Furthermore, the customer buying process has changed. Forrester’s “The Birth of the B2B Consumer” report shows that 68% of B2B buyers prefer gathering their own information online before contacting a salesperson.2 A McKinsey study revealed that, on average, B2B customers use six different interaction channels throughout the decision journey, including online sources and communication with sales team members. The McKinsey research showed that as a result of these multiple influence sources, two-thirds of B2B deals are lost before a formal RFP process even begins.3
Facilitating the customer’s buying process as a trusted advisor helps salespeople bring value to the customer while avoiding the downsides of this shifting dynamic in the buy/sell process. Doing so often includes helping the customer:
- Address the urgency behind their high-priority business issues and defining the problem that needs to be solved
- See new potential solutions to the problem
- Determine which elements of any given solution have value for them and which don’t
- Obtain support for the solution within their own organization and create alignment for action
A seller-centric sales process does not help customers navigate their own complex internal buying processes. Guiding the buy/sell process requires a multi-directional conversation between the trusted advisor and customer stakeholders to understand their key issues and act with urgency.
3. Making Sense of Complexity
Since buyers have an infinite—and overwhelming—volume of information at their fingertips, the trusted advisor role becomes helping them make sense of complexity, cutting through clutter to find answers.
Gartner Group research found that customers who perceive the information received from suppliers as helpful were 2.8 times more likely to experience ease in making a purchase. They also were three times more likely to buy more while experiencing less regret. More specifically, customers want sales teams to provide information focused on helping them make the buying decision—as opposed to sharing everything the salesperson knows about every potentially relevant topic.4
Summary: Achieving Trusted Advisor Status and Advantages
A trusted advisor is a coveted position that provides greater business value to customers and to selling organizations. Achieving it means going beyond what is necessary and expected and taking the time to ensure you are advancing the customer’s business, every time.
Ensure your sales teams earn trusted advisor status by bringing business value to every customer conversation, facilitating the customer’s buying process, and helping customers make sense of complexity. Their efforts will produce ongoing, long-term relationships that lead to additional ongoing opportunities and success.
1 “New Research Uncovers Big Shifts in Customer Expectations and Trust,” Salesforce, https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2018/06/digital-customers-research
2 “The Birth Of The B2B Consumer,” Forrester, https://www.pathfactory.com/blog/forrester-report-b2b-consumer/
3 “Do you really understand how your business customers buy?” McKinsey, https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/do-you-really-understand-how-your-business-customers-buy
4 “The New B2B Buying Journey,” Gartner Group, https://www.gartner.com/en/sales/insights/b2b-buying-journey
To learn more, contact Wilson Learning at 1.800.328.7937 or complete the online form.
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About the Authors
David Yesford
David Yesford, Senior Vice President of Wilson Learning Worldwide, has nearly 30 years of experience developing and implementing human performance improvement solutions around the world. He brings valuable experience, strategic direction, and global perspective to his work with clients. Mr. Yesford is an active member of the Wilson Learning Global Executive Board, with current responsibility at a global level. Over the years, he has held strategic roles in our core content areas of Sales and Leadership, as well as e-learning and Strategic Consulting. He has also held managing director positions in both China and India. Mr. Yesford is the contributing author of several books, including Win-Win Selling, Versatile Selling, The Social Styles Handbook, and The Sales Training Book 2. He has also been published in numerous business publications throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. Mr. Yesford frequently speaks at international conferences and summits, focusing on issues such as sales and sales strategy, leadership, employee and customer engagement, brand, and strategy implementation.
Michael Leimbach
Michael Leimbach, Ph.D., is a globally recognized expert in instructional design and sales development, sharing his message that it is not about what you learn but what you use. His approach has been adopted by numerous Global 1000 organizations in Australia, England, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and throughout the United States. Dr. Leimbach is Vice President of Global Research and Development for Wilson Learning Worldwide. With more than 25 years in the field, he provides leadership for researching and designing Wilson Learning’s diagnostic, learning, and performance improvement capabilities. He has managed major research studies in sales, leadership, and organizational effectiveness. Dr. Leimbach also developed Wilson Learning’s impact evaluation capability and return on investment models. He has served as a research consultant for a wide variety of global client organizations, is the Editor-in-Chief of the Advances in Developing Human Resources professional journal, and serves on the ISO Technical Committee on Quality Standards for Learning Service Providers. Dr. Leimbach has authored six books, published numerous professional articles, and is a frequent speaker at national and global conferences.
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