Jean Baudrillard said, "Information can tell us everything. It has all the answers."

If you’re looking to gain trust with your clients, information is a great way to do it. According to sales trainer Daniel Adams, “You can gain credibility and show concern by helping customers with non-solution-specific information that helps them run their business better or avoid pains. “

In addition to using productivity analyses, industry benchmarking data, and your customer's own financial statements to gather information about your client and their industry, Adams also suggests using customer reference stories to give your clients information about you. Here he relays the perfect way to tell a customer reference story:

How to Tell a Great Customer Reference Story
References are another tool for gaining trust. If you can demonstrate benefits enjoyed by a specific customer, you can convincingly illustrate proven achievements with the use of your solutions.

Does your company have success stories to share? Typically these are available through your company's marketing team. If not, no whining! Simply create them yourself. Here's the best format for communicating success stories to your customers. Highlight four things: the customer, the challenge, the solution, and the results.

Here's an example:

The Customer:
ABC Corp. A large insurance company in the Midwest.

The Challenge:
The company had significant challenges with costs rising faster than revenue.

The Solution:
Implement enterprise wide software solution to automate the reporting and management of all employee purchases and expenditures.

The Result:
A significant savings due to the elimination of rogue spending and off-contract buying. Estimated year one savings: $5.4 million.

Daniel Adams, author of Building Trust, Growing Sales, and creator of Trust Triangle Selling(tm) helps corporations improve their profits by optimizing the performance of their sales teams. He is a frequent and popular speaker at national sales meetings, workshops and association events. Visit www.trusttriangleselling.com.

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