From: alexhormozi
Building trust and credibility is paramount for long-term business success, moving beyond short-term sales tactics to cultivate lasting customer relationships and foster organic growth.
The Foundation: Product and Value
A core principle for establishing trust is focusing on delivering exceptional product quality and inherent value. If a product is truly good, it will naturally retain customers and generate new ones through advocacy [00:03:50]. Many businesses fail because their product or service is not good enough, leading to high churn rates [00:04:01]. The ideal approach is to prioritize a product or service that people genuinely like, want to continue using, and are willing to pay for [00:04:18]. Marketing becomes a “commoditized skill” when the product itself is exceptional [00:04:27].
The Price-to-Value Discrepancy
A strong price-to-value discrepancy is crucial for building customer advocacy and trust. If the perceived value significantly outweighs the price, customers are more likely to become enthusiastic advocates [00:37:04]. Raising prices too much without a corresponding increase in value can lead to a negative customer experience and erode trust [00:36:47].
The Power of Brand
Brand is described as the “ultimate cheat code for business” that can make many typical business problems “irrelevant” [00:32:59]. A strong brand leads to higher show-up rates for calls, fewer price objections, and excited customers who refer others [00:32:23].
What is Brand?
A brand’s purpose is to influence or elicit a desired behavior from the widest percentage of a target audience [00:28:16]. This is achieved by associating something unknown (your brand) with something known, positive, and rewarding [00:28:25]. A brand can be viewed as a “bouquet of flowers” where positive associations are gathered together to create something new [00:29:38]. A single negative association or “rotten flower” can damage the entire brand’s perception [00:29:56]. Businesses must be deliberate about the associations they create to maintain a positive brand image [00:30:22].
Building Brand:
- Targeted Audience: Growing a brand often involves making strategic decisions that might sacrifice one audience to gain another, more desired one [00:30:37]. The goal is to gain more of the desired audience than is lost by a change [00:31:07].
- Authenticity: In competitive markets like fitness, standing out is achieved by being authentic and leaning into unique interests and life experiences. Trying to copy others often results in a worse version of what’s already being done [00:55:41].
- Transparency: When explaining services, detail all the necessary steps involved, even small ones. This helps customers appropriately value the service, as they might be “ignorant in the technical sense” of the effort required [00:49:03].
Core Sales Principles for Trust
If a strong brand isn’t yet established, building trust and credibility on a sales call relies on fundamental sales tactics to build trust:
- Common Ground and Relatability: Find shared experiences or interests with the prospect [01:07:00].
- Deep Understanding of the Avatar: Sales teams often under-prepare by not thoroughly understanding the prospect’s pains and over-educate on the product. Knowing the customer’s suffering allows a salesperson to speak directly to their needs, regardless of the specific solution being offered [01:07:04].
Client Selection and Retention
Strategic client selection is vital for long-term growth and trust.
- Qualify Customers: Small businesses often struggle with high churn due to client volatility and cash flow issues, leading to cancellations beyond the agency’s control [00:50:25].
- Focus on Ideal Clients: Identify the top 10-20% of existing customers who have the best experience and deliver the most value. Analyze their characteristics (quantitative and qualitative) and exclusively seek out similar clients in the future, even if it means saying “no” to others [00:52:27]. This disciplined approach prevents taking on customers that lead to an “operational rat race” and higher costs [00:54:33]. Saying “no” to unsuitable clients, while difficult, prioritizes long-term success and allows capacity for ideal customers [00:54:06].
- Compounding Growth: The key to compounding growth in a service business is to focus on serving ideal clients exceptionally well and retaining them, rather than constantly acquiring new, ill-fitting ones [00:53:27].
Leadership and Internal Trust
Internal leadership and culture also play a role in building trust, particularly in sales teams.
- Reward Adherence, Not Just Closing: To build a consistent and trustworthy sales process, reward salespeople for adhering to the script, not just for closing deals [01:12:00]. This ensures uniform behavior, making it easier to optimize the script, and prevents “false positives” where rogue actions are reinforced [01:13:08]. The approval of a manager often matters more than immediate financial incentives in driving desired behavior [01:12:45].
- Shift from Punishment to Reward: While punishment can change behavior faster, reward changes behavior for longer [00:23:04]. Effective punishment requires increasing intensity and variety over time as people become desensitized, while rewards can eventually be phased out as the activity itself becomes intrinsically rewarding [00:23:35].
Problem Solving and Prioritization
Identifying and addressing the right problems contributes to credibility. When assessing a problem, relate it back to its impact on sales velocity, customer lifetime value, or risk to the company’s continued operation [00:33:32]. If a problem doesn’t significantly impact these core metrics, it might be “deletable” or less urgent than other constraints [00:34:14]. Often, the biggest problems are “big obvious stuff” that is harder to solve but unlocks the most value [01:19:19].
Selling Emerging Technology
When selling emerging technology (like AI), the focus should be on the outcome or solution it provides, not the technology itself [01:14:02]. For example, instead of selling AI accounting software, sell the benefit of “absolutely accurate and updated financials in real time” [01:14:48]. This approach directly addresses customer pain points and builds trust by demonstrating tangible value. Most AI businesses claiming to be groundbreaking often lack fundamental business acumen or are simply repackaging existing tools [01:14:41].