How To Be A Trusted Advisor: by Bob Beck

As you develop your sales career through various training, you are also developing a career as a trusted advisor.

Quid Pro Quo™ sales training teaches you a methodology designed to increase a company’s ability to find business.

It is a consultative sales approach which brings new techniques for finding and controlling future business prospects with the ultimate goal to increase your company’s ability to drive revenue and close business.

It is based on becoming a trusted advisor in your sales endeavor. Becoming a trusted advisor to prospects and clients has incredible value.

Often times, sales people become too compliant with decision makers and allow the buyer to dictate all aspects of the sales cycle. The sales person waits on the sideline for the buyer to give him their decision -- whether they won or lost. What the sales person did not follow through with was establishing a relationship with the buyer based on mutual respect. In sales, there is a way to be professionally assertive and more in control of the selling process.

Selling is about relationships. There is always a “two way street” with good relationships. Unfortunately, many times sales professionals overlook the importance of building these relationships and eventually lose out to the sales person who took the time and effort to develop the relationship and become the trusted advisor.

Decision makers want and need trusted advisors to help them succeed. They need solutions to their business problems they are confronted with. The real value-add that most decision makers ask for when they request better information is simply a more thorough understanding of the options available to them. They don't want to miss any options that they might not have thought of on their own.

When you can provide this information you start developing a relationship and one which will ultimately allow you to gain the decision maker’s trust. This trust just doesn’t come -- it has to be earned. Once you have earned their trust, they will seek you out for your knowledge and guidance and allow you to participate helping them solve their problems.

Think About This: When a new President is elected in the USA, he starts his transition by selecting his White House Advisors and Cabinet members. Why are these people selected and what main qualification do they all have in common? They have earned the respect of the President elect to be a trusted advisor.

Here are some of the characteristics and qualifications of a trusted advisor:

• Honesty - fairness and straightforwardness of conduct and adherence to the facts or rules

• Pride - a reasonable or justifiable self-respect. Pride is the delight or elation arising from some act, possession, or relationship.

• Team Work Ethic - the degree to which you and your teams’ work habits and efforts positively benefit others.

• Loyalty - an unswerving allegiance to your profession and the people around you.

• Personal Work Ethic - speaks to your habits and efforts pertaining to your profession or focus.

• Integrity - a firm adherence to your team’s code of moral, artistic, or professional values.

• Trust - an assured, mutual reliance on each other’s character, ability, strength, and truthfulness.

• Reliability - being dependable to the point where others can count on you.

• Consistency - being marked by harmony, regularity or a steady continuity, free from variation or contradiction.

To be successful with any sales endeavor, the first part of the learning phase is to become the trusted advisor.