ATMOSPHERE OF TRUST AND THE MINDSET JOURNEY
FIRST, HOW WE THINK ABOUT 'SALES RESULTS'
In real customer interactions, business results and personal results rise and fall together. Below are results that our clients have cared about through the years.
BUSINESS
RESULTS
Some of the business results clients have consistently pursued over the years
Some common
business results
PERSONAL
RESULTS
Some personal aspirations people have shared with us over the years
Some common
personal results
All of those results—business and personal—rise and fall with the atmosphere of trust created throughout the interaction.
And everyone arrives at that same conclusion
Everyone agrees!
Yet everyone also agrees that it’s harder to create trust in customer interactions than it is anywhere else.
But why is it so hard?
It’s not because customers are more cynical. Or trust is just harder to earn these days.
There’s something else at work here. Trust, yes—but not formed the way we think.
In a buyer/seller interaction, trust isn’t shaped by what we do. It’s shaped by the signals we send.
But the signals we send are being distorted and amplified. And customers don’t even know they’re doing it.
What "Signal distortion" looks like in a customer interaction
Here's why that distortion happens...
...in a buyer/seller interaction, we are naturally wired to send signals one way
But customers are naturally wired to process them in another
Those two natural patterns collide.
And that collision forms the atmosphere of trust.
atmosphere
of trust
The customer’s instinctive feeling of safety that rises and falls second-by-second throughout
every buyer/seller interaction
This collision follows a predictable pattern. But it’s a pattern that surprises almost everyone, because:
1. Customers aren't consciously evaluating your behavior then deciding if they
should trust you. They're subconsciously ‘processing your signals,’ then
deciding if they feel safe.
2. Signals we think will land—don't. Signals we think would blow it up—land.
3. The way we’re wired to engage in a customer interaction—our Traditional Sales
Mindset—produces signals that diminish the Atmosphere of Trust.
