Do you struggle to compete with more established businesses? Do you want to know how to boost your trust factor? 

Maybe that’s why you read a blog that talks about small businesses with big brands. You want your business to grow, and you know that building a solid brand presence will help.

In the end, though, your prospects will become customers because they trust your business. They’ll open their wallets because they perceive quality in your offerings.

But when you have a limited marketing budget, how can you communicate quality?

Quality isn’t expensive to deliver

The good news is that quality doesn’t have to cost a lot to deliver. Your ability to deliver quality has more to do with thinking through the buying process from the perspective of your prospect.

It’s about anticipating and meeting their needs, every step of the way. That’s the first thing that will boost your trust factor.

Is your quality hiding?

It’s not enough to offer a high-quality product or top-notch service. You have to communicate it every time you interact with a prospect or customer.

That’s what today’s article covers: how to set up a sales process that exudes quality at every step.

We’re going to break down the process to boost your trust factor into three steps:

• The pre-sale process
• The product or service you offer
• The post-sale process

By the end, you’ll have a list you can use to ensure everything you sell is presented in a way that communicates quality.

Related: From Skeptical Prospect to Loyal Customer: How to Map Your Buyer’s Journey

THE PRE-SALE PROCESS

1. Take questions and objections into account

When it’s time to plan a marketing campaign for a new product or service, most business owners think one thing:

“What will make them buy this?“

I’d like to propose you first think about something else:

“What will stop them from buying this?“

Because as your prospect is learning about your service or product, they are actively trying to talk themselves out of making the purchase.

The more you can anticipate the conversation that’s happening in their heads, the better chance you have of creating marketing materials that will answer their questions. You can head off their objections before they’ve had a chance to become entrenched.

This means thinking through every possible reason your prospects won’t buy.

It’s fine to address price objections, but don’t stop there. What else might they be thinking?

• The timing isn’t right for me
• The product won’t work for me
• I don’t trust the business delivering the service
• I’ll buy it and then I won’t use it
• Your location is too far away

Once you understand their objections, you can weave the answers to these objections into your marketing and sales materials.

Doing this demonstrates you are sensitive to your prospects’ needs. It’s a marker of a high-quality business.

2. Present your offer clearly and completely

You’ve probably heard this marketing axiom before:

“A confused mind doesn’t buy.”

If your offer isn’t crystal clear, your prospects will wander off. Because in order to spend their hard-earned money, they need to understand:

• Why this offer is perfect for them
• What they’ll gain by making a purchase
• The exact features of the service or product
• What they’ll lose by not purchasing
• How the product or service has helped others
• How there’s no risk to them (more on this below)

You may feel uncomfortable with going into so much detail. Isn’t that pushy?

But if you leave out any of the items above, your prospects won’t have enough information to make a decision.

Take the time to spell everything out. Be proud of what your business does, and show that pride with a clear, complete explanation of your offer.

3. A solid guarantee helps you boost your trust factor

Another marketing maxim is that over time, guarantees make more sales than they cost to offer.

Your prospects have a lot of fears swirling around in their heads at the moment they’re making a buying decision. They’re thinking things like:

• Will I be wasting my money?
• Is this product going to work?
• Is there some kind of catch I’m not seeing?
• Will I feel like a fool for having bought this?

When your business stands behind what it offers with a solid guarantee, you calm these fears. It’s a simple way to boost your trust factor.

Don’t be afraid to offer a guarantee that’s above and beyond what others offer. Extended guarantee periods and even lifetime guarantees are often used for larger purchases to help lower the perceived risk for your prospects.

4. Include testimonials

Another proven way to boost your trust factor is to hand the stage over to your customers and let them do the talking.

When your sales process only includes messages from your business, your prospects may feel like the information is just a tad biased.

But when your customers speak about their experiences with your product or service, your prospects have the opportunity to see themselves as a customer.

They imagine they’ll have a similar positive experience, and get results like the ones they read about in your testimonials.

This visualization process helps them to take that final step and place an order.

Related: How to Get Powerful Testimonials that Convince Even the Most Skeptical Prospects

YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE

5. Design your product or service with your customer in mind

Your prospect has now crossed the threshold and become a customer. Congratulations!

The trust building doesn’t end here, though. It’s just beginning.

Your customer’s experience of your product will form a long-lasting impression. It will determine whether or not they become a repeat customer.

And that directly affects the future of your business.

It’s much easier to market to a group of loyal, happy customers than to have to start from scratch month after month with a group of prospects who don’t know your business.

Make sure your product or service truly meets your customers’ needs. Listen to the feedback you get from early buyers, and adapt your offering to cover what’s most requested.

Read on to discover more ways to pave the way to a smooth customer experience.

6. Have a customer service process in place before you launch

No matter how clear you’ve made your sales and marketing process, your customers will still have questions. How will you handle them?

If your business is small, you may be handling them yourself. Once your business grows, you may need to hire a team to handle customer service requests.

Either way, it’s a good idea to begin keeping a document of frequently asked questions, and your standard response to these questions.

These standard responses can be pasted into emails when you’re taking care of customer service yourself, and can be handed over to a team member when you’re ready to delegate this task.

7. Make your product or service easy to use

We’re all pressed for time, so ease of use is crucial. Your customers can’t be expected to “just figure it out.” It’s your responsibility to make their interactions with your product or service trouble-free.

• Think through their “unboxing” experience, whether you offer a product or a service. How can you wow them from the very beginning?
• Brainstorm all the ways this initial experience may be confusing or unclear. Listen to feedback you get from your first customers: what questions are they asking? How can you provide the answers before the questions are raised?
• Create a smooth, clear product or service experience. Spell out exactly how they should interact with what they bought through guides, manuals, and FAQs.

Despite everything, your customers will still have questions. As mentioned above, have a place to gather these questions, and review them periodically so you can use the feedback to make improvements to your product or service.

8. Deliver what you promise, and more

If you really want to wow your customers, find a way to deliver a little extra added “something” to their experience.

Maybe it’s an unadvertised bonus. Maybe it’s an additional service. Maybe it’s free delivery, or a coupon off their next order.

Whatever it is, these added touches make your customers feel like you’re looking out for them. That’s a very effective way to build repeat customers for your business.

THE POST-SALE PROCESS

9. Have a post-sale follow-up system in place

The worst thing you can do post-sale is ignore your customers.

Continue to nurture the relationship by checking in with them:

• Have they used what they bought?
• Do they need support?
• Are they satisfied? (If so, ask for a testimonial)

Sometimes customers are unhappy, but don’t feel like it’s worth their time to voice their concerns. When you reach out first, you build trust and rapport — and can take care of their concerns to ensure they’re happy with their purchase.

10. Offer related products or services that help your customer move forward

If you’ve purchased anything on Amazon.com, you’ve seen this in action.

Amazon has a sophisticated algorithm that looks at what you’ve purchased and suggests products that complement what you’ve already bought.

You don’t need to have access to fancy software to do the same thing. Once you understand the challenge your product or service meets, you can suggest additional services or products that will continue to meet your customers’ needs.

This can be built in to the follow-up system mentioned above. It’s an excellent way to set the stage for continued interaction with your products and services.

Boost your trust factor with signs of quality

Most businesses use some of these signs of quality. Commit to a higher standard and make your business stand out: use of all of them.

Use this handy checklist you can use the next time you’re planning a product or service to ensure you’re hitting all ten signs of quality mentioned here.

Want to take this further? Are you ready to build a high-value online offer?

The next step is to apply for my Offer Accelerator program.