What is the hardest part of selling your service to a new client?

Do you think it's getting them to understand the value? Or getting past the price?

Recently I've been thrust into a major sales role for my design and marketing studio. Not intentionally—but almost by mistake. I'm a designer and marketer at heart. I enjoy the creative process and coming up with ways to help our clients achieve their business goals through graphic design and marketing solutions. And in the past, we might have received 1 or 2 new inquiries from our web site a month. Not a ton, but coupled with referrals, this kept us reasonably busy—and I was able to balance the creative process with the sales side of the business.

So recently I was talking to a friend in the business, and we were talking about generating leads, and I mentioned that we had 11 leads in the last 2 weeks from our site. While impressed, he focused on the sales aspect of the process and asked how I was doing converting those to sales, and what the hardest part of the process was.

I had to think for only a moment before answering.

When a client is looking for creative—or any service—without the benefit of a referral, they don't have the benefit of the input of a friend, family member or associate. Often times, they only have some form of marketing material to go from—a web site, a direct mail or purl, or a brochure. They are immediately on guard against clichéd marketing statements and hyperbole. If you are then able to get a sales meeting with the prospect, they are further on guard for classic sales techniques. So what is the hardest part of the sales process?

Building trust. People would rather buy a down to earth—realistically presented product from someone they trust than a pie in the sky solution from someone they don't. For example, our studio (which is relatively small) beat out a larger, more established Manchester-based studio for a good-sized branding project. When I asked why we earned the business, the owner said, "You came in, you convinced me you understood what we needed to do, presented some real solutions, and you earned my trust. That other company came in, made some vague statements, demanded a high retainer, and didn't have a single suggestion. Your studio may be smaller—but I felt I could trust my business to you."

So most important than selling your services—get them to trust you. And really earn it, don't just use it as schtick.

How can you build trust in marketing materials?

I've seen people with great services and products throw "marketing babble" into their materials because "everyone else does it this way." Well, we now recognize these for what they are—empty words. You can tell someone you're "the best"—"the premiere"—"the most professional"—"state-of-the-art" whatever-your-service-is around, and it means nothing to a prospect. YOU don't buy that garbage, why should your customers?

You can't tell prospects to trust you, it's a feeling they get over time. And you can't tell them to "trust you" in your materials, no matter how reliable, professional or trustworthy you are, they're not going to believe it. Your best bet is to get someone else to tell your prospect how they trusted you with their investment, project or business, and how you succeeded in delivering. And since you can't have every prospect the phone number of your best client, you need to get that another way.

Here are the ways I use, and I have my clients use to build that trust:

• Quotes attributed to a specific person
• Case studies with real companies
• Photos
• Testimonials
• Letters of recommendation

If you do a great job, and deliver more than you promised, you should have no problem at the end of a project asking for any or all of these.

Why does this work? Ask yourself what's my best source of work? I bet most of you think "referrals". And that's what ALL of my clients tell me. And all these five things I've listed are are referrals. They're always available, they don't fade, and they tell a story—the story of how one person somewhere else trusted you to work for or with them, and how you delivered.

So, earn your prospects trust—legitimately—and you have a really good shot at earning their business.