Building Trust For Lifetime Success

Written by Randy Lever

Trust.

One word.

One very powerful word that can increase both first time and repeat sales to an unlimited degree.

Trust.

What is it? Why is it so important? How do you get it?

Confidence in you from your cutomers, builds relationships and as a result, more sales, and through excellent customer service.

Thats the short and sweet of it.

Now, how about a little more meat to it.

What is trust and why is it so important?

Definition: confidence in a person or thing because of the qualities one perceives or seems to perceive in him or it. (Websters)

The confidence that any visitor or potential customer has about your business, service or product is the foundation of present and future success.

Before any potential customer even enters your site for the first time, theres this underlying feeling of distrust. Its automatic.

Either theyre new to the Internet, received a poor product or service from a competitor or have already been scammed a few times.

Your first contact is either in some ad you placed in an ezine, classified, message board, banner, search engine description or some other form of advertising. Was it full of hype or were you honest in what your product or service delivers?

Once that customer enters your site and they dont see what was stated in your ad...........

goodbye, you just lost a sale and probably a lifetime customer.

If you cant be honest in your ad, then youre pobably not going to be with your product or service. So, why should that visitor stick around only to be disappointed or scammed again? Would you?

Do you know what happens when that visitor leaves your site? They email an ezine editor, friend, or leave a nasty little post on a message board about their not so wonderful experience with you, and youre credibility is gone.

How do you build that trust?

Believe it or not, its not that hard. It does take effort and its an ongoing process, not something you do once and forget about it.

Be Honest.

The importance of building trust really shows through here. Honesty should be at the front of your mind when you write up your ads and web site copy. Especially when that advertisement includes something free. Dont use free just to get visitors, your trust and credibility takes a hard nose dive when the freebie is junk.

Only write exactly what your product or service delivers and leave the hype and exageration out.

Dont Hype

I always skip over the ads that actually promise truckloads of money with little or no effort. Come on.

BIG BOLD HEADLINES are a sure sign of hype to nth degree. Promises that are impossible, like the truckloads of cash, are always a big giveaway. If your product doesnt have it or do it, then dont promise it.

Follow Up

If youve done everything right so far and you are making sales, dont forget about the customer. Follow up with a thank you letter. Add a special bonus that they didnt know about. Ask them if they like your product or service. Ask if there is anything else you can help them with.

Bottom line is, build a relationship without trying to always sell them something. Talk to them, not at them or down to them. Be their friend and actually help them out when they need it, if you can.

Use Testimonials on your site.

When you followed up with your customers and asked if they liked your product, then ask if you can use their comments on your site. Of course, youll also include their name, email and website address.

Testimonials build enormous instant credibility. If a visitor to your site sees that there are already satisified customers, then you deliver what you say you will and youve kept in touch with that customer. Plus the name and email also keeps the visitor comfortable as they know that they can get in touch with that person to verify what they had to say was, in fact, true.

As you can see, building trust isnt all that hard.

Just be sincere. Be personable. Be available.

If you follow these few rules to help you gain trust and credibility among both your sites visitors and your peers, then youll gain both lifetime customers of your product and lifetime relationships with some really good people.

Randy Lever is the owner of the Complete Internet Marketing Package, Marketing Profit. Learn the ins and outs of a successful ad campaign. http://www.glimmersmarketing.com/marketingprofit