Smart Articles
The Believability Factor
One of the many keys to becoming a master at building relationships of any kind is being believable. If you want to grow your relationship empire, grow your team, become a sales leader – it is imperative that you are believable. If people don’t believe you, why on earth would they ever patronize you? Think about a bad experience that you’ve had with a terrible car salesman, or better yet, think about the last experience that you had with a bad network marketer trying to convince you to purchase their product or join their team! Here are eight tips to build your believability that will get you steps ahead of the pack and closer to successfully closing more deals and growing your team.
- Be Honest. First things first, if you want people to believe you, tell them the truth. It’s a lot easier to come across as a genuine person when the words that are spoken are genuine. It takes much more effort to lie, not to mention having to remember lies that are told. If you want people to believe you, tell the truth.
- Be an Expert. If you are not already an expert in your area, become one! The more that you know about what you do, the more that those around you will believe you.
- Be the Part. You have to appear to be the person that you are saying that you are! You must “practice what you preach.” Don’t expect to sell someone on an opportunity or a product that you are not a true and firm supporter of yourself. If you are well versed in something based on your direct experience of that something, it will make your job that much easier. I like to use the phrase “don’t talk about it, be about it” and the rest will follow.
- Be Consistent. To be believable you have to be consistent in your words and your actions. You cannot be “all over the place.” What you say to people must make sense and it must make sense each and every time that you say it, especially if and when you say it to the same person multiple times. If what you say slightly changes each time that you say it and do it, people will remember. Maintain your consistency as it directly impacts your believability.
- Be Selective. Know your audience. Be selective in how you communicate with different demographic groups. What you say to one group might be an insult to another. What you present to a group of stay-at-home moms should not be the same as what you present to seasoned business professionals. Being able to adapt to your setting at a moments notice will have an impact on your believability.
- Be Open. Unless you are dealing with decorating, less is not always more! The more that you are willing to share, the more comfortable that others will become with you. We are in the information age of resourceful people and so leaving out details is not really an option. When people know more about what you are talking about, they will be less likely to feel you are leaving something out and less likely to make assumptions to your detriment. Be an open book. A tasteful open book!
- Be a Leader. People tend to gravitate towards leaders. When it is obvious that you are a “doer” it makes it hard for people to not believe you. Leaders grow teams, leaders grow businesses, and leaders create other leaders. People will follow your lead because they believe in what you say and do.
- Be Imperfect. Nobody likes a know-it-all. The fact of the matter is that we are all human and prone to mistakes. Admit it. People will respect you for it!
