Trust And Integrity Will Keep You Perched At The Top Of The Sales Mountain Peaks.

“If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.”

Harvey Mackay

In a world where at every corner trust seems to be getting scrutinized, could integrity become one key ingredient of keeping you perched amongst the sales peaks? I believe it can.

Integrity, one of the most important things in a world that sorely lacks it.

Let's view integrity as “the quality of being honest, having strong moral principles and virtues.”

It involves being truthful, reliable, and trustworthy in both your personal and professional settings.

Salespeople with integrity consistently act in accordance with their values, even when faced with challenges or temptations.

When it comes to the interactions with your clients, can the same be said?

Salespeople who take responsibility for their actions, admit their mistakes, and are accountable for the consequences of their decisions, do so with integrity.

Integrity is considered a fundamental virtue and is highly valued in individuals and in leadership, as this builds trust and fosters meaningful relationships.

When one has integrity, their actions are in sync with their values, beliefs, and principles they claim to hold themselves accountable to.

The word “integrity”... How many use this word daily but how many truly take the time to think about it?

I believe integrity is a behavior-based virtue that can be developed over time.

One can choose to show more integrity in their life by following their moral or ethical convictions by doing the right thing in all circumstances.

Selling from the Heart professionals do the right things right because it's the right thing to do.

WITHOUT INTEGRITY, RELATIONSHIPS SUFFER

The great Bob Marley once said,

"The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively."

With this quote in mind, let's think about how salespeople are perceived in today's post-trust world... Are salespeople perceived through a positive or negatives sets of lenses? I will let you answer that question.

I believe without integrity; meaningful and beneficial client relationships will never flourish.

A salesperson who consistently demonstrates integrity increases the value in their client relationships.

Integrity will always reveal itself though...

Honesty - as honesty provides the foundation for trust. Without trust you really do not have a sustainable relationship.

Respectability - this is honoring how you choose to live, think and show consideration for the world you live in.

Responsibility - this means saying what you mean and doing what you say. You must be someone your clients can rely upon... Your words must match your actions.

How you treat your clients is how they will treat you.

Allow me to throw a stake in the ground on this one... Over time, most of a salesperson's client relationships will suffer because of a lack of integrity.

Simply put, how many in sales make commitments to their clients, then slowly over what seems to be inconsequential moments, break them, then make excuses to avoid taking responsibility?

"Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking, truth living, and truth loving."

James E Faust

Are you truth telling with your clients?

Are you truth speaking with your clients?

Are you truth living with how you carry yourself?

Think about your client relationships, think about what they mean to you... Now, answer those three questions again.

Real connections, real conversations, and real relationships are all built on trust.

In a recent study conducted by the Dale Carnegie Group, they found that 73% of the respondents indicated that trust is “very” or “extremely” important to them for building relationships with salespeople.

Check this out... in the same study they found that 71% of respondents said they would rather buy from a salesperson they trusted over one who gave them the lowest price.

Hard to build trusted relationships with transactional and price-oriented conversations.

Trust, it's the wholly grail.

Whether you're the president of a company, a key executive, a sales leader or a salesperson, please key in on this for a moment...

How many of your client's perceive you as being credible and trustworthy? How many believe you have their best interest at heart? How many of you would you even know?

This my friends is your mirror moment!

Trust drives profitable business.

Trust creates...

• Repeatable and consistent long term business growth.
• Forgiveness and recovery when things do not always go as planned, and you know they will.
• Loyal partnerships, and isn't this what you want?

IT'S ABOUT CONSISTENCY

Trusted salespeople are consistently consistent.

“Trust is built with consistency.”

Lincoln Chafee

A trustworthy sales professional is consistently congruent. The walk matches the talk. They will more or less use the same behavior and language in any situation.

These professional's exude radical amounts of self-control to maintain their character. They refuse to wear different masks or pretend they're someone they're not just to impress. They are not self-serving but self-giving.

They consistently show compassion and out care all other salespeople.

They consistently show respect, gratitude and appreciation.

They consistently respect boundaries in their relationships because they help communicate around what a person is comfortable with.

They treat people with respect even if they have nothing to gain.

They talk to people, not about them.

Sales professionals who are trustworthy are reliable. They do what they say they will do over, and over, and over again. Hard to gain your clients trust when you're reliable once.

Are you consistently delivering on your commitments over and over and over again?

NEVER EVER VEER FROM INTEGRITY

"If we want to reach the people that no one else is reaching, we've got to do things that no one else is doing."

Andy Stanley

Let's translate this to sales for a moment... If you want to reach the key decision makers and executives that no one is reaching, you've got to do the things that no salesperson is doing... Are you starting to get it?

In a post-trust sales world, you must bring your integrity forward every single day.

You must live it, breathe it and demonstrate it.

Living with integrity especially in sales takes courage.

Integrity is the practice of being honest. It is operating with a consistent and uncompromising adherence to strong moral and ethical principles.

I will defer to Andy Stanley for a bit of reinforcement around integrity, as he believes in Integrity Decisions.

To quote,

"I will not lie to myself even when the truth makes me feel bad about myself."

Andy Stanley believes integrity is an inside job and so do I.

When it comes to integrity, Andy Stanley believes the easiest person to deceive is the person in the mirror, as the salesman in your head wants you to act now.

With integrity decisions comes the integrity question: 

Am I being honest with myself, really?

He believes dishonesty within ourselves erodes credibility within ourselves.

"Tell yourself the truth even if the truth makes you feel bad about yourself."

Andy Stanley

Stop right now and think about these two questions...

• How many of your clients and future clients would define you as being honest?
• Would your clients and future clients use the words moral and ethical in your approach to working with them?

INTEGRITY AND TRUST, NONNEGOTIABLE

It's a sad and concerning that when we hear the words morals, ethics and integrity; we surely do not think of salespeople.

Integrity will shape your sales world and your career.

What do you want to be known for?

Will your integrity guide you?

Again, I love what Andy Stanley says about integrity... "People with integrity do the right thing because it is the right thing even if it costs them."

Quite simple, a failure of your personal integrity adds stress to the people around you. Now apply this to your interactions with your clients... Do you smell what I am cooking?

Integrity is a universal expectation – you expect from people around you.

Why do we expect integrity from others even in times that we are not?

Will integrity guide you or will your appetite for commissions guide you?

Andy Stanley goes onto to say...

"You can’t be yourself as long as you're lying to yourself."

You can’t give your full self to your clients as long as you're lying to yourself. This will all come back to haunt you, mark my word. Your reputation is a terrible thing to waste.

Do you want to be known as a trust builder or trust buster?

I ask you to think about the following...

• What is competing right now for your integrity?
• What is competing for right now for your future self?

I'm here to inform you when you breech your personal integrity, this will alter someone else’s viewpoint of you and often this just might be your clients' trust.

Think about where trust sits inside the sales world, and follow along with this...

• One breech of integrity leads to another
• The first breech makes the second breech easier
• The second breech creates a pattern/direction

Sales professionals with integrity are guided by integrity. They refuse not to lower themselves and the refuse to waiver from it.

What do you want to be known for in sales?

ALLOW INTEGRITY TO BE YOUR TRUST GUIDE

By now, you may have figured out that I am a huge Andy Stanley fan. When it comes to integrity, he goes on to say,

“If I’m overly concerned about what you think of me, I may not do what’s best for thee.”

Just curious, what is your integrity anchored to?

Please key in on this for a moment... If you're quick to abandon your integrity then you must ask yourself, "What's really driving me?"

Why is it in sales that many are more concerned with looking good than being good?

What is your goal and end game in sales?

In Selling from the Heart fashion, if you commit to leading with integrity, it won’t be how well you behave that gets people’s attention it will be how well you love that gets people’s attention.

If you would like to exponentially grow your sales, then it’s about...

• Giving to your clients
• Serving your clients
• Loving your clients

If you don’t love on your clients, I promise that someone else will.

YOU WIN WITH INTEGRITY

It's quite disheartening that we live in this cancel culture. Where a little bit of bad, erases a whole lot of good.

Your integrity is what determines your reputation, and as stated in Proverbs 10:9, 

"Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out."

A single bad choice can possibly destroy a lifetime's worth of integrity.

Often people with integrity have the same characteristics - they're humble, have a strong sense of self, have high self-esteem, and ooze self-confidence.

These characteristics are important, because, in sales, you'll be under intense pressure from others to make the wrong choice.

I will leave all of you with this... Sales professionals who carry themselves with integrity win. Sales professionals who carry themselves with radical amounts of integrity build trust, and those who do not, get exposed as being empty suits.

Originally published on Larry Levine's LinkedIn.