If you are a small business owner, you learn early that regardless of your business,

marketing is your business. Not only must the quality of your products and services drive referrals, repeat business, and word of mouth advertising, every word and every action becomes a part of your marketing package.

While marketing is the most important thing you do, you must not confuse marketing with sales. If you do, every word and every action becomes all about selling rather than marketing. There is no better way to hurt sales than to let selling become the only dance there is. When selling is the focus, people dance. They dance around answers. They dance around questions. They dance around objectives. And they dance while potential business dances away. 

Stop dancing long enough to put yourself in the buyer’s shoes. We buy from sources we trust. Where the personal connection or past experience with a seller is weak, we search for substitutes:

• Do they seem to understand our problem?
• Do they exhibit expertise in appropriate areas?
• Are they recommending the right product for us?
• Is there a track record of success?
• Have they been recommended by someone we trust?
• Does their brand have a good reputation?
• Does their presentation – behavior, website, facilities, marketing materials, etc. – inspire confidence in their ability to deliver as advertised?

We want a solution to our problem or an answer to our dreams, and our readiness to buy depends on trust.

What is trust?
Trust is the belief that someone has our best interests in mind. The belief that someone will not try to sell us the wrong thing or something they can’t deliver.

How do you build trust?
Entrepreneurs extolling their virtues with flashy pitches are a dime a dozen. How does that convince us they have our best interests at heart? There is nothing wrong with flashy pitches, but people can say anything. Pitches and proclamations don’t build trust.

Less common are entrepreneurs willing to demonstrate their value by providing free samples, information, advice or helpful questions. Those who do are on the right track. They showing us, instead of telling us, their value.

Least common is the entrepreneur who focuses on us, the buyers, and sincerely asks questions to understand our challenges. They try to match us with legitimate value, whether they or someone else are the source of that value. These rare individuals can be found in all types of businesses. They are as likely to send us across the street as to their own shelves because they are focused on our needs above their sale. They are honest about what they might do if in our shoes. They are willing to admit what they don’t know. This doesn’t mean they are shy about the value they offer, but they show through many actions, words, and questions, that they have our best interests in mind. They readily and naturally demonstrate their value while helping us.

Are they giving away business by pointing us to other sources? Are they giving away value by providing too much information? Not in the long term. Maybe not even in the short term.

We learn to trust them and to respect them. If they can meet our needs, we’ll likely buy from them. And, we’ll be back. Time and time again. Once they’ve won our trust, the selling is easy.

And even if we don’t buy, we will likely extol their virtues to others who may. We will remember them for their honesty, expertise, and willingness to help. And we will have no difficulty referring them to others.

As a small business owner, don’t let selling become the only dance there is. Stop dancing long enough to step into your customers’ shoes and see if you can help.