A Client is Not "Just a Wallet with Legs"

Charles Green, author of the new book, Trust-based Selling®, insists that “Trust-based selling is not an oxymoron." In an interview in the April 2006 issue of Management Consulting News, Green challenges the conventional wisdom about selling complex services.

Green says trust must take center stage in such sales. Trust-based selling, Green tells us, is “about relationships and not transactions. Trust is built on the personal: You must connect with others as individual human beings. You should not view a client as just a wallet with legs.”

He also disagrees with the usual advice to avoid quoting price early on. He feels you should “get price out in the open sooner rather than later. From a trust perspective, price is the biggest bugaboo—the topic we’re all afraid of broaching.” Green believes that avoiding the subject of price “causes more damage to the creation of trust than the mention of the number itself.”

Green also tells us why selling shouldn’t be viewed as a business process and why elevator speeches should be sent to the basement.

Check out the interview with Charles Green.

The April 2006 issue of Management Consulting News also features:

• The Best and Worst Ways to Create Trust in a Business
• Why Executives Leave Their Jobs
• Hot Topic in the Boardroom: Measuring ROI for Technology Investments
• How to Design a “Talent Market” for Employees
• Why Nobody Seems to Care about Executive Compensation
• Extreme Makeovers for Businesses Recommended by CEOs

Read the April 2006 issue of Management Consulting News.