How to Build and Break Relationships Learned in Sales
Maintaining relationships is harder than closing deals
Having been involved in hundreds of projects in sales support and sales agency, I feel that the most difficult part is not "closing a deal," but "maintaining a relationship."
Signing a contract takes only a single sheet of paper. However, a relationship of trust with a client cannot be built overnight. It requires the accumulation of daily actions, words, timing, and results, and it can easily collapse due to a single mistake or lack of consideration. Especially in corporate sales and B2B sales, whether a contract continues depends not only on the numbers but also on this "quality of relationship."
Even while providing sales support and agency services at Alegria, I have keenly felt that "trust maintenance skills" are just as directly linked to results as improving numbers.
How to build trust: 3 principles
1. Keep your promises
Keep deadlines, even for small things. Keeping basic promises, such as delivery dates, response times, and reporting timing, is the minimum requirement for trust in sales. By continuing this, you build a reputation that "this person always does what they say."
2. Produce small results early
Clients feel anxious, especially at the beginning of a contract. To dispel that anxiety, it is important to produce results in a short period of time first. For example, in sales agency, show visible progress in the first month of the contract, such as test appointment acquisition or list improvement.
3. Control the other party's expectations
In sales support, if expectations are too high from the beginning, even if results are produced, they may be evaluated as "not as good as expected." By sharing realistic goals at the beginning and exceeding them within that scope, satisfaction increases.
How to break trust: 3 typical examples
1. Neglecting communication
Some people put off reporting when progress is poor, but this is counterproductive. If there is no report, distrust arises that "they might not be doing anything."
2. Hiding mistakes
When a mistake is discovered, the more you try to hide it, the more trust collapses. In B2B sales, early reporting and presenting countermeasures are the keys to maintaining trust.
3. Wasting the other party's time
Meetings without a purpose or sales negotiations without sufficient preparation only waste the client's time. For busy executives and decision-makers, this is the most hated behavior.
Lessons learned at Alegria
In our sales support and agency work, we have seen many times that no matter how many numbers you produce, if you lose trust, the contract will not continue. Conversely, if the relationship of trust is solid, small mistakes or short-term dips in numbers are tolerated, and you are given a chance to improve.
That is precisely why, at Alegria, we are conscious of building both numbers and trust simultaneously. Numbers represent sales results, while trust serves as the foundation that supports contract renewal rates. I am convinced that increasing these two in parallel is the only way to achieve long-term growth and improve customer satisfaction.
Summary: Win in Sales Using the Two Axes of "Numbers" and "Trust"
To continue surviving in the field of sales, the ability to close contracts alone is insufficient. Especially when involved from the outside in the form of sales outsourcing or sales support, the speed of building trust and the precision of maintaining it are directly linked to contract renewal rates and LTV (Lifetime Value).
Keep your promises
Produce small results early
Control expectations appropriately
If you thoroughly implement these three things, the numbers will follow. And if you can build trust while accumulating numbers, you can establish a position where you can compete in the market for a long time, both as a sales professional and as a sales support company.