Trust as an Element of the Sales Process

I’m a sales guy. I’ve sold for other companies. What makes Finys different is that we don’t treat our sales prospects the way other companies might treat their sales prospects. We treat them as peers who have a need and whose trust and respect we have to earn.

We earn that trust and respect, in part, by offering what we call Project Risk-Elimination Planning (PREP). There are eight steps to PREP, each equally important:

1.    We schedule a comprehensive visit to our prospects’ locations. There’s nothing like handshakes and eye contact to plant the seeds of trust.

2.    We get to know their people, their organizations, and their operating styles. Just as important, they get to know us.

3.    We review their systems, the functionality of those systems, their lines of business, and the states in which they write that business.

4.    We demonstrate Design Studio, our configuration toolkit, including its capabilities and its workflows.

5.    We list and validate all the systems and sources with which the Finys Suite will need to integrate.

6.    We share our implementation methodology, step by step.

7.    We discuss the roles, the responsibilities, and resources that will be required to make the implementation successful.

8.    We thoroughly review the project management and data migration plans.

A is For Accountability

One other way we earn trust and respect is by being accountable. If we commit to doing something, we do it. If that something is complicated and time-consuming, we’ll say so. We won’t sugarcoat or mislead. We’ll tell you what you need to hear, even if it’s not what you want to hear. We’ll finish everything we start. And we’ll work as hard as we can to meet and to exceed your reasonable expectations.

Why doesn’t every company work the way we do? We don’t know. But we do know what works for us and for our customers. And we’ve been succeeding with what works for us and for our customers since 2001.

That’s a pretty nice track record if we do say so ourselves.