The 7 Secrets to Selling More by Selling Less

Salespeople can learn to cure “Riptatrustaphobia” – customers’ certainty that sales people will cheat them.

Customers seldom trust salespeople and never trust strangers. When you first work with a prospect, you are usually both a seller and a stranger. Many prospective customers suffer from Riptarustaphobia (rip-tuh-trust-uh-phobia), the certainty that salespeople will try to rip them off and won’t treat them honestly. Despite a salesperson’s best intentions, he or she has to deal with an immense amount of distrust at the beginning of a customer relationship.

Salespeople can cure this malady by making a few crucial changes. Understand that you must try to help people rather than sell to them. Learn to read body language and nonverbal signals so you know when to boost your customers’ confidence. Abandon sales pitches and build a deep and trusting relationship so customers come to feel that, of course, they will buy from you.

Salespeople have faced distrust for a long time. In the 19th century, people used the phrase “snake oil salesman” – a fraudulent person who sells fake merchandise and knows it...