If You Want To Sell Your Services, You Need To First Build Your Credibility
Being able to prove yourself is the best way to convince others to trust you
I had a friend who dreamt of being a fitness trainer. He attended courses, gained as much knowledge as he could, and even went and got himself certified as a trainer.
He only had one problem — he was overweight and unhealthy.
For 2 years, he tried and failed miserably in getting clients to train and coach.
It wasn’t because he wasn’t good or anything. As someone who was certified, he knew what he was doing and saying.
He prepared himself for it.
But everything he knew, everything he was trying to sell to others was all in theory.
As someone who was overweight, as someone who lived an unhealthy lifestyle, he had no success story to sell.
Any time he met with prospective clients, they would eye him up and down and immediately made up their minds about NOT hiring him as their personal trainer.
If you ask me, I wouldn’t as well.
How could I?
How could I trust someone to get me into the best shape of my life when he looks like all he does is bum out on the sofa binge-watching TV and eating potato chips all day (which my friend did at that time).
I wouldn’t be able to take anything he says seriously because he’s not taking himself seriously. Just by looking at him, and immediately you will know that he has no credibility as a personal trainer.
And that’s the first thing you will need to do — build your credibility.
You have to be able to show proof of success
Whenever I attend courses, I would always look at who the trainer is. I’ll do as much research on the trainer as I possibly can to see what his/her credentials are.
The more of an SME (subject matter expert) he/she is, the more I know the course will be good because the one delivering the training knows a lot about the topics that will be delivered during the course.
It’s the same for you when you’re trying to sell your services.
You will have to showcase that you know what you’re doing — and the best way to do so is by being proof of your success.
If my friend was healthy, had a lean body, lived a healthy lifestyle, and was able to show it, I have no doubts that he’d be swimming in clients at the moment.
But when you go onto his Instagram page and see pictures and videos of him snacking on junk food, constantly going out and getting drunk with his beer belly on show, it doesn’t paint confidence in potential clients.
You have to be your biggest proof of success.
Start small first and then upscale as you get bigger and better
I remember when I started as a freelance graphic designer, I had just landed a logo creation project for a social club that was headed by a construction tycoon.
We had a 2-hour chat on what type of logo he wanted me to design and he gave me some advice on starting my own business in the future.
You’re a nobody now so people won’t pay top dollar to hire you. You have to build up your portfolio first and the only way you can do that is to start small, then upscale as you land more clients and get paid more money for bigger projects.
Unless you have really strong connections or you’re incredibly lucky, chances are that you’re not gonna land a super big project worth millions of dollars straight away.
Every big company or entrepreneur started small. Look at Jeff Bezos and how small Amazon was at the beginning. Now he’s worth well over $190 billion!
We all dream of making it big but no one starts big.
It’s OK to start small. It’s best to start small because you can still afford to make mistakes and learn from them. As you get bigger, the room for mistakes gets smaller and smaller.
It’s best to make all the mistakes you can make at the early stages so that once you do make it big, mistakes will happen at a minimum.
Keeping up with the times is another sign that you’re credible
Many big companies of the past are no longer around. As technology advances, so will the needs (or rather, the wants) of consumers.
If you don’t keep up with the times, you’re gonna fall behind.
Sometimes, you may even have to do a complete revamp of who you are and what you’re selling to stay relevant.
Take BlackBerry for example. As a teenager, BlackBerry was known for its phones. Now, their main products are about cybersecurity — although somewhat related, still very different from what they were originally known for.
When you can keep up with the times, it also shows that you’re serious about staying relevant, that you’re serious about improving, and that shows your credibility and dependability.
Trust is the biggest asset you can have when selling your services and you can only build trust by first building your credibility. When people know that you’re someone they can trust, they will listen to what you have to say.
But to do that, you will need to show your worth.
It’s like a writer on Medium writing about ways to gain thousands of followers but has less than 100 himself.
Would you trust what he says to say about the topic when he doesn’t even have what he’s supposedly trying to sell?
Compare that to a writer who has a following of over a hundred thousand and he tells you how to gain a thousand followers. Which writer would you be more inclined to trust?
Build your credibility first, be your best success story. Once you’ve done that, you will find that others will trust and follow you too.
They’ll be more than willing to buy into whatever services you’re selling because they know you’re the real deal.