In business the Credibility Statement is as essential as a business card.  You need to be able to say who you are, what you do and how people benefit from what you do in as little as 90 seconds.  As we discussed in a previous article, the Agenda Statement is a great way to begin a meeting with a prospect or client.  This 45-second piece of magic lets your prospect/client know the purpose of the meeting and what you’re going to cover.  When you follow your Agenda Statement with a concise and crisp Credibility Statement, it’s like delivering a 1-2 punch to the way your prospect/client perceives you.  Remember that people do business with people they like and trust, and how you are perceived often determines whether you’ll get the deal or not.

The Credibility Statement can help you lower buying resistance and communicate that you are a competent and successful professional.

• Positive Effects of a Credibility Statement:
• It will position you as a unique and highly competent expert
• It will communicate how clients benefit from your product or service
• It will convey your value
• It will let the prospect know you  have worked with businesses like theirs before

There are four parts to the Credibility Statement:

1. My Company and Me
2. Typical Client
3. Success Story
4. Transition to Discovery
5. My Company and Me.

My Company and Me

Open the Credibility Statement with a feature-filled introduction of your company and yourself.  When I say “feature-filled” I mean a paragraph with 7-8 sentences that speak to:

• Your company’s history
• Your company’s niche or area of specialization
• 2 or 3 features about your company
• Your relevant experience

Here’s an example introduction from the financial services world:
Mike I am not sure how much you may know about Cedar National Bank.  Actually CNB was founded by a small group of entrepreneurs in 1954 and has grown into a premier private and business bank.  We are now the second largest independent bank based in the state with assets exceeding $16 billion and we are the only bank in the eastern United States that has been recognized by the Greenwich Associates with six awards for Excellence in Business Banking.  We have over 65 branches in the tri-state area.

I’ve been in banking for 20 years, and I have spent the last 7 of those years with Cedar National Bank working with food manufacturing companies in the Hudson Valley.

Typical Client

You want to follow up your introduction with a description of your typical client.  Your description should resemble the prospect or client you are speaking to.  Doing so will build credibility because it will give your client/prospect confidence that you have worked with clients like him before.

Example typical client: I typically work with large agribusiness companies who want to execute a long-term growth strategy.  And I usually bank the company itself and then the key executive officers too.

Success Story

During your Credibility Statement you want to share a success story that illustrates how one of your clients recently benefited from working with you.  There are three parts to telling a compelling success story:

Issue: Describe the issue in a couple of sentences.
Resolution: Explain how you helped your client resolve the issue.
Benefit: Explain briefly how your client benefited from the resolution.

Example Success Story:
For example, recently we were able to provide a $5.5 million business loan to a frozen foods company so they could modernize their flash freezing equipment and add on 10,000 square feet to their production facility.  Of course, we also welcomed the opportunity to work with the business owner on reaching personal financial goals as well, and we were able to provide a creative financial solution to help him finance a vacation home in Lake Placid.

Transition to Discovery

The last part of your Credibility Statement is transitioning into the Discovery Step.  We transition by seeking permission to ask questions.  Like with the Transition in the Agenda Statement, we wait for our prospect/client to say “Yes” before moving on.

Example Transition to Discovery

Now that you know a little about Cedar National and me, may I ask you a few questions  (Wait for a yes!)

Reserve Power

The Credibility Statement is a powerful tool you can use to quickly create a great impression in many situations.  For example, just last week I used my credibility statement on my flight to Mexico City when my neighboring passenger asked me what I do for a living. How many more situations can you think of?

“In every client file there are a dozens of referral phone calls to be made.” — G.A. Bartick

According to BNET, the popular online resource for business executives, a referral is 15 times more likely to do business with you than a cold prospect. With odds like that it’s no wonder top-performing Sales Professionals commit much of their new business activities to asking for, contacting, and following-up on referrals.

The way we ask for referrals will have a huge impact on the number and the quality of the referrals we get. Ideally, we want the person we are requesting the referral from to think of people who would be interested in working with you and your company.

When asking for referrals from current buyers, top performers use the Silver Bullet Selling 4-Step generating referral process:

Step 1 – Thank the buyer for their business
Step 2 – Describe your ideal referral
Step 3 – Point out places where the buyer may interact with the ideal referral
Step 4 – Ask for an introduction

1. There will always be concerns
2. We know the concerns are before the buyer does.
3. The more people talk about concerns the less anxiety they will have about them.
4. The person asking the questions is in control.
5. You can’t overcome every concern.