Sell Trust, Not Technology

Trust is foundational to all human relationships. You put your lives in the hands of strangers every day, whether it's the water-control company, the barber, the taxi driver, or the train operator.

Digitally, we use products we trust. You don't put your credit card info in some scammy looking site, do you? We look for the little green badge by the URL to make sure the site is secure:

We use products with 5-star ratings and impressive testimonials. We look for "how to" guides and simple explainer videos. We look for valuable content and credible teams.

What Nobody Cares About

You know that people care about authenticity, trust, and empathy. They want to feel comfortable, secure, and like they belong before they make a purchase decisions. Here's what people don't care about:

• Dry product updates on your blog (e.g. "We Just Released V1.1 of Product"
• Sharing that you attended (or hosted) an event, without sharing actual value
• Hard-selling strategies where you say "do you need X? We offer X!"
• Things like MOUs and partnership agreements

The list could go on and on. Anything that's self-centered, instead of focused on sharing value, won't get very far. The problem is always the same: Too much ego makes companies think that people should care about their product, instead of giving people reasons to.

Here's What To Do Instead

Instead of trying to sell your technology, which isn't the solution to people's emotional problems, you target their emotions directly. Sell feelings, not facts and figures. When you're in the weeds in a startup, it can be easy to get lost in the numbers, and forget that not a soul in the world cares about them except for you.

In one word, it requires empathy. You need to empathize with prospects to understand what pain points they have. What do they really need a solution for in their lives? How do they feel without your product versus with your product? Sell your emotional solution, and you sell trust.

What You Can Expect

When you start to take a trust-based sales and marketing strategy, it might feel... strange. Many tech companies are so used to trying to sell boring facts and figures that they've dissociated themselves from the emotional realities of prospects entirely, and it'll take serious re-adjustment to get back into the game. But when you do, results will sky-rocket.