Using Numbers to Build Trust

How do you build trust with prospects and loyalty with existing customers? Today, much of the networked effect of trust building occurs through social media, even for B2B. A 2019 study by Chu-Bing Zhang and Yina Li in the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing examines the specific ways in which B2B social media usage can build trust and reduce the perception of risk for potential customers.

Social media is gradually filling the traditional role of the customer referral. The high customer value of referred customers is often cited, but the numbers come from a 2011 Harvard Business Review article and a 2013 Wharton publication, both of which described German research from 2006-2008 that focused on retail banking customer acquisition. The SaaS B2B sales funnel in 2020 isn’t totally comparable to retail banking in 2006.

In the context of that research, a referral was when an existing customer brought in a new customer. Today’s B2B SaaS referral asks the customer to do much less work. Referrals today may involve customers suggesting colleagues at other firms or elsewhere in their own firm where you can add value, so that you can contact them. Or they may involve positive mentions on social media.

Many salespeople are reluctant to ask for a referral. Specific recent data on the topic is hard to find, since most blogs on the topic keep citing Dale Carnegie’s mid-twentieth-century maxim that 91% of customers were willing to give a referral, but only 11% of salespeople ask for it. We’ve sometimes cited a 2017 Texas Tech marketing survey indicating the numbers are 83% and 29%, respectively—but the research is not available anywhere on the web to check what industry the survey targeted.

The fact is, no one has really done the research to pin down trustworthy numbers about referrals in B2B sales. We’ll get back to the topic of referrals in a minute, but I’d like to take a detour to talk about how we use numbers in sales and marketing.

QUALITY AND TIMELY SOURCING

Numbers are a form of communication just like words. When writing a sales email or a blog post, a true sales professional makes every word count. It’s important to do this with numbers as well.

A number will “count” when it attracts interest by being relevant to the audience and their needs—and then builds on that interest by demonstrating trust and credibility. Some numbers build more trust and credibility than others. The characteristics that allow a data point or statistic to build trust have to do with the data’s timeliness and source.

TIMELINESS

Sales is constantly changing. Something that was true in 2010 is probably not true today given the different tools, sales practices, and customer attitudes in effect. This is a major problem in the big lists of statistics that get shared around. I’m sure you’ve seen them: things like “Top 50 Mind-Blowing Sales Stats for 2020” or “68 SaaS Sales Stats You Need to Know.” Many of them rehash the same numbers year after year, digging them up from articles that were published five or ten years ago.

Bloggers and writers on the internet add to the problem when they publish undated posts or republish posts from earlier years without updating the stats. The way to avoid falling into the trap is to determine who came up with the stat in the first place. What was the source of the data? The research should have a year attached to it—just like a good wine. Your thought leadership, white paper, or blog post will lend the most weight to your organization’s reputation if you’re using recent data.

TRUSTED SOURCE

Let’s imagine a statistic. I’m going to totally make this up, so don’t quote me on it. Imagine that you read one of these stats:

1. Bob’s BBQ Shack found that prospects are more likely to buy software after eating food from Bob’s BBQ Shack. You should buy BBQ from Bob’s BBQ Shack for prospects to increase their affinity for your product.
2. Salesforce reviewed notes on 8,000 calls and found that prospects who had eaten BBQ for lunch were 15% more likely to purchase software.
3. Cornell University researchers published an article in Industrial Marketing Management reporting on their studies of SaaS purchasing decisions after eating. They found a high correlation between having recently eaten and being agreeable to making a purchase. The relationship was especially high for prospects who had eaten BBQ.

Researchers associated with universities or who publish in top sales and management journals need to show that they’ve structured their research and surveys well. The industry source, Salesforce in this example, has access to the largest amount of data and enjoys a strong reputation in the industry. Either of these sources would be worth citing.

On the other hand, Bob’s BBQ Shack might not be impartial. They also don’t specify how many people were involved in the study. Would you want to stake your reputation on a data point like this one? Too many businesses do.

GETTING YOUR OWN BEST NUMBERS

The numbers that will do the most to build your organization’s credibility are numbers that matter to your buyers. These range from the general to the specific and are useful in different circumstances.

The most general numbers are relevant for blogging and thought leadership. By having and sharing the most up-to-date research and statistics about challenges facing your target market, you can position yourself to be the advisor they think of when they start to research solving their problems.

Big-picture statistics are also useful in top-of-the-funnel marketing and sales emails. For example, if there’s evidence that a problem you can solve is costing businesses tens of thousands of dollars per year, bring that to prospects’ attention.

Once you’re in conversation with a prospect and have an idea of their needs, the most impactful numbers of all are the ones that speak to your performance. What percentage of your customers are satisfied with their purchase? What real-dollar impact has the solution had on their operations?

Not every solution is well-suited to every measurement, but there must be some metric that can demonstrate your product’s efficacy (unless you’re selling snake oil). If you can get up-to-date data on performance from a large percentage of your clients, you will have pure gold in terms of building trust with numbers.

BACK TO ASKING FOR A REFERRAL

Asking for data is just one part of the post-sale conversation you should have every single time you make a sale. Some SaaS products today are built to scrape data of all sorts, and customers agree to handing over their data as a part of using the product or service (think social media, etc.). But many B2B startups are selling solutions that can be measured only using the client’s proprietary data.

Do not be afraid to ask for this data. In fact, by suggesting to clients that they track their performance before and after deploying your product, you may make it easier for them to see the positive impact. This may in turn make them more satisfied with the purchase.

This process contains its own challenges. For example, many organizations have not effectively deployed their CRM or other data-tracking systems. They will not be able to provide clean past-performance data. If you believe in the efficacy of your product or solution, however, it’s in your best interest to encourage customers to set up effective data collection. (Consider recommending a Sales Operations Audit to get data collection off on the right foot.)

MORE USES FOR NUMBERS

Numbers are an essential, powerful part of communicating about problems and opportunities in your market as well as about the efficacy of your solution. Collecting performance data and statistics will also help executives who need to communicate with potential investors. Solid research on the target market, backed up with the data you have acquired from satisfied customers, will make a compelling argument for the value of what you are selling.

Numbers don’t lie. Neither does our record of client success. Reach out to mastery@maestrogroup.co and learn now we can get you higher sales, faster.