Made Redundant And Looking To Set Up Your Own Business?

Earlier this week I spent a day with a group of fellow business owners discussing ways of promoting our businesses.

This was a fairly diverse group, in that we are all selling different things so whilst our offerings were varied we all understand the need to tell others about the superiority of our product and the quality of our service.

However there was something else which kept coming to the top of the list which I for one had underestimated.

And that is that people are more likely to buy from someone they know, like and trust.
I'll say it again because I think it is so important:
PEOPLE ARE MORE LIKELY TO BUY FROM SOMEONE THEY KNOW LIKE AND TRUST

And I have a story I'd like to share that not only proves that rule but in some way, illustrates the exceptions.

I have been looking to do a few more property deals and some while ago had come across a Property Investor called Peter Stanley (www.propertymadesimple.com) who I thought might be able to help me.

I had a look at his website, watched a video of a talk he gave, met him briefly at a networking function and started following him on Twitter. One of my colleagues calls it "sniffing around" and I did this for 12 months before I eventually had a proper business meeting with him a couple of days ago and we agreed to work together. I had got to know, like and trust him.

I say a proper business meeting but we were in a busy cafe on the corner of Oxford Street (with some lively music in the background and freezing cold air whipping around our ankles.every time the door opened).

As we got up to leave, shook hands and gave each other a peck on the cheek, something quite amazing happened. The man on the next table lent over and said he couldn't help overhearing, we were doing the sort of deal he was interested in, could he have Peter's card?

Now Peter clearly knows his stuff and our neighbour would have heard that. But I wonder if he would have taken that extra step of asking for the business card if he hadn't sensed Peter's authenticity and felt there was potential to do a deal once he had got to know, like and trust him.

I don't believe so and if you have been made redundant and are looking to start your own business, remember that you have a much better chance of getting customers to buy your product or service if they know, like and trust you.