"Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking, truth living, and truth loving."

James E Faust 

This quote emphasizes that honesty encompasses a holistic approach to truth. 

It involves not just avoiding falsehoods but intentionally engaging in and embracing the truth in all aspects of life. 

This means being straightforward in communication, consistently living by truthful principles, and fostering a genuine affection for truth in both personal conduct and interactions with others.

A few questions for you, as we kick off our time together:

• Are you truth telling with your clients?

• Are you truth speaking with your clients?

• Are you truth living in how you carry yourself?

Whether this be in your personal life or in business, strong relationships are built upon the foundation of trust.

Real connections, real conversations, and real relationships are all built on trust.

In a recent study conducted by the Dale Carnegie group, they found that 73% of the respondents indicated that trust is very or extremely important to them for building relationships with salespeople.

Check this out... in the same study they found that 71% of respondents said they would rather buy from a salesperson they trusted over one who gave them the lowest price.

Hard to build a trust-based relationship centered around transactional and price-hammering conversations.

Trust, it's the holy grail in sales. Trust boils down to perception.

Sales community, please key in on this for a moment...

How many of your client's perceive you as being credible and trustworthy? 

How many believe you have their best interest at heart? Would you even know? 

This my friends are your mirror moments.

Plain and simple, trust drives profitable business.

Trust creates...

• Repeatable and consistent long term business growth.

• Forgiveness and recovery when things do not always go as planned.

• Loyal partnerships, and isn't this what you want?

In Psalm 15:2,

"The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart".

This verse suggests that trustworthy people prioritize righteousness and truthfulness, and lead by example.

Need I say more?

Trusted Salespeople Are Consistent

"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters."

Albert Einstein 

A trustworthy professional is consistently congruent. The walk matches the talk.

What we do on a daily basis matter more than what we do just on occasion. 

Daily habits have a far greater impact than sporadic efforts.

Consistent and disciplined work help us to become successful. Consistent exercise helps to keep us fit. Consistent honesty and integrity helps us gain the trust of others.

While we all strive to act honorably, often our character is judged by our lapses rather than our consistent good behavior. 

Much like first impressions, people may assess you based on a brief encounter or hearsay rather than on your sustained efforts. 

Truth, your identity is not fixed by your past actions or occasional missteps. Rather, it's defined by your ongoing behaviors and attitudes, which highlights the importance of consistency in your daily life.

Consistent sales professionals show compassion and out-care all other salespeople.

They consistently show respect, gratitude and appreciation.

They consistently respect boundaries in their relationships because they help communicate around what a person is comfortable with.

More importantly, they consistently live with the utmost of integrity.

Sales professionals who are trustworthy are reliable. They do what they say they will do over, and over, and over again. It's difficult to gain your clients trust when you're reliable once.

How many times have you heard someone say... To be honest with you?

Can we all agree to always be honest with each other, all the time. 

“We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters… that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules…and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.” 

Michelle Obama

NEVER WAIVER FROM INTEGRITY

In a post-trust sales world, you must bring your integrity forward every single day. 

You must live it, breathe it and demonstrate it.

Living with integrity especially in sales takes courage.

"Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not."

Oprah Winfrey

Answer these two questions...

• How many of your clients and future clients would say that salespeople are consistently honest?

• Would your clients and future clients use the words moral and ethical in how salespeople interact and work with them? 

“If you don’t have integrity, you have nothing. You can’t buy it. You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing.” 

Henry Kravis

In all your interactions, both personal and professional, be honest, trustworthy, candid, respectful, and straightforward. 

I encourage you to speak up when something doesn’t feel right and respond swiftly when others raise concerns. Try to do the right thing, the first time, every time.

Should you come across an ethical challenge, and let's face it, this will happen- just be honest. Plain and simple.

From integrity springs transparency, and from transparency emerges the most precious asset of all, trust.

INTEGRITY AND TRUST, THE 1-2 COMBO

Integrity will shape your sales world and your career.

What do you want to be known for?

Will your integrity guide you? 

Does it sit on your shoulder?

I love what Andy Stanley says about integrity,

"People with integrity do the right thing because it is the right thing even if it costs them."

Therefore, a failure of personal integrity adds stress to the people around you. Now apply this to your interactions with your clients... Do you smell what I am cooking up here?

Will integrity guide you or will your appetite for commissions guide you?

Andy Stanley goes onto to say...

"You can’t be yourself as long as you're lying to yourself."

You can’t give your full self to your clients as long as you're lying to yourself. This will all come back to haunt you throughout your sales career. Your reputation is a terrible thing to waste.

Do you want to be known as a trust builder or trust buster?

I ask you to think about the following...

• Right now, what's competing for your integrity?

• Right now, what's competing for your future self?

I'm here to inform you that when you breech your personal integrity, this will change/impact someone else’s and often this just might be your clients' trust.

Think about where trust sits inside the sales world, and follow along with this...

• One breech of integrity leads to another.

• The first breech makes the second breech easier.

• The second breech creates a pattern/direction.

Sales professionals with integrity are guided by integrity. They refuse to not lower themselves and they refuse to waiver from it.

YOU WILL ALWAYS WIN WITH INTEGRITY

Your integrity is what determines your reputation, and as stated in Proverbs 10:9, 

"Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out."

There will always be people who will try to cut corners to get a leg up. Don’t be one of them. If you carry yourself from a position of integrity, you will always make the right decision.

Sales professionals who carry themselves with integrity win, and those who do not, get exposed as being empty suits.

Most relationships suffer because of a lack of integrity. This applies to your client relationships as well.

How many make commitments to themselves and to others, then break them, then make excuses to avoid taking responsibility?

You win with integrity by:

• Creating clear communication: Be honest and clear about your commitments. If you're unsure whether you can meet a commitment, be upfront with it, rather than making promises you might not keep.

• Taking responsibility: When you do break a commitment, own it. Avoid making excuses and pointing fingers. 

• Setting realistic expectations: Overcommitting leads to frequent failures, which erodes your integrity. It's better to commit to fewer things and follow through than to promise too much and deliver too little.

• Continuous improvement: Consistently strive for continuous improvement in maintaining integrity. Learn from past mistakes and work on raising the reliability factor.

The foundation of trust, respect and integrity will contribute significantly to the health and longevity of your relationships, your sales career and your reputation.

Originally published on Larry Levine's LinkedIn.