Hesitant clients are always tricky to convince and it's one of the challenges that you solve to become a good salesperson! You can't blame them. Would you spend a dollar let alone a million without understanding if it's the right investment? The best way to approach this is to understand what makes them to be on the fence. Is it because of the bigger budget, hesitant teams, or reinventing their existing process? Throwing light on what makes it hard and showing them the way to eliminate the fear helps you win their trust and the deal as well.

Build trust in direct sales by actively listening to client concerns, offering transparent information, demonstrating expertise, providing testimonials, and offering trial periods. Foster open communication, prioritize client needs, and consistently deliver on promises to establish credibility and build lasting relationships.

If you are presenting to a new client: Always do your research about the client (google their company - "about us") to understand their culture, vision and values and if possible research all the individuals who you are meeting with to find out as much as you can about their background.

Give them time and space. Direct sales are about germination. Sprinkle your seed everywhere. Water them. Give them sunlight. Some will sprout and others won't. Just stay top of mind but make sure they are not a priority. Don't chase. Ever. Focus 90% of your energy on prospects that are growing.

It can be done merely through paying attention to the client's concerns, then, providing clear details to the client to orientate the choice and build confidence and good relation between you, and provide product testimonial but most importantly, if possible, offer trial period to once more boost client confidence.

With new and existing clients, always give honest answers to questions. Don't make things up to try and give them an answer you "think" they want to hear. For existing clients, I find sharing information about potential issues you see should always be done as *quickly as possible. Once you have sufficient information about the issue, what caused it, what is being done to solve it and if feasible the timeline for corrective action - tell them. Always better they hear it from you than find out about it themselves.

Listening is one of the tougher skills. I struggle at times with this, but one thing I've learned to do is always start off a meeting with a client by getting updates from "them" first. What's new with their organization, new priorities, changes going on. Also, when presenting, stop often and ask if they do have any questions, or ask them how they feel about what you've presented. Hold your tongue and do not do not do not interrupt a client when they are speaking. Jot notes down as they are speaking IF you think of something critical that you want them to know or ask them about. Once they are done talking, then chime in with questions or information that adds value to the discussion.

I tend to always point out the "issue" that a new product, program, or service will help a client solve or if you know what their end game goal is, point out how the product, program or service will help them reach the goal. The firehose approach of "hey here's all we got and you should but this, that and the other" simply does not work. Clients want solutions to their issues and they want services that support their organization and their employees. How can your services do that for them? Share studies, showing results and return on investment information about the product/program/service when possible.

Be realistic in your commitments to your clients. Don't tell them you'll deliver in 24 hours if it's really going to take 7 days. Then delivery early and accurately. Clients expect same day responses the majority of the time. If you have something that you know is going to take more than 24 hours to research, at minimum acknowledge receipt of the email and tell the client how long it may take to get back to them. Flag emails where you have made a commitment or asked for information so that you never forget to follow through. On a regular basis, provide your client with helpful information that they have not asked you for. Don't make it all about "selling", rather give information that just results in knowledge for them.