If the customer likes me, they’ll buy from me. Myth!!
That never works for long. In a recent episode of The Sales Hunter Podcast, Mark shared about focusing on trust, not being liked. Trust closes deals, protects value, and builds real customer relationships.
The Liking Trap
When a customer likes the salesperson, they’re less likely to tell the truth. The relationship turns into a sequence of easy conversations that never go anywhere.
“If the customer likes you, they’re less likely to tell you the truth.”
That means longer sales cycles, endless follow-up meetings, and deals that simply never close. This happens in every corner of sales—B2B, B2C, real estate, technical sales—you name it. It’s especially painful for new salespeople, whose friends and family will meet and talk and smile… but never actually sign.
“You wind up giving away the farm.”
When things feel too friendly, salespeople get soft. They avoid tough questions. They hesitate to challenge a customer’s thinking. Instead of adding value, they aim for the easy close.
The worst part is customers do the same thing. Friendly conversations dodge objections. False expectations carry over into the account, leading to buyers who aren’t satisfied and sellers who never really understood the customer’s real problem. Everybody loses.
Why Trust Wins
Don’t chase likeability. Seek honest, tough conversations. Trust is where the real work happens.
Trust builds when a salesperson is willing to say, “This solution isn’t right for you.” It means calling out when a product is a poor fit or when the customer’s expectations are off. Saying the hard thing shows integrity. It creates tension, but that tension leads to better outcomes.
Take Warren Buffett, the world’s most famous investor. When his daughter walked into a Cadillac dealership to buy a car for him, the salesperson didn’t take the easy path. Instead, they asked questions, challenged, and dug into how the car would be used. Together they landed on a better solution, not just a more expensive one. That’s trust (and integrity!), not just rapport.
“Trust often requires tension.”
Beware the Friendly Customer
When customers are friendly and charming, don’t confuse it with credibility. Large retailers do this all the time. Friendliness is baked into their DNA, but that doesn’t mean deals are getting closer.
In fact, shrewd buyers use friendliness to disarm the salesperson. They want comfort, not a real conversation about needs and value. In those moments, salespeople start revealing too much, such as pricing, strategy, confidential details, because it feels like a low-risk interaction.
It’s a trap!
Trust as a Measurable Standard
Trust doesn’t mean someone enjoys being around you. It shows up when a customer shares information they wouldn’t reveal elsewhere: plans, concerns, problems you can help solve. That’s where true partnership starts.
A Warning for Account Managers
Nowhere is this more dangerous than account management. Spending time with friendly contacts soothes the ego but starves the pipeline. When the tough conversation comes, like raising prices, liking someone makes it harder to have the honest exchange you need.
Conclusion: Trust First, Always
Great selling never comes from being liked. It’s about building trust, embracing tension, and having the courage to challenge your customer when it matters most.
Mark Hunter :
Is success in sales about being liked or being trusted? Hey, it’s a lot more controversial than you think. And the answer is going to absolutely shock you because too many people, too many salespeople follow the myth. If they can just get the customer to like them, then they will buy from them. Big mistake. And it’s an even bigger myth if you are a person who practices integrity first selling because, you know, who cares if the customer likes you? Your success is going to be determined if the customer trusts you, regardless of the situation that you’re in. And the show begins right now. You’re listening to the Sales Hunter podcast with Mark Hunter, where the focus is to help you as a salesman, sell with confidence and integrity. And now here’s your host.
Mark Hunter :
Let’s cut to the chase right here. Okay? If the customer likes you, they’re less likely to tell you the truth. Yeah. They’re far more likely to string you along, making the sales process longer than it needs to be. And only comes down to no sale being made anyway because they were never empowered to make a decision. I see this with financial planners. I see this with real estate people. I see this with.
Mark Hunter :
With complex technical sales. B2B, B2C. I see this across both parameters. I see especially this occurring to new salespeople. And I’ll unpack that in just a bit. But you see another big problem about, like, over trust is you, the salesperson, fall for it too. What happens when the customer is liking you and you’re liking the customer? You know what? You know what happens? You wind up giving away the farm. You wind up giving away the farm.
Mark Hunter :
Yeah, I said that because for some reason, you just don’t want to push quite as hard. You just want to go ahead and close the sale. You don’t want to work to create as much value as possible for the customer. You just want to help them get what they need and move on. You see, liking damages the sale on both sides. Okay, let’s dig in. See, too many times what happens is when we’re light, we create easy conversations. They don’t go anywhere because you both fall into the trap of not asking tough questions and delivering tough answers.
Mark Hunter :
When the customer likes you, they. They may not throw out the objections that they really have, the concerns that they have. So what happens is they wind up buying from you only to wind up creating false expectations as to what you can help them with post sale. And what happens is they wind up being just not quite as. Because guess what? They didn’t challenge enough to really ensure that the solution you’re going to provide them was good enough. And because it. There was a level of. Of like there, because there was a level of like there, you didn’t push them enough to really make sure that, hey, how is this going to play out in your business? You weren’t asking them the tough questions to ensure that you really understood what the problem was that they’re looking for.
Mark Hunter :
You were just trying to go for the easy sale. And like I said right up front, sometimes the easy sale occurs, but a lot of times it doesn’t because the customer was never really empowered to make a decision. I see this. I see this with new salespeople. I see this with new sales. I was working with a large insurance company recently and saw this a lot where what was happening was new salespeople were able to get meetings with customers, basically family members, friends, etc. They’re willing to have the conversation, and they’re willing to meet with them again and again and again. But.
Mark Hunter :
But it never resulted in a sale. And the new salesperson wound up struggling and saying, this business isn’t for me, and exiting. You’ve got to be prepared to have honest conversations. And this is where trust comes into play. You see, there’s a time when you need to call the baby ugly. If you have a solution that’s not right for what the customer is looking for, you’ve got to call out. If the customer is looking for something that you know, what you offer just isn’t right, you don’t do it. I can’t help but think of situations that I’ve been in, and I’ve observed as I’ve been riding along with salespeople.
Mark Hunter :
And I see this happen, that the salesperson is kind of like leaning into it because the customer’s leading into it. You’ve got to be prepared because I’m going to share with you a very quick story. This happened to Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest people in the world. He buys a new car about every four or five years. Now, needless to say, he just can’t go into a car dealership and buy a new car. He happened to be talking to the CEO of General Motors, Mary Barra. And Mary Barra said, oh, if you’re looking for a new car, you should buy a certain type of Cadillac.
Mark Hunter :
And what happened next was that Warren Buffett sent his daughter to go buy a car. And she goes to a Cadillac dealership in Omaha, Nebraska, and she says, my father talked to somebody at General Motors. Of course she’s not going to say it was the CEO of the company and says that I should buy this type of car for my father. The salesperson very much likely, you know, this is very comfortable sale. This is a very easy sale. But the salesperson pushed back. The salesperson pushed back and began asking how is, how is he going to use the car, what is he going to use it for? And began to walk through and how old is he? And so forth. And she talked her out of buying the most expensive type of Cadillac and talked about her into buying her father a lesser Cadillac.
Mark Hunter :
You see, they were willing to have the hard conversation. What happened was a more satisfied customer. You see, don’t allow liking to put yourself into a situation where you sell something that doesn’t need to happen. You see, trust oftentimes requires tension. You’ve got to be prepared for the give and take required. This is exactly what this salesperson was doing. This salesperson was prepared to push back and was pushing back and was pushing back. It created tension, but ultimately was able to come up with a better solution.
Mark Hunter :
Now if you are in a complex sale, you encounter this all the time and it’s good, don’t run from this. What I see happening too often in complex sales is the salesperson winds up devoting too much time to the person who likes them, the person who likes meeting with them and so forth. But they never get to the real solution, they never get to the real problem. And what does it do? It winds up dragging out the process. You see, what I want to do is I want to meet with people who aren’t necessarily going to like me, but they’re going to trust me. They’re going to trust me because of the questions I’ve asked, the conversations I’ve had. You see, what I want to do is I want to ultimately find out exactly what it is that you are looking for and only then can I begin to do that. You see, don’t confuse friendliness with credibility.
Mark Hunter :
Oh, this one hurts a lot because this one hurts because it appears most often when dealing with customers who themselves have a large customer base. Now let me explain what I mean. If you’re dealing with a company that maybe it’s a large retailer, maybe it’s a large customer facing business, they many times are extremely friendly, extremely courteous. I see this all the time because I’ve had the chance to call on most of the major retailers in the US and others around the world. And what I found is that they’re extremely friendly. But don’t confuse that friendliness with credibility and no, not at all. Not at all. Because they’ve got friendliness ingrained in their DNA.
Mark Hunter :
And you know what they actually do? They use that to disarm you. This is a tactic that customers, not only large retailers, but I’ve seen this with a lot of other players. They will come across incredibly friendly to make it feel so comfortable for you as the salesperson that you wind up giving them. Go back to exactly what I talked about at the beginning. We fall victim to the friendliness and we give away the farm. Yes, you see, I can’t deal with friendliness. I mean, I like friendliness. I want people to like me.
Mark Hunter :
That’s only natural. But it has to come down to a level of trust. I have watched so many companies blow a tremendous amount of money on sporting events, dinners, trips, etc. Thinking that by being friendly they would somehow wind up with business. And what I have seen time and time again is that in these friendly situations, the shrewd customer, the shrewd negotiator, winds up uncovering insights from the salesperson that they would never have revealed if they were sitting across the desk or on a zoom call or teams call. Stop and think about that. There has to be a mutual level of trust and respect because otherwise you fall in trouble. Now I have conversely seen salespeople do this where salespeople will get the customer to seem really friendly.
Mark Hunter :
And what happens is then the, the customer winds up revealing information. So it can be a two way street. Totally get this. But you gotta be careful when the friendly meter is getting too high. I remember very early in my sales career selling for a company that, needless to say, did not have a good reputation. I thought somehow I could change this by just being Mr. Nice Guy. Oh, I had people liking me, but in the end, did they buy for me? No.
Mark Hunter :
The only thing they did was they wound up wasting my time allow because I was somehow allowed to believe that if I just kept calling on them, they would buy. You see, you got to be careful. What I want to understand is trust. So what is the measurement of trust? I’ve been talking about trust. What’s the measurement? Trust is when the customer will reveal to you proprietary information that they wouldn’t share otherwise. In other words, they reveal to you proprietary information that’s not known publicly. Let me unpack that further. They share with you insights about their company, about themselves, about their business that other people don’t know.
Mark Hunter :
When they do that, there is now a level of trust. Surprisingly enough, if they like you, they still won’t share that with you. They like you because they just that’s going to be uncomfortable information. But they trust you because of the solution that you’re going help them with. And they reveal to you information not known publicly. This is the measurement of trust. This is where I got to get to now. Remember, flip side, go back about two minutes ago when I was talking about that, that a shrewd negotiating customer will do this with you, that they’ll get you to seem friendly.
Mark Hunter :
And what I’ve seen is that salespeople are far more likely in a friendly situation to reveal proprietary information than a customer will when they’re in a friendly situation. And the reason is very simple. The salesperson is looking to close the sale. The customer is not necessarily looking to buy. And that is the big difference. You see, there’s a huge difference between like and trust. Don’t fall victim to like because you’ll wind up having deals that never close and you’ll wind up closing deals that wind up causing major angst post sale because the customer’s expectations are not being delivered. And two, you’re going to wind up giving away the farm and not being tough.
Mark Hunter :
One final comment on this. I see this happen a lot. For those of you as salespeople who are account managers, be careful because if you’re an account manager, you know what you do? You wind up becoming so comfortable with the customer. You like them so much that you, you spend too much time with them and it takes you away from prospecting. I see this all the time with customers I work with. With salespeople I work with, they will sit there and spend so much time. Well, I can’t afford. No, you just like the customer.
Mark Hunter :
And then when it comes time for a price increase, when it comes time for a difficult conversation, they have a hard time doing it because they like them too much. There has to be a mutual level of trust. And with a mutual level of trust comes a mutual level of tension because you both understand the value proposition that works for both sides. Hey, do me a favor. Leave me a review on your favorite podcast app. Two episodes a week. One like this where I do a single topic. Second one where I unpack with a subject matter expert.
Mark Hunter :
Do me, please leave me a review. Whether it be on Spotify, whether it be on YouTube, whether it be on Apple Music, whatever it is. And if you haven’t picked up the book integrity for selling, pick it up. Because I unpacked this. I have a chapter and in my book on just this topic, I’m mark on the sales center. Great selling.
