"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."

Helen Keller

Whether you're a sales leader, salesperson or in any kind of executive position, allow the above-mentioned quote to be more than inspiration, allow it to become it a blueprint for how you show up with your clients.

Let's break this down and apply this to your role.

Optimism Creates Possibility

When you approach your clients with authentic optimism, you carry the belief that growth is possible, even in tough markets, even when margins are tight, and even when your competitors are loud.

Clients sense your outlook. If you radiate belief in their potential to achieve more, you give them permission to believe in it too. Your optimism becomes contagious. You're helping them to cast vision.

This must be real optimism, not shallow so-called cheerleading. Clients can sniff out fake positivity. Authentic optimism is grounded in conviction, meaning your insights, solutions, and partnership can help them create business betterment.

Hope is the Byproduct of Trust

Every client conversation either builds or erodes hope.

When you sell from the heart, you give your clients hope that someone truly understands their challenges and is committed to walking with them toward their goals.

• Hope that they can hit their revenue targets.

• Hope that profitability can be protected.

• Hope that they’re not alone in the grind.

Without trust, hope doesn’t exist. Without hope, your clients won’t move forward.

Confidence Is Earned Through Consistency

Hope may open the door, but confidence keeps you in the room.

Confidence isn’t given to you by your clients, it’s earned over time, as you:

• Consistently deliver on your promises.

• Bring insights that add meaningful value.

• Create inspirational experiences where clients feel seen, heard, and energized.

• Show disciplined habits that prove reliability.

You see, when your clients have confidence in you, they’ll not only buy from you, they’ll trust you with bigger conversations. The conversations about revenue, profit, and strategy.

Your Role in Achievement

Achievement in your client’s world and in yours hinges on this chain reaction...

Your Optimism → Their Hope → Their Confidence in You → Shared Achievement.

If you want to help your clients achieve, you must first embody optimism, transfer hope, and consistently earn confidence. This is what separates a transactional vendor from a trusted growth partner.

What earns you a permanent seat at the revenue and profit table is confidence, not likability, not responsiveness, but the belief that you can actually help clients grow.

Therefore, I ask you to look in the mirror and deeply reflect upon this single question... How confident are your clients that you can help them drive revenues and profits?

This is not about; do they like you? Not about, do they enjoy your company? Not even about, do they appreciate your responsiveness?

What I really mean is this... When your clients sit in their executive meetings and ask, Where can we grow revenues and profits this quarter?, do they immediately think of you as a trusted partner who can help them do it?

This one single question cuts straight to the heart of authentic selling, sustainable growth, and long-term client loyalty.

Why am I sharing this, because in this post-trust world, likability won’t get you paid, and responsiveness won’t keep you relevant.

What earns you a permanent seat at the revenue and profit table is confidence.

The Confidence Gap

Here’s some uncomfortable truth, most clients don’t believe their sales reps can truly move the needle on revenues and profits.

Why? Because too many sellers show up as empty suits. They lead with product centric conversations, upfront discounts, and promises rather than authentic conversations about what matters most, growth, profitability, and meaningful business outcomes.

Clients are more skeptical than ever. In this post-trust climate, an environment where decision-makers have been burned too many times by exaggerated claims and transactional sellers.

Trust has become fragile. Clients instinctively wonder, do you really understand my world? or are you here to push your quota on me?

You may think you’re selling solutions, but unless the client believes those solutions drive tangible business results, your background noise.

Time to pause for a moment, and ask yourself:

• Do my clients know without a shadow of a doubt, how I can help them grow revenues?

• Do they believe my solutions will improve profitability in ways that matter to them?

• Do they trust me enough to invite me into their strategic conversations, not just their transactional ones?

If your answer is anything less than a resounding yes, then the gap isn’t with your product, it’s with confidence. And you know what?, it's their confidence in you.

The fastest way to close the confidence gap is not by selling harder, it’s by showing up more authentically. By building authentic relationships, delivering meaningful value, creating inspirational experiences, and following through with disciplined habits.

When clients trust you, they don’t just buy from you, they believe in you.

Why Confidence is the Currency of Growth

For a moment, let's think about your personal business decisions. You don’t spend money or more importantly, you don’t risk your reputation without confidence.

Confidence that the person across the table understands your challenges, has credible insights, and will deliver results.

Guess what? The same principle drives every buying decision your clients make.

Trust creates the relationship, confidence sustains it.

Here’s the equation at work:

• No confidence, no commitment. If your client doesn’t believe you can grow their top or bottom line, you’ll be stuck fighting on price.

• Shaky confidence, shaky loyalty. If they only hope you can help, they’ll always be looking for alternatives.

• High confidence, high growth. When clients know you can help them achieve business results, they not only buy more, they invite you deeper into their business.

This is why sales professionals are seen not as vendors, but as growth partners. They’ve crossed over from being seen as a supplier to strategic business partner.

I believe you can intentionally build that confidence, it requires massive amounts of self-reflection and meaningful action.

Building Client Confidence Through the Trust Formula

The Trust Formula is more than a equation, it’s a roadmap for earning confidence in a post-trust world.

AR (Authentic Relationships) + MV (Meaningful Value) + IE (Inspirational Experience) + DH (Disciplined Habits) = Trust

Looking at this through a client confidence lens, here’s what this really means:

Authentic Relationships - Confidence grows when clients know you’re genuine. They can tell the difference between a seller who is relationally invested in them versus one who is transactionally motivated.

Ask yourself:

• Do my clients believe I care more about their success or my commission?

• Do my clients see evidence that I've invested time in understanding their world, their goals, challenges, and internal pressures?

Authenticity isn’t a buzzword; it’s the bridge between skepticism and trust.

Meaningful Value - Confidence skyrockets when you consistently bring fresh ideas that tie directly to revenue growth and profit protection. Meaningful value isn’t brochures or feature lists; it’s insight that changes the client’s perspective and improves results.

Inspirational Experience - Confidence deepens when clients feel energized after every interaction with you.

Do your conversations make them think differently? Do they leave saying, that was worth my time?

Disciplined Habits - Confidence solidifies through consistency. Every follow-up, every promised action, every proactive touchpoint becomes a deposit in the trust account.

Clients notice when you do the small things well and that consistency earns you the right to be trusted with the bigger things.

Discipline demonstrates reliability, and reliability is the foundation of long-term confidence.

You sell in a hyper-competitive marketplace, your ability to inspire and challenge becomes the differentiator. You’re not just another sales rep; you’re a trusted business partner who shapes their strategy.

Confidence isn’t built in a single presentation, it’s accumulated over dozens of consistent, value-rich interactions.

Products can be copied, and prices can be undercut, but trust-fueled confidence, that’s your competitive edge.

Here's your self-audit time.

I ask you to turn to the mirror for a moment, now answer these questions honestly:

• When it comes to revenue alignment, have I explicitly shown my clients how my solutions impact their revenues or profits or am I assuming they can connect the dots?

• When it comes to key decision maker relevance, do these people know who I am, or am I stuck at mid-level management?

• When it comes to strategic conversations, do my client meetings revolve around their growth strategies or my latest product offerings?

• When it comes to proof of my impact, can I share client success stories, case studies, or metrics that prove I help businesses grow?

• When it comes to my follow-through, do my clients trust that if I say something will get done, it gets done every single time?

If any of these made you uncomfortable, good. It's that discomfort that becomes the starting point for transformation.

Grab the Selling from the Heart Journal, click on the image above.

How to Become a Growth Partner, not just a Vendor

Time for some practicality.

Here are some direct, actionable steps to increase client confidence:

1. Connect Your Solutions to Revenue and Profit

Stop talking about features and start discussing how your offerings directly:

• Increase sales volume

• Expand market share

• Reduce operational costs

• Improve efficiency

• Minimize risk

If you can’t articulate this clearly, your clients won’t either.

2. Ask Business-Centered Questions

Ditch this, what keeps you up at night? to:

• Where do you see the biggest revenue opportunities in the next 12 months?

• What margins are you under the most pressure to protect?

• What’s blocking your growth right now?

Questions like these show you’re not just a salesperson; you’re a strategic ally who has their best interest at heart.

3. Show Up with Insights, Not Just Information

Clients are drowning in data and what they lack is making sense out of all of it. Bring business insights about their market, competitors, or customer trends.

Help them see blind spots by becoming the person they rely on for clarity.

4. Build Relationships High, Wide and Deep

Confidence doesn’t come from one champion; it comes from organizational trust. Build relationships with decision-makers, influencers, and anyone else you possibly can. When the entire team believes in you, deals close faster and grow larger.

5. Deliver a Memorable Experience

Stop being predictable. Send handwritten notes, share relevant articles, celebrate client wins, create a rhythm of interactions that makes them look forward to hearing from you.

6. Prove It with Results

Track and share the outcomes of your work. Don’t just say, we helped reduce costs. Say something to the effect of, our solution helped to increase your departments revenue by 5% this quarter.

Document it, share it and remind them of the impact you deliver.

Closing Reflection

The marketplace and your clients are tired of empty promises. They're all worn out from solutions that never deliver meaningful business results.

What they crave and what will separate you from the pack, is a sales professional they can trust with their most critical goals, their revenue growth and profit protection.

So let me leave you with one more hard question... If your clients were asked today whether you are essential to their growth strategy, would their answer be an immediate absolutely or a hesitant pause?

That answer alone reveals everything about your current and future success.

The ball is now in your court. The time is now to build those authentic relationships, deliver meaningful value, create those inspirational experiences, and most importantly, live with disciplined habits.

When you do this consistently, your clients won’t just believe in you, they’ll bet on you.

They’ll invite you into their business growth conversations, they’ll trust you, and they’ll grow with you.

Originally published on Larry Levine's LinkedIn.