How trustworthy would you say you are?
Give yourself a score out of 10.
Trust is really important in business if you think about it. Do you ever buy from a person, a company or a brand that you don’t trust?
In order for our sales and marketing to work we need to be trustworthy, so that people want to buy from us. What are you doing to demonstrate to prospective new clients that you are trustworthy?
What about with your existing clients? – people who have trusted us with one or more purchase in the past – what did you do on those occasions and what are you doing now to create and recreate that trust?
And then there are all the other people we interact with in the course of business –
- Our teams
- Our suppliers
- Our neighbours
- People we meet networking and online
You need them to trust you too as you want to build great relationships with them and you want them to speak positively about you and your company.
There’s a great formula featured in a book called “The Trusted Advisor”
Which is all about how Trust is built. This formula is:
T = C x R x L / SI
TRUST = CREDIBILITY x RELIABILITY x LIKEABILITY divided by your level of SELF INTEREST
So looking at each part of the formula, what would you score yourself out of 10?
Credibility
Credibility is your knowledge, your reputation, how people perceive you in your field. If we take client acquisition as an example of where we want to build trust – this isn’t about how you see your credibility – it’s about how a prospective client sees it.
So you need to think about when someone is looking for the product or service you offer – what information is available? How do you demonstrate that you know what you are talking about?
Give yourself a score out of 10 for how good your marketing is in this area.
Reliability
Again this is about how others perceive you. Remember their perception is their reality!
So how good do you think prospective clients see you as at doing what you’ve said you will when you’ve said you’ll do it?
Give yourself a score out of 10 for this and remember this is about consistency – if you are on time for a client 99 times out of a 100, and late once what will they remember?
Likeability
How do your prospective clients get to know you, how do they see that you are likeable and someone they want to work with? What are you doing to increase your likeability?
This includes everywhere you’re prospective clients will see you – At networking, online, on your website, on your social media. This includes both business and private.
Now really look at the image you present and compare this to how you want to be seen and how easy it makes it for someone to like you i.e. if these things are important to you – do you come across as honest and having integrity? Do you come across as helpful, easy to talk to, approachable, someone your clients would want to do business with?
All of this is about building TRUST. So again – when you look with a fresh pair of eyes – what could work better for you? What would be friendlier? What would enable people to connect with you more?
Ideas might be:
- Photographs
- Video content
- Live content
- Stories – how you work with your clients/customers
- Some information about you personally
- Why you do what you do and what’s important to you.
Self-Interest
The dictionary definition of self-interest is
“One’s personal interest or advantage, especially when pursued without regard for others.”
Have you ever worked for a boss who is absolutely insistent that their idea is better than everyone else’s ideas? Regardless of the practicalities and ability to implement it?
In that case they are putting their own interests (being right, using a particular supplier, being seen to solve the problems etc.) ahead of everyone else in the room and potential ahead of the businesses best interests. The solution they are proposing is not as effective as someone else’s idea, but they are going with it anyway.
Or here’s another example – poor sales people.
You go to the garage to buy a new car. You have a budget of £10,000 and you know what you need – 4 doors, enough room in the back for the kids and it to be comfortable on the motorway. You tell all of that to the sales person and then they show you cars that are way above your budget. Not just a little bit above your budget but way out of budget and without the features you asked for. They are motivated by the commission they are going to get. They want to sell the car that has been in the garage for too long, so they are not really listening to what you need.
They are acting in their own self interest.
What happens? – well you almost certainly walk away and go to a different garage – you don’t trust them!
So how do you make your customers trust you?
Going back to that formula,
TRUST = CREDIBILITY x RELIABILITY x LIKEABILITY divided by your level of SELF INTEREST
score yourself out of 10 for each of those points – Credibility, Likeability, Reliability and Self-Interest. Feed them in to the formula to give yourself a score for Trust. If you haven’t got a 10 out of 10 for each of those points, think about how you can get 10 out of 10. How will you go about changing peoples perception of you?
You can apply this to all aspects of your life and business. For example, in your marketing – look at your website, or an advert you are running – how does it score on each of these areas? How trusted will it help you to be? What do you need to change to make your customers trust you and change their perceptions?
Grow your Business, Free up your time and live your dreams…
No business owner is born with all the skills needed to run a successful business. Many successful business owner can point to their business coach for helping them navigate the often tricky path of business ownership, including managing staff, increasing their turnover and ensuring they don’t spend all hours or everyday in their business.
For a chat, to bounce your ideas of someone or to discuss further what we can do for you and your business, book your FREE call in to our business growth expert, Jenni Morgan’s calendar here:
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