Trust: What Is It For You, For Your Client?

A practical approach that integrates trust into business life.

A great writer and even better coach, Charles Green, has written three books on trust including one of my all time favorites, Trust Based Selling. His simple definition is that trust has two sides--- both giving and receiving. And, he urges that we learn to take care of both.

I remember years ago having a colleague who always talked about making “deposits in the trust bank.” In other words, if you expect to earn trust from others, first demonstrate the reasons that they can trust you.

Green looks at it in an algebraic formula which he calls the Trust Equation. It suggests that clients will trust you if you do a decent job at each of four components:

• being credible—customers can believe the things you say
• being reliable—customers can depend on you to behave consistently and as promised
• being “intimate”—meaning customers can share information with you, feeling secure about how you’ll handle it
• having low self-orientation— meaning your attention and focus, as well as your intentions, are about them, not just about yourself

How can we translate that formula into our business development lives?

First, by what we do. Show you trust others by sharing.

• We make deposits best by focusing on others first. This means we do our homework before we meet them. Check them out online; learn more about their experience and background, look for their LinkedIn profile to get a sense of what they read and how they think.
• We make a practice of giving wisdom away. Share information on your website such as articles, mini-assessments, new ideas, or check lists. Make it easy for people to learn more about you. Do a regular blog; send an action focused e-newsletter.
• We develop a series of questions and refine them for each new interaction that helps open us to others. These are questions we use in initial meetings, in first encounters, sometimes even at networking events. They are all focused on others, not ourselves.

Second, by how we make it easy for others to give us their trust. Green describes trust as almost organically reciprocal, suggesting if we give it, chances are very great we will get it. How can we do that?

• Offer a complimentary experience. Particularly for professionals whose work is largely intangible, try to make it tangible. Suggest a one hour training seminar for their staff or invite them to a public speech you are giving.
• Provide a guarantee of your work that requires a commitment on their part. When we are sharing wisdom and encouraging accountability and action, guaranteeing results is a great way to open them to offering their trust.

Finally, we can test our own behaviors. Whether we are structuring the agenda of a first meeting, putting together pricing for a proposal, or rehearsing a presentation you’re about to deliver to try to win new business, we can ask ourselves three questions:

• Am I focused on their interest first? If I’m telling them all about my organization, that doesn’t fit the trust equation very well.
• Am I doing it all or am I involving them from the beginning? The more we are engaged together, the higher the trust level will be.
• Am I focused on the longer term? A focus just on the immediate future is more likely to be all about us, as opposed to all about them. (And we do want to live by the mantra, AAT, ATT: All About Them, All The Time.)

There’s one more very practical tip about trust. When we are giving it and inviting others to give us their trust, our focus is individual. It’s easy to scale from individual to organization following the same principles.