Tag: goals

In the previous post, (Building Trust with Your Customers Helps You Reach Your Goals Faster-1), I talked about benefits of building trust.

Elements of trust

Everyone wants to be trusted – especially sales persons and consultants. You want your customer to come and listen to you. However, not many achieve in being trusted. I was amazed when I read a book called “Trusted Advisor” (affiliate link – p2w2 gets paid if you buy), I realized that there is a pattern of behavior that helps generate more trust in your relationships.
If you look at page 4 (using “look inside” feature of Amazon) you will see “traits that our trusted advisors have in common.” In that, I like the following:

– They are consistent (we can depend on them)
– Help us think things through (we make the decision, they don’t force their recommendation on us)
– They stay calm
– Are reliably on our side and always seem to have our interests at heart
– We can rely on them to tell us the truth

Who do YOU trust?

Take for example, a car dealer. Which dealer do you trust? It’s likely that you the person:
• Is pleasant and polite to you
• Asked for your needs and heard you patiently
• Empathized with your need
• Respected your time and attended to you promptly
• Understood your need
• Gave all the options you have
• Let you make the decision
• Follow up and deliver on all the promises

Trust is a natural outcome when they know that you keep their interests in mind.

Trust gets generated from experience; not testimonials

No matter how good a marketing material you can generate, it can never generate trust. At best, a customer can try you. But she will start trusting you only after trying out your product or service and after she is satisfied.

Before we close…

Log on to Trust Quotient self-assessment quiz. I recommend this quiz because that tells you where you stand on the trust question. Here are some of

the questions it asks (you have to select between Never, Rarely, Often, Almost Always and Always):

1. My word is my bond (I keep and deliver on my promises; I see keeping my word as a matter of personal integrity)
2. I work to make sure there are no surprises when I’m around
3. People tell me me I’m honest and open
4. I am consistent and predictable
5. People confide in me (they tell me things they often don’t tell others)

You might actually learn many traits that you love and give you ideas to enhance others’ trust in you.

This quiz computes your trust quotient (TQ). With this quiz you can do your own assessment of your credibility, reliability, intimacy, and self-orientation. The quiz, based on the work of Charles H. Green, who defines TQ as:

Where:

TQ = Trust Quotient (trustworthiness)
C = Credibility
R = Reliability
I = Intimacy
S = Self-orientation

Remember that can be a fabulous economic strategy—the strategy for our times.
But if your only reason for winning trust is to make money off others, nobody is going to trust you.
That’s the paradox of this trust thingy.
If you’d like to know more about the “T’ Factor in a business relationship, I would recommend that you begin by reading by David H. Maister and Charles H. Green’s Trusted Advisor.

About the author: Chaitanya Sagar is an expert in small businesses and is the CEO of www.p2w2.com, an online marketplace for services like writing, business consulting, research, software, online-tutoring etc. You can find good service providers and collaborate with them on p2w2.

Picture credits: Mijita Janielianne hbp_pix

Tell me, do you think you will benefit if your clients trusted you more? What are those benefits?  Likely answers could be you’d:
1. Gain more customers
2. Get repeat orders
3. Make more money
4. Earn more respect in the community you service
5. Lead a more contented life for having done your job well
Hm… let me think. These are the objectives of your business! If you are trusted more, then it leads to achieving your business and personal goals, faster!

If people trust you, they won’t mind paying extra
The best news about this whole trust business is that you can charge a premium for trust. Trust can be a fantastic investment into your business.

Trust does involve some risk
Charle H. Green, a noted expert on trust, asks: Have you ever recommended a competitor to one of your top clients? This is the acid test of establishing trust in selling. A salesman who willingly shares information that would serve the interest of his customer — even if it’s about a rival — is actually putting his customer’s interests ahead of his own and the customer is not so dumb that he would not notice it. He would reward the sales person with more trust and most likely will strike the next deal with him/her!
If you are able to manage a short term business risk for the long-term benefit, you would have no problem establishing trust with your customers.

Trust can overrule cynicism

I’ve often heard people say “it doesn’t work this way in the real world…”
“It’s a dog eat dog world out there..…no body trusts anybody, anymore…” This is a sort of cynical outburst that only trust can overcome.
Have you ever wondered why when you go out to buy a mobile phone, a watch or a TV set, why do you always go to your most trusted dealer?
There could be glowing testimonies on the net for a brand that your dealer does not stock, but you would disregard all that and out aside your cynicism and still go to your old dealer —

why?
Because when it comes to actual buying, you want your “own” dealer, even if his store may not be as swanky or uptown as the one advertised in the newspaper.
Winning brands build trust relationships. They constantly back-up their best marketing plans with the best service. And that builds trust.

Elements of trust in the next post

Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship. If you would like your customers to trust you more and want to know what to do, we will talk about elements of trust in the next post and recommend you a book that will help you do that.

About the author: Chaitanya Sagar is an expert in small businesses and is the CEO of www.p2w2.com, an online marketplace for services like writing, business consulting, research, software, online-tutoring etc. You can find good service providers and collaborate with them on p2w2.

Picture credits: Dideo Spoon CairoCarol