Having just finished the book, The Speed of Trust – The One thing that Changes Everything, by Steven M. R. Covey, I presented some of the ideas to our Mind Masters Groups as we build our “brand” by building trust.
People do business with people they like. So business is based on relationships. The relationship matters as much as the service – maybe even more. When people like you, they trust you and want to work with you.
What we are talking about here is that customers buy from people not corporations. So to succeed you need to promote yourself and what you stand for. How do you do this? By building TRUST, trust is everything! It is the life blood of your business.
Keys to Building Trust
- Learn to establish rapport. Make a social connection, ask questions.
- Follow through on what you say you will do. This demonstrates integrity.
- Actively listen to your customer. This will forge an emotional connection with them.
- Stand behind your work. This will make customers feel more confident about your work and the risk they are taking.
- Be willing to communicate and provide accurate information on their project in a timely manner.
- Understand the problems, concerns, issues and challenges of your target market. They need to know you are not a stranger.
- Appear very much like your clients, people do business with people who are like them. They won’t have to get over that huge hurdle of dealing with someone who is different.
- Act consistently on your values.
Practicing these keys will build more trust with your prospects and clients because it won’t feel like marketing, it feels more like educating, informing and being a valuable resource. And wouldn’t you prefer to do business with people who do business this way?