The High Cost of Low Trust

I’ve been fascinated by the concept of trust these days, spurred in part by the erosion of trust in our public discourse.

I trust my neighbors. I trust my work partner. I trust my podcast partner. I trust my spouse. I trust that people will drive on the correct side of the yellow line. I trust that the random government worker will do her job. I trust the guy at the Rutherford County registration desk to tell me the truth.

Some of that trust isn’t earned, and there will be times when I’m disappointed by specific people, but those few occasions will be so starkly different that the exception will prove the rule.

Experimenting with Trust

I was working in Kansas City one time—before the days of Uber—and my client was in a small office, my flight connection was going to be tight at the end of the day, and so as the driver pulled over to drop me off, I said, “Hey, are you working at 4:30 this afternoon? I need a ride to the airport.” He assured me he was and seemed eager to help.

I asked if I could leave my luggage in the trunk and I handed him the fare for the trip we’d just finished…and the fare for the return trip to the airport. “Here, I’ll just pay you for both. See you at 4:30.”

I worked all day and kind of forgot about it. Around 4:00p, as we were wrapping things up, I remembered that my luggage was crawling all over KC and I smiled. I knew he’d be back to pick me up. He didn’t need to. He could have kept my luggage and my money and I’d have been out of luck, but I knew he’d be there. To him, I surmised, this was going to be warm proof that we as humans can be trusted. It was going to confirm who both of us were.

Applying This to Your Own Marketing

A few years ago I decided to simplify our marketing quest in this industry as a two-fold goal:

• To be known…
• and to be trusted.

If both of those aren’t true, it’s not going to work. Most of you are trusted but unknown. Very few principals who read this would be known and not trusted, at least in a traditional sense.

But even if you are a trustworthy person, how in the world will prospects trust you if they haven’t yet worked with you? The answer varies: sometimes it comes from a trusted referral source, but trust usually comes from both the signals your marketing sends…and the nature of the interaction the prospect encounters when in the sales conversation.

How do you build trust with prospective clients, before and during sales conversations?

• Don’t be desperate. As humans, we don’t trust desperation because that’s when someone will compromise any standards that are not rock solid. A full 80% of outbound screams desperation. Do it very, very carefully.
• Don’t be for everybody. The world is far too complex to know enough about everything to be of use to them as an expert. Essentially you’re just a general practitioner covering non-emergencies and shuffling them to real experts when more is at stake.
• Articulate a point of view in that area of expertise that will drive prospects to or away from you. Your clients already know how you think; your prospects deserve to know how you think before they pay you. Essentially you’re getting paid to specifically apply what you have already generally talked about.
• Turn the interview process around. Ask enough questions to make it very clear that you want to know if this is a situation where you can really move the needle and not just make money. (“We like to make money, yes, but we need to earn it by making a difference. We need to make sure that we can fix this for you.”)

And then, once someone is a client? Care, tell the truth, and do your job. If it doesn’t work, fine. There are a lot of respectable careers out there and if earning trust is a constant struggle for you, the expertise gig just isn’t a match and that’s okay.

When Trust Crumbles

When trust is missing in conversations with a prospect, they ask for more proof (guarantees, contract mods, references, etc.). It wastes time and starts the relationship off on shaky ground as you work to earn trust. It’s discouraging.

When trust crumbles in an existing client relationship, the client starts to look critically at your reports, questions your effort, and demands extra effort in an attempt to test you. And eventually they fire you in their mind…and then tell you about it later after they’ve found another source.

Being known and trusted has a beautiful ring to it.