Trust is a precious commodity and can be used to grow your business. In fact, you can build your entire marketing strategy around these 4 areas of trust within your business.
Trust is precious resource. Negative - PTE Positive side. Buffett quote.
“Trust is like the air we breathe. When it’s present, nobody really notices. But when it’s absent, everybody notices.” – Warren Buffet
So why focus on trust? Because of all things that a business needs to be successful;
customers, - trust is obstacle
revenue, - the evidence
profits, - the results
quality, and – team/staff
sense of purpose, - leadership
all rely on trust. Trust is a vital piece of every business
Reputation
Know Like Trust
Awareness Alignment Trust
Real LINE TO CROSS (vulnerable) CONFIDENCE – how can you have confidence in something you don’t know?
Trustworthy – the element of credibility. This is often related to longevity and reputation. Being trustworthy is the result of demonstrating that you are looking our for the customers – even when you don’t have to.
Competence – Quality is a pillar of trust. And competence is the primary ingredient for quality. This pertains to your product, service, work environment, processes and staff skill. There is no substitute for expertise.
Character – The Golden Rule applies here. Especially when no one knows, would know and there is a cost. An important quality of character is communication.
What’s important
Trustworthy: reliability Past / Present / Future Follow-thru
Competence: Quality / Master / Expert – Expectation – lose and it’s 5x
Character: No one likes being told what to do, especially your customer. educate your customer on the ways to solve their problem, fulfill a need, or build their own solution.
Possible Actions:
Ensure past customers are happy and can provide good references. Bad situations are excellent stories also as they allow you to talk about how you “fixed” a problem or issue. (Trustworthy)
Gather quality reviews from past customers (Trustworthy)
Establish very high delivery standards and guarantees for you products (competence)
Be Reliable: persistent and consistent delivery (competence)
Be approachable / open and listen (first) (competence)
Educate (character)
You are your customer list – be selective & exclusive (character)
Objective: Create a high trust and values-oriented environment for your staff. Key point: keep your commitments, don’t just give staff lip-service – lead with purpose.
Recent survey reported that 50% of employees believe owners and managers are hypocrites. Don’t be that guy.
Less than 40% believe management is engaged in their wellbeing.
Trustworthy: build supportive environment – innovation
Competence: Motivating staff. Frontline: Clerks, counters, administrative professionals. It makes a difference.
Character: To get trust you have to give trust. “Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.”. Build a team and you’ll benefit. Two attitudes connected to the bottom line are respect and teamwork. Both of these are derived from Trust.
Actions:
Procedures: Hire, Train, and Retain (trustworthy)
Support your staff – always. Consistently. (trustworthy)
Set a high bar for staff hiring: background checks, drug testing (trustworthy)
Motivation; Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose (competence)
Certification and special training (competence)
Give trust to get trust (character)
Provide a compass – lead by giving staff a purpose and intent (character)
Take time to explain WHY (trustworthy & character)
Objective: Transition financial performance into a positive aspect of trust
Competence: The financial competence of a business can be demonstrated with established credentials and generalize reporting. The visible attributes of the financial management of the company can also build trust. Think office, buildings, vehicles, tools, processes. What
CharaTrustworthy: Customer want to know that you are credible. You can’t just say you are you have to provide evidence. The KikScore on-line trust survey stated that 87% of consumers feel safer buying from websites that feature information about their business and financial track record. That could be industry status, or stories how how you invest in the local communitycter: The purpose and intent / evidence that the company isn’t strictly profit based. Community investments and sponsorship, investments with staff (think education, college tuition, etc.) demonstrate a higher purpose.
Actions:
Investments in staff (trustworthy)
Balance of financial stakeholders and community interests (trustworthiness)
Investment in visible attributes (competence)
Industry and local credentials (BBB, etc.) (competence)
Transparency and purposeful profits (Character)
Socially responsible (character)
Give existing customers the same incentive as new ones.
Objective: Create culture supportive of high trust with employees, customers and business partners.
Trustworthy: Pride in employment / Positive work environment. They will speak up more and increase participation when those actions are viewed in a positive way. Appreciation: high perf teams have a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative feedback.
Competence: Culture has a competence component too. Awards, especially those associated with quality, allow the business to distinguish itself as a
Character: socially responsible. Be a leader with a defined purpose and intent. State intent in clear and meaningful way.
Actions:
Business behavior: be trustworthy and ethical (trustworthy)
Show appreciation. (trustworthy)
Attain high level of performance worth of award (competence)
Be a leader in your industry (competence)
Establish transparent and honest business practices (character)
Stand up for what is right and be supportive of others – be inclusive, tolerant (character)
Give trust to get trust. (character)
Leadership (character)
Example – continuous work
Work plan – make it tangible
Some example here which start with month one and focus on building trustworthy behavior with our staff. With a little bit of thought and effort you could compile a list of activities that would help you achieve those goals, the effort and time, and the intended result. By working through the 12 instances of the year you would build a trust building working plan.
So now we’ve looked at trust in your business and actions a you contact us revisit the premise that trust can lead to growth. We talked about how building a high trust environment saves time. The time saved in hiring and training new staff. That’s time savings In completing a project or task, productivity, and job performance. As Stephen Covey points out in the book the speed of trust, faster execution leads to reduce cost and that equals improved profits.
Reputation is also important. How you treat your customers, serve their needs, treat your staff, interact with the community, and act in a socially responsible way all help your company build a better reputation.
By operating more effectively and efficiently you free up capital that would otherwise be spent in less productive ways. The capital can now allow you to invest and grow in other areas.
There is also an emotional benefit of building a high trust business. Many business owners report that they do sleep better at night, have less worries, and just enjoy the business more. This will allow a business owner to concentrate more on core issues, goals, and effectiveness – and bring more satisfaction to the business.
HOURGLASS
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The marketing hourglass illustrates that there is a line in our business. If we take the actions that we’ve executed to build trust within our business what we we quickly determine is that our focus on customers and helping them fulfilled their needs and solve problems is a great story to tell. In fact your trust actions are the basis of a solid marketing strategy.
So what would need to be in place in order to build your marketing strategy?
Trust as an emphasis of the business
Core and remarkable differences
Well defined ideal customer and target market.
Content that educates and allows the customer to reach their own conclusions
Tactics / Platforms / Channels that connect to your Ideal
Reputation security
Budget and Calendar
The emphasis is on a the trust building actions.
Content is King.
Having a consistent content development approach as part of your marketing strategy will help you maximize the effects of the trust building actions. A recent study by pew research indicated well over 90% of buyers at brick-and-mortar businesses had used the Internet to perform research. That’s especially true for local and small businesses.
Where do people go to get information about a business?
Online search engine: 39%
Online news sources: 21%
Print (newspapers/magazines): 11%
Company website: 10%
those buyers indicated that online search engines were used 39% of the time to find information about business. If your content strategy is based on building trust, informing and educating your prospects and customers, and demonstrating your credibility competence, and character you’ll be more likely to have these prospects progress through the marketing hourglass and cross that important trust line.
Example – continuous work
Work plan – make it tangible
Some example here which start with month one and focus on building trustworthy behavior with our staff. With a little bit of thought and effort you could compile a list of activities that would help you achieve those goals, the effort and time, and the intended result. By working through the 12 instances of the year you would build a trust building working plan.
It’s a systems approach.
1. Work within your business to build trust.
2. Use those actions to generate content that is personal, plausible, plain spoken and positive.
3. Content is essential to your marketing strategy which will utilize the content to connect with ideal customs using marketing tactics (advertisement, direct mail, referrals) and the appropriate channels.
4. As the customer progresses in their relationship with your business you capture the elements of trust and adjust your business.