Episode 16 – Building Trust

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a founder, an employee working with a client or even just working with your colleagues – building trust, earning that trust is one of the most important elements of success.

We’ve all been in that situation where we’ve met someone that, straight off the bat, they just felt a bit off, they just felt a bit pushy or they felt the need to make you believe that they were always right, only share their side of the story. The relationship just doesn’t work.  You just feel like you’d rather keep your distance from that person than actually engage with them, and straight off the bat – the whole building trust exercise is off to a failure. It’s important when you think about building trust.

It’s not something that’s instant. It’s something that you need to earn, you need to build and you need to do that by showing your level of respect. You need to do that by showing your skillset, your experience and your dedication.

There are many elements to this. But there are a few important things that sometimes people become complacent and they tend to overlook.

The first one: pretty basic, pretty standard, pretty obvious, but sometimes we get complacent about it – and that’s just to simply listen – focusing on clients here. Sometimes when you go into a client meeting, the founder, the marketing manager, whoever they are, they could very well have an ultimate end goal, but they’re just not sure how to articulate it. Let them explain it the best they can – take it in. Some people are deep thinkers, but they’re not crazy about the tiny details. On the other hand, they might get up so hung up on the little details, the overall picture gets lost along the way. It’s important that you listen to what they say and then be able to piece the puzzle together.

Number two is – don’t be pushy, don’t go into a meeting with a client or prospective client expecting to give them a solution right there and then. No one likes that salesperson that comes into the room, tries to take over the whole room, with a solution, that is so far left of what their brand stands for. It just becomes a mess of a conversation. No one enjoys that conversation, and to be honest with you, the client is probably thinking what’s the best way to finish this conversation quickly because they’re just not happy with where they are with you. You’ve already lost all of their trust – the moment you walked through that door and started shoving a solution down their throat. So try not to be that guy or lady that shoves a solution down people’s throats.

And the last one from me – just meet them where they are. Don’t go in there and expect them to follow your solution and they’ll become the next Uber, Apple Facebook – one-in-a-trillion chance that’s ever going to happen. So give them a viable solution. Look at their product. If it’s a client that needs a new website, actually make sure it’s a new website they need and there’s not something more with their current site that they can just do to tweak it and make it more impactful.

Let’s all remember – impacts – they don’t happen always straight away. It takes time to get some results. Look at the data, iterate. Clients are not looking for the age-old agency model of working to day-rates, and as soon as the money is run out – that’s it. You know, we’re going to wash our hands of helping you. We can’t work by those rules anymore.

If you want to build true trust, immerse yourself in these clients environments, understand what they’re going through. What are they looking to achieve? If it’s sales that they’re looking for – how is it that we can get in front of prospective customers? If it’s just brand awareness, how can we start shouting about it, make the company feel unique? What is it that that brand stands for that will separate it from the rest of the people in the same industry?

Don’t go in there trying to be the same old model of just shouting, bright lights. That’s not going to work. People truly value uniqueness. They want to know that this brand, this company actually stands for something. And you won’t get that unless you fully understand what the business is about.

And once you get that, you start building the trust with the client, with all the employees that work there. Naturally, you’re going to get better results and in the long-term – when you’ve got trust with your clients, you don’t have to worry about sales. These people will stick with you.  They’ll stay with you because they know you have their best interests at heart.