Trust

Author

Joe House
July 11, 2022

"If people like you, they'll listen to you, but if they trust you, they'll do business with you."

-Zig Ziglar

Trust is the bedrock for all meaningful relationships, and building it takes time.  The formula for trust is not complex, but it has no room for error.  If you seek to grow your business, you need to first grow your trust.

CREDIBILITY: Credibility (as a person, in your field, etc.) is an accelerator to build trust.  Learn how your character and competence will create your credibility, and how to use that credibility to build and operate at the speed of trust in this podcast by Stephen Covey.

PLATFORM: The platform you need for success is often built on the trust of others. If this is your case, trust is the key to unlock your opportunity.  Watch the interaction between Lee Iacocca and Carroll Shelby in Ford vs. Ferrari launch speech to see this in action.

UNITY: Are you looking for a speed beyond trust? Learn from Rob Ketterling in his book Speed of Unity, where speeds are determined as follows:

  1. Reverse = Disagreement: Disagreement prevents basic processes from occurring

  2. 1st Gear = Agreement: Transactional agreements between parties allow forward progress

  3. 2nd Gear = Vision: Team is working proactively towards a common mission and work together to solve problems.

  4. Top Gear = Unity: All care more about the performance of the team than their own.

Learn more in the book; Speed of Unity

TIP: Ask the Interview question "How do you build trust?"

There are many good answers.  Mine would be as follows:

1. Iteration: Leave every meeting with an action and a due date.  Complete that action by the due date, and you have earned a step forward in trust.

2. Reputation: Understand the persons' situation, and connect them with a reference you have that is/has been in a similar situation.  Enable your reference contact to do your trust selling.

3. Intention: Show the person your sincere intention to earn their trust, by listening intensely, asking clarifying questions, removing distractions, and taking notes.

Not every answer needs to match mine, but great answers will be detailed, contain multiple steps (as building trust is an incremental process), and come out fast enough to show that the candidate has thought about the concept before.

Stay Productive. 

Joe House