Deliverables Depend on Trust
Ask a venture capitalist what moves him or her to invest, what you’ll hear is a definition of the word trust. How could it be otherwise? A VC is betting on an investment to pay off. It’s a trust situation. A sure thing doesn’t exist in business.
Trust is part of most every purchase decision we make. We trust that we get what we paid for in working order. We trust that the people who offered it will stand behind their offer.
Trust is also part of the offering. Marketing and promoting what we do also requires trust — trust in ourselves, trust in our products and services, and a bond of trust with the person we’re telling about them.
- If we trust ourselves, we’re confident that we’ll deliver on the promises we make.
- If we trust our products and services, we know they’ll meet and surpass the expectations of the person who invests in them.
- If we have a bond of trust with people about what we do, we’re not worried about our credibility. We talk to them as we talk to our friends, fully expressed and enthusiastic to share something we believe will help. They hear us as we want to be heard.
Do you hate self-promotion and marketing? Could it be that you’re trying to sell before you know the potential buyer trusts you?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Great topic, Liz. Yes, selling is uncomfortable when I do it too fast. When I know my product and I know who can really gain from it, it’s fun to connect the two. Otherwise, it’s misery.
LOL Liz
(Typing this while pausing from a task to fold 150 x 3 paged letter and 2 brand new leaflets for our latest marketing project).
How can “marketing build on trust” ever be self-promotion? Trusting yourself – as ‘marketer’ – you will always keep the wishes and requirements of your prospects at the forefront of your ‘sales-pitch’ 😉 ‘Cos marketing is and always will be an effort to sell, no two ways about it. It’s the trust effort/factor that makes it a truthful, honest marketing effort.
Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)
Not to mention with the ease and speed at which informaion is transferred – the number of “get paid to click on google” scam offerings have risen…
Also, now that businesses are watching there sales plummet they are looking for a quick fix be it twitter, facebook,etc., and they completely fail to recognize that these platforms are entirely based upon trust and participation.
Trust is built over time, but can be lost in one nanosecond.
Liz
You bring up a great point with the trust. Trust is not build overnight an as Alex points out, everyone is looking for the quick fix.
Once you build the trust and befriend people it does not seem like they are selling anymore- more recommending something to help make life easier.
I guess you could call it trust, but I would say mines more of a bad personal self perception.
I like your point, Alex: trust takes time to develop and can be lost in a second.
You are correct, Liz. If you cannot trust yourself and pitch your own product confidently, why bother?
You have to trust yourself, and then influence your audience enough that they trust you.
By the way, as a suggestion… can you PLEASE have a tweetmeme RT button on your posts? *begs and even says ‘please with a cherry on top’*
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Off topic:
Also, I am contemplating on trying a St. Louis WordCamp in the future. I am kind of working on ideas before committing to the project on it. I know you are a busy woman, BUT I enjoyed WordCamp Chicago so much and our Southern Illinois WordPress users and more deep middle US goers could use some attention.
Anyhow, email me and if you might be able to share on how that works. I will be contacting Lisa Sabin-Wilson and asking advice from her. I feel that it is the best thing to do so I can successfully arrange a WordCamp in the future. 🙂
Hi Nile!
Thank you for both your comment and your confidence in me.
I agree that trust in myself has made a huge difference in how people relate to me.
On WordCamp, happy to help when I can.
Won’t be this week. I can predict that.
I’ve never managed a WordCamp, but I’ve run my own conference (with my awesome partner.)
I might have a few ideas that will help you.
And I’ll try to get to that tweetmeme button. heh heh
You nailed it! I hate self-promotion. I don’t know how to price a service. I’m awful at making a deal, any kind of deal that brings in a profit.
And it is all because I do not believe in myself. As a perfectionist, I’m so afraid to disappoint someone and receive a complaint. I do not TRUST that I can deliver a perfect service. But then… who can?
Hey, Without Dash,
Here’s a thought about getting to trust yourself more. Make a promise to yourself every day and keep it. It can be simple and not important. That doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you make and keep the promise. If you do that as a habit, you’ll begin to see yourself as a person with integrity. From that you’ll get confidence and other people will pick up on it. They will trust you more easily because you have started to trust yourself.
Sometimes, it’s contentious. There are people who sell even before they are trusted, yet, there are cases when people think they are trusted but really isn’t. So the big question is, when do you know the trust is right? 🙂
That’s a great question, Liane.
I bet everyone’s answer will be different. I’ll ask it this week.
Liz
There might be a fine line for some between blowing your horn and being full of yourself.
Building trust involves giving as much as getting, sharing what you can with others.
Serge
‘The French Guy from New Jersey’
Hi Serge,
When you tell me what you do in order to help me, that’s something I can trust. When you tell me what you do in order to help yourself, I’m not so sure. 🙂
As a Marketing resource when we make recommendation to a business about there marketing strategy we normally discuss key points that will bring the business more traffic. The information that we bring to the clients attention is normally backed up with stats, market conditions and experience. The problem is that even when everything indicates that we have given the right information and delivered a successful strategy things can nose dive by other factors that are potentially out of our reach. Trust is a word that our sales men use to sell our service with confidence. They can say the word ‘trust’ because we deliver an excellent service if we did not deliver a good service then we would fail as a business. Therefor trust is a word that has to backed up or linked with potential success.
Hi Dape,
Well said, you proved your example within your comment by backing up your argument with your own success. Awesome.
So suppose I’m just beginning and I’ve got no track record?
Thanks for the tip. I’ll try and do that. I guess the promises will be quite small and wasy to keep though, which are the kind of promises that I give to others.
Or I already tell in advance “I’ll try – do my best – see what I can do..” without saying outright: “Yes, I will do it, leave it to me!”