Trust: The New “Must Have”

You know how I keep going on and on about your critical messaging?

It started with the BulletProof Trifecta. Incorporate your beliefs about how much you adore your customers and employees, how your simple processes make it painlessly easy to do business with you and how your work within your community highlights you as a go-to leader.

Shortly after COVID hit, I said your messaging must change from everything about your offerings to the transformation you make in their lives. For one simple reason. Buyers in this new normal have less free cash available, are very averse to making a mistake AND are only interested in how good you make them.

Occasionally throughout, I waxed on about know, like, and trust — that old-fashioned emotional thing that propels people to plunk down their cash. But, regrettably, I said not nearly enough about something absolutely crucial to your success.

Now that we are all so much more virtual and remote in our dealings, you can feel in your bones that shut-downs, drive-bys and selling online have made it much more challenging to do the ‘know and like’ part. This automatically makes obtaining the trust part of the know, like, and trust process even more daunting. More than any other time —

Your critical messaging needs to demonstrate you are a very trustworthy business.

By key messaging, I am referring to your website, all your marketing and sales collateral, what you share with your employees, what and how you conduct business, as well as the overall culture you foster.

The only thing we own is our word. Our reputation. Without that, we have no way of earning long-lasting trust. And without trust, our businesses are worthless. So it is essential to define, broadcast and then inculcate into our company who we are, what we stand for and why we are trustworthy.

I just read a research study that may shock you. The findings are from a special survey on trust done by Edelman, which has been studying trust for 20 years. Generally done in late winter, it did a one-off follow-up after the multiple threats on society emerged. Here is the thing you need to know.

Since March 2020, what buyers expect from the companies that sell them services and products has shifted radically.

For the first time ever, most people expect firms they buy from to speak out on racial justice, gender and racial equality, police brutality, wealth inequality and other issues facing society.

In other words, we want businesses to show how they are taking tangible steps to improve things for society and their workers.

Trust jumped 4½ times in importance from the March survey. Other surveys are reporting similar swings. One pollster said, “I’ve never seen opinions shift so fast or solidly.”

Trust is NOW equally as important as price, quality and service.

Not sure your key messaging and your key processes reflect trustworthiness? Reach out and ask.