3 Trust-Building Strategies for Your Business

While most people believe that money is the biggest ruling asset in the world, the reality of business world proves that trust is all that matters. If your partners or customers don’t trust you, then there is no way your company gets anywhere near being successful.

People value trust because they face it in daily life. We trust labels on food products, we trust our teachers that what they say is true, we trust our parents and spouses – everything is built on trust relationships today. While each and everyone understands this fundamental truth, very few business owners actually put any effort to building this trust within their business.

Your goal as a business owner is to understand that trust is tangible and manageable. It is in messages that your writers create, it’s in the quality of work that your employees do, it’s in the level of comfort that you provide for your workers. Trust is a resource, so use it properly to receive quantifiable and long-term financial benefits.

How to measure trust?

For most business people of modern era there are three main components of trust:

• Competence – Will you do what you tell you will? Your goal is to be reliable and transparent with your clients and partners.
• Experience – Do you keep the promise? Learn from the mistakes of others and avoid your own. Be responsive to your audience, contact it via public medias, make improvements.
• Values – Do you believe in what you do? If you don’t believe in your own company then how can anyone else trust you after all? You have to project confidence and take responsibility for what you do.

Why trust matters?

The question might sound rhetorical, but just imagine that your company lost market’s trust. What did you get? An absence of sales, cuts in the office, general dissatisfaction. This all demonstrates what trust actually means. Remember, publicity doesn’t care if you forgot to turn off the light in the office or didn’t donate a penny to kids in Africa – you will have a black mark on your reputation. After any negative event in the life of your company, getting the previous trust back will be unbelievable hard!

But we need to come closer to the point, why trust matters for you in a financial sense? First of all, customer loyalty is everything. Between 22% and 44% of customer’s loyalty is driven by a simple trust to your brand. According to statistics from business analytics, companies with high level of customer trust are twice as likely to experience financial benefits within a year.

Secondly, you have employees loyalty. The more your people trust you, the less work your legal department will have because no one would be interested in leaving. Remember that you can’t buy trust of your workers, but you can offer benefits, such as insurance, free gym classes, and even babysitting. Make your employees care and trust you to minimize turnover and exceed your revenue.

How to build trust?

The answer to this question deserves a full book to be written. Yet we’ll try to shorten all information to the main points.

• Behave trustworthily and  consistently;
• Listen to and hear your stakeholders;
• Be clear about company’s values.

The points above sound easy, right? But the idea is to implement and maintain them inside of your business. If you don’t know how, hire an expert, but do something. Don’t let matters take their course – control this process and improve it constantly. With proper supervision and control, your employees will relax and lose the fear of losing their jobs, your customers will remember that your services are the best and won’t even look anywhere else; and your partners will know that you are the person of actions, not words. These three components can earn you a fortune, so don’t miss a chance!