Do You Trust Me!

Join us as we define the trust problem in business. Then we share 2 keywords for building and maintaining trust in you and your business.

Do You trust me Podcast episode

Quotable of the Week

“This world of ours… must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

We wonder what he would say today if he were president.

Highlights from the Trust Episode

Musings About Trust

Trust is a fickle thing, especially in business.

As we’ve personally experienced and heard from many other independent business people, trust is very, very hard to build but can easily be destroyed in a heartbeat. This doesn’t seem to be true as much for big business. Just think of how many people still go to Starbucks or have an account with Wells Fargo. Big businesses just have to say they are changing, close for an afternoon of training, nixing an outdated practice, or whatever. They can recover easily.

Yet, I’m reminded of a cafe on the east coast who had to close because the owner’s daughter posted something wrong on social media. It wasn’t even the owner. It was the owner’s daughter. Yet, their business went down the tank because the town started boycotting.

Now, I’m not saying that the town shouldn’t be mad. I’m just calling out the bias people have.

Most people can have the same experience at a chain store and at a locally-owned store but react totally differently. We saw it time and again in the coffee business. I’ve heard the same from other business owners.

In fact, I heard one Ace hardware owner talk about this once. In case you’re not familiar, Ace is a retailer co-operative, meaning each store is independently owned and operated. This owner talked about how customers would come to her store because their customer service is better than Home Depot’s. Yet, if they screwed up even once and even just a little bit with their service, they’d lose their once-loyal customers to Home Depot. It doesn’t make sense to me. This was her experience though and it was mine too while owning and operating a coffee shop.

Fast forward to now, being in the financial sector, and the trust issues we are coming across today. Even just mentioning the word “financial” seems to break trust immediately.

And for good reason. There’s a lot NOT to trust about the financial industry in the United States of America. Remember, a decade ago, we had to bailout a good majority of the sector because of some poor decisions. Perhaps it’s better to call this the United States of Amnesia though since so many seem to forget.

People won’t even allow us to get to the point where we’re able to share that we work to get their money out of Wall Street and give them control of their financial future.

It’s already been a journey to figure out how to build trust — not just in us but also in our new business venture. Good thing we learned a lot about building trust previously.

How to Build and Maintain Trust

How can you (the independent business owner, the personal brand, the solopreneur, the activist) build and maintain trust in you and your business?

1. Authenticity. Be real. It’s become a cliche but it’s so true. Share your why. Be the same person all the time.
2. Consistency = Discipline + Perseverance

Easier said than done. Be sure to listen to the episode to get our full details on these two trust factors.

Additional Notes

Check out the Social Entrepreneur Podcast with Nathan A. Webster.

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It can be helpful to get a really clear picture of your personal and business financial situation in order to make decisions about how to run your business. We’d love to offer you a complementary financial analysis that will help you build your plan around your unique financial goals and concerns.

We’ll take you through the exact process we went through almost 5 years ago. This process transformed our financial future from an uncertain one to a future about which we feel super confident. We’d love to share the experience with you. To get started, visit businessactivistentrepreneur.com/firststep or text BAEFinancial to 44222.

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