The question is 'Can I trust you?'

I was quite young at that time. I am talking about the early 2000s. After my graduation, I got selected in a competitive exam of a state government and joined one of India's best Road Transport Corporation as Depot Manager. The role of a Depot Manager was to manage the public bus service efficiently by managing different departments and more than 600 employees. I still remember the first few months of excitement and the journey of learning.

The first challenge I found after joining the work was 'Trust'. I felt a deep mistrust between officers and personnel reporting to them. This may be because of the culture and legacy of the government organization.

It was more like the 'us' versus 'them' attitude on both sides. (Management and Drivers/Conductors/Mechanics). Building trust among employees took a lot of time for me since I was inexperienced and young. To date, I am happy to mention here that employees started believing me after a year of consistent efforts.

In one word, I can say that 'empathy' really helped me build that trust and helped a lot in my future career.

I always talk to the cab drivers whenever I travel using 'Taxi aggregator apps'. In India, one can feel a deep mistrust between the 'company' and the drivers.

I have not found much difference between a corporate entity and a government entity.

Throughout my career, I have seen this question of "Can I trust you?" in so many contexts. It may be in sales conversations; it may be in interviews; it may be between two employees. Since I have more experience in Sales and Marketing, let me give examples from the context of sales.

1) Whenever I start talking more dramatically with the customers using jargon, without insights about the domain, and start beating around the bush, the question raised in the mind of the customer is "Hey, you do not seem to be authentic'. Are you for real? Can I trust you?"

Here, trust is about authenticity, it about the real you.

2) When the customer asks me about ROI and when I try to explain the complex issues with hypothetical examples and imaginary numbers, with a lot of confusion, the question raised by the customer is "Hey, you do not seem to be logical, your reasoning seems to be confusing and how can I trust you?."

Here, trust is about logic, it is about reasoning.

3) Whenever, I start looking at the phone during the customer meeting, I am conveying the message that ' I do not care about you". When I do not listen to the customer and starts talking about the features and benefits of the product, the question raised in the minds of the customer is "Hey, you are not bothered about me and do not care about me. How Can I trust you?"

Here the question of trust is about 'Care and Empathy'.

As I mentioned, the question of trust is not only between the customer and the seller. These questions of trust are raised in the minds of people in every situation in the corporate context.

What can we do about this?

1) Awareness and mindfulness.

No. I am not advocating any self-improvement content or course. In busy work, we forget to see patterns (positive or negative) in our behavior.

Let us take the example of B2B sales. If we are not converting prospects to clients even after tons of free trials/demos, even after a series of meetings, then there is a trust deficit. To identify where we are going wrong in establishing that trust, we need to sit back and study the patterns.

Being aware of our conversations and our behavior is of utmost importance. Nowadays, I observe that employees start looking at mobile phones when their colleague is presenting something in the meeting. Nonverbal communication conveys a lot and it is very necessary to observe these things carefully.

2) Feedback

In the initial days of my career, I thought presenting confidently meant, explaining in detail. I was not aware that this was my weakness and always thought that explaining to a granular level was my strength and I was proud of it.

One day, one of my colleagues jokingly said that the customer really fainted after my detailed explanation. This opened my eyes and I prioritized listening and started more tailor-made conversations.

A constructive feedback mechanism is a must in building trust with our colleagues and with our customers.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you agree or disagree? Look forward to your comments.