“If people like you they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you” – Zig Ziglar

Isn’t that so true?

We typically like to buy to sell to people we trust, whether it’s the local baniya or even the local parlour or the brand of atta we buy for our home.

One of the biggest challenges for most entrepreneurs and businesses is building trust with customers. After all, when you think about it, isn’t trust the foundation of all relationships?

How trustworthy are you? And how can you build trust?

There are many books written on the subject, many Ted talks, many wise words.

I found David Maister’s book “The Trusted Advisor” the most interesting. He has even come up with a Trust equation which essentially use 4 variables to measure trust and here they are.

Essentially you might say this about a person and that would be their measure of these variables

Credibility – “I can trust what she says about intellectual property; she’s very credible on the subject.” Reliability – “If he says he’ll deliver the product tomorrow, I trust him, because he’s dependable.”

Intimacy – “I can trust her with that information; she’s never violated my confidentiality before, and she would never embarrass me.”

Self-Orientation- “I can’t trust him on this deal — I don’t think he cares enough about me, he’s focused on what he gets out of it.”

So how trustworthy are you? Well, to find out, you can take a Trust Quotient assessment here https://trustsuite.trustedadvisor.com/. it even helps you figure out how to be more trustworthy.

And here’s a short video on the Trust Equation.https://youtu.be/XEB0qIy0XVc