Today I want to talk about the importance of building trust with those you work with. Trust is that elusive quality that fundamentally impacts all aspects of our lives. It is easy to lose and difficult to gain but can be impacted by the power of small.
In his book The Speed of Trust, Stephen R. Covey describes the first wave of trust as self–trust. It is all about being credible and developing integrity, intent, capabilities and results that make you believable, both to yourself and others.
Building trust with yourself starts with the small things in life: doing what you say will do. For example, being on time to meet friends, not finding excuses for cancelling just because you don’t feel up to it, putting personal appointments in your diary and then making sure you keep them (e.g. going to the gym).
I know from my own experience how difficult it can sometimes be to keep those appointments with myself. It is so easy when the alarm goes off in the morning to find an excuse for not exercising today, or not getting up and writing my book. Over these last few months it has taken courage and determination for me to set aside time to start my running. Sure, there is always something else pressing to do, but I know that every time I fail to keep these commitments to myself I feel my self-esteem and self-confidence slipping away and I fail to inspire others to believe in me. They lose trust in me and
the net result is that my business suffers.
It is the small things we do that ultimately impact how people trust us. We might not realise it, but telling a white lie here and failing to keep an appointment there all impact our credibility. And if we are not credible then we are not trustworthy; people simply don’t believe that we will follow through on our actions. We lack integrity when we fail to keep our own standards, and when we fail to live up to our own standards our colleagues see no reason to meet them, either.
BUILDING TRUST WITH SMALL ACTION
Beaver Trees and Landscaping, a small company based in Christchurch New Zealand provides a perfect example of a company that has fully embraced the power of building trust by small actions. Given the nature of its business the company has many client appointments to quote for work.
So after hearing about the Power of Small from Paul Dunn of B1G1, the owner Bryce Robb implemented a policy of making all the appointments for quotations at unusual times, such as 10:25am. This was such a small change to the business but it had massive impact.
Firstly, customer’s surprise at the times of the appointments prompted them to be on time; they were then delighted when the Beaver Trees representative turned up on time. In fact, people are so surprised that they are often found waiting on their driveway for the representative. Now, of course, the Beaver Trees representative is always on time and just this simple act has built massive trust with prospective clients. The net result is that the company’s sales conversion rate has jumped to a massive 80% and they are not the cheapest game in town.
This proves the power of making a commitment and sticking to it. Furthermore, the company was recently judged to be the Best Company To Work For In the World with under 50 team members.
That’s the power of building trust by doing what you say you will do. That’s the power of small.
So what small action will you take today to start building trust with your team, stakeholders and customers? Let me know.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
