TRUST- How do you get there?

  TRUST is an important piece of your business

The road to referrals is built on integrity, strength, ability, surety and confidence. Simply put, it's built on TRUST. 

People will do business with and refer businesses that they know, like and trust. 

In Gold Star, we expand that to "Know, Like, Trust and Visibility." Let's face it, how many times has someone said to you, "Oh I forgot that's what you do?" So it's easy to say that visibility should be a critical part of your referral strategy to increase business. 

However, the MOST critical part of that formula is plain old TRUST.
We use businesses that we trust. Trust is when you believe that a business has your best interests at heart, that they wouldn't do anything to hurt you and that they wouldn't take advantage of you for selfish gain. 

As a business, you earn trust by consistantly proving and re-proving to your customers, clients and referral partners that their belief in you, your service, your product and your company is not misplaced. 

That trust is earned based on your actions. Words alone cannot build trust. In fact, just saying "trust me" will set off alarm bells for most people. There is no other way to earn people's trust other than with actions. Everything you do or don't do will either build trust or tear it down a notch. 

Like they say, "Actions speak louder than words."
When trust is broken, all referrals from that individual or company will stop. Once trust is violated, you may never be able to regain it. They might smile and act nice when they see you, but they may never do business with you again, much less refer someone that they care about to you. 

Regenerating trust is a looooong process and not an easy one. It doesn't matter if you are a small company or a billion dollar corporation, the only way to re-generate trust is the same way you earned it in the first place. You can re-earn trust through actions that demonstrate integrity, strength, ability, surety and confidence. 

Here are some actions steps toward building TRUST: 

Education: Tell your customers and your referral partners, in a sincere way, who you are and what you do. Educate them through one on one meetings. Help them to understand the whole story of who you are. 

3rd Party Credibility: Use videos on Youtube of customer testimonials as third-party credibility. Impress them with testimonial letters, videos, statements and online recommendations through LinkedIn and other social media sites. 

Show, Tell & Demonstrate: Find ways for people to see, feel and use your products and services through free trials, samples and demonstations. Let them experience your excellance first hand. 

Share Your Fame: Use various methods of sharing your moments of recognition. Do a PR piece on your company for the newspaper, post online pictures of the award you received and show off the skill of your employees. 

Tests, Surveys and Data: Run a taste test, get in front of a focus group, or send out a survey. Find ways to gather data and empower your company statements with exciting facts. 

Offer A Guarantee: Jump start your customer's confidence in you by offering a guarantee. What do they have to lose? 

A study of 12, 750 workers done by Watson Wyatt showed that organizations that had a high-trust factor had a total return to shareholders that was 286 percent higher than low-trust organizations. 

Few can argue that trust is a huge determining factor in your referral marketing strategy. Trust cannot be assumed. It must be earned over time. Take time today to review your business plan. Do you have actions in place that will generate and build trust? If not, make it a priority to do what you need to do so that people can learn to trust you and your company.