Trust

I read yesterday that Kobe Bryant asked to be traded from the Lakers (that’s pro basketball for you non-sports fans). Faulting the team management, the star player indicated that nothing could make him change his mind.

It occurred to me immediately that he had lost all of his trust in the Lakers’ head office, a fact he confirmed later in the article.

Hours later, Bryant recanted and said he wanted to stay with Los Angeles throughout his career, apparently because Coach Phil Jackson got to him and regained his trust.

The fact is, both Jackson and the Lakers’ business people are going to be in a bad spot if they lose one of the best players in the game.

Do you ever lose business or jobs to your competition more than you’d like?

There’s an old marketing maxim that people buy from people they know, trust, and like. And it’s true. Those three elements make up the basis for any business relationship. All three are important, but for my money, it’s the trust part that’s indispensable.

Look at eBay: when you go to buy something, don’t you always check the feedback rating for the seller? I do, and if it’s below about 98.5% positive, I’ll go to the next seller with the same item. If it’s a unique item, I email the seller to find out if I can trust them.

Likewise, buyers have ratings based on how quickly they pay, if they pay, etc. The whole system is based on trust, and without it, eBay would be dead in the water.

“So what,” you say? You already know it’s a good thing to be trustworthy, and you probably already are most of the time.

Well, here are a couple of things to keep in mind, particularly when dealing with your prospective clients and customers:

1. Acting trustworthy and being trustworthy are two different things. The former involves you focusing on making sure others know they can trust you. The latter demands that you live with integrity, and as a result people automatically trust you.

When you act trustworthy, what those around you see is a person who’s trying to act trustworthy rather than just trusting you without thinking about it.

It’s sort of like good acting: when a performance is pretty good, you say, “that’s a good actor.” But when a performance is great, you forget the actor and lose yourself in the story.

2. Being trustworthy and being perceived as trustworthy are two different things. You may know in your heart that in your relationships—business and otherwise—people can trust you, but if they don’t know it, it’s going to be impossible to attract new business and keep what you have.

Of course, the best way to be perceived as trustworthy is to live with integrity. Here are a few things you can do to create trust.

• Be honest. As Mark Twain said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything."

• Follow through on your commitments. Nothing surprises people like doing what you say you’ll do.

• Underpromise and overdeliver. Clients and customers (and friends and family members) are knocked out by this.

• Take responsibility. When you screw up, say so, apologize, and move on. People can respect honesty, but they can’t respect weaseling out.

• Ask the deeper/harder questions. Asking someone to go below the surface with you is intensely intimate and creates immediate trust.

• Keep a positive attitude. People want to be around those who are up, lively, and happy, all things that engender trust.

Maybe you’re thinking, “I already do all those things.”

Well, here’s a two-day experiment to see how well you build trust.

Day 1. Monitor how many lies you tell. This ranges from social conventions such as, “that’s a nice tie,” bigger lies that have you covering your tracks. Don’t keep a written tally, but make a mental note each time you do.

Day 2. Challenge yourself to tell the truth all day. Be aware of the temptation to tell a lie, and yet find the courage to either shut your mouth, or tell the painful truth.

At the end of the day, take stock of the reactions of those around you. Notice also when you surprised yourself. Most of all, be aware of how you feel about your actions.

Finally, the most important point: being trustworthy is great for increasing business and getting more work, but those things are small compared to how you’ll feel about yourself. If you can fully trust yourself, anything is possible for your life.

Until next month, here’s to a life of integrity.