I’ve always been fascinated by trust in business and learned early on that many people in business don’t do it very well. About as vague a noun as you can get, business is just a catch-all term for the many ways people go about exchanging what they have or can do for things they need to have or wish to get done.
The key to a thriving business, of course, is figuring out how to do that well enough to generate a reliable source of income.
That revelation about trust in business came when I was working at my parent’s Petrol Station and automobile garage. I was tasked with greeting customers as they came in, writing down the car trouble they were having or the maintenance they required, and passing those requirements to the chief mechanic, who was also the service manager.
He would meet with or call each customer with an estimate once he knew what was needed. A gifted technician whose work was impeccable, the service manager had deep knowledge, high standards, and an almost unbearable personality.
His routine with customers went like this.
- Look at the requirements.
- Inspect the car.
- Give an estimate.
- Refuse to explain.
- Refuse to negotiate.
- Suggest they go elsewhere.
The owner- my parent, was a gentler soul but seemed unconcerned that her service manager was letting customers know they were stupid, a habit that frequently drove them to the competition; at the very least, it would induce them to authorize only a minimum amount of work.
With the Manager being so busy, I was asked to take the extra step of explaining the estimates to the car owners. I put down my broom and jumped on the phone. With my mum over my shoulder, I made about a dozen calls that day, and my routine was this.
- Introduce myself.
- Tell them how many repairs were recommended.
- Explain why each was needed.
- Tell them the possible maximum cost of each step, erring on the high side.
- Acknowledge that the total was expensive, even if necessary.
- Invite them to choose only some of the repairs if cost was an issue.
- Tell them that if we found something undetected and expensive I would call them back to have them authorize any extra cost.
What happened that day amazed both me and my mum. In almost every case, when invited to choose which of the services to authorize, the customers said, “Do them all. I trust you.” Even when I promised to call them back if we found something else wrong, they most often said, “Just go ahead. I trust you.” They didn’t trust me, of course. I was just a ten-year-old kid.
But they did trust the business because of what I had said. I didn’t have any detailed insight then into why they had chosen to trust the estimate, but having heard the word trust so often that day, I couldn’t help but conclude that business must depend on it.
For years I taught trust and my clients called it a soft skill. Deep down my heart I knew it wasn’t soft. My conviction hinged on something Stephen M.R. Covey had written about trust in business, as I fancied it applied to trust in every realm. He penned his insights in his 2006 book- The Speed of Trust. The shared formula is
trust —> lower cost + faster speed
Meaning, the more trustworthy your business is considered by its customers, the cheaper and faster you can do business. So trust, he contends, leads to increased profit. To me, Covey’s most helpful insight comes after that, as he describes the four building blocks of trust.
The first two are the integrity and intent of the person representing the business at any given time. If that person appeals to the customer as honest (integrity), and seems to truly want to help meet that customer’s expressed need (intent), those two blocks are now in place.
The third and fourth blocks relate to the performance of the business itself. If customers believe your company can live up to its promises (capacity), then trust grows deeper, whether you’ve been asked to source certain materials on their behalf, build particular products for them, deliver their packages on time, or shovel the snow off their driveways after each storm.
Lastly, if your company’s track record is solid (results), they have empirical proof that supports their instinct to trust you.
Those are the four buildings blocks at a glance. The last two, related as they are to corporate performance, are pretty easy for a customer to verify.
Before ordering anything from a small local business, prospective customers can ask around about the company’s reputation, find articles about them online, call UNBS, or, if still unsure, google that company’s name with the word review, or, when suspicious, with the word fraud, scam, or complaint just to see what comes back.
In large public companies, there are myriad ways to verify a company’s claims; most countries have securities commissions that set stringent requirements for frequent, detailed, and honest reporting of a corporation’s plans, affiliations, results, returns on investment, and the like. So whether a business is small or large, it’s not hard to learn about its capacity and results.
The first two are tougher to establish and are subjective but still matter.
People do business with people they trust. This is my life lesson in business.
