Your customers will trust you when your actions are grounded in respect, mutual collaboration and caring about their long-term business interests. Following these golden relationship rules will foster trust-based relationships:
- Transparency. Honest dialogue and being open. Never lie, stretch the truth or state facts and circumstances you cannot substantiate.
- Commonality. Sharing common interests, experiences or views of the world is the fuel that creates a positive discussion. What hobbies, children, sports interests, educational endeavors or world events can you discuss to create the type of interaction that brings you closer together and fosters a common bond? The more similarities we share with someone, the easier it is for us to trust them.
- Respect. Understanding and valuing the uniqueness of another person who has different opinions and ideas than you is one of the highest orders of respect you can share with another person.
- Caring. Caring is a purposeful act, demonstrated by communicating a willingness to learn about what success means to the customer on both a professional and personal level. It is demonstrated through nonverbal behavior — how we listen, our facial expressions, nodding of the head, leaning forward to show interest and eye contact. Caring adds an emotional context to the process.
- Credibility. Credibility is demonstrating competence, fairness and integrity. You demonstrate credibility by sharing lessons learned and best practices gleamed from other experiences.
- Reliability. Reliability is consistently doing what you say you will do and never making promises you have no intention of keeping. Actions speak louder than words.
Mark Hordes serves as vice president, Organizational Performance Improvement & Change for Molten-Group Americas.
For more information, contact Mark Hordes at mark.hordes@molten-group.com or (713) 416-1781 or visit www.molten-group.com.
