Richard Dennis

If someone has proof that you have heard them, then they know you have actually listened to them. Their trust for you increases dramatically, because most individuals don’t listen to them. Businesses? Fuhgeddaboutit!

But today’s technology allows you to do some pretty incredible things that PROVE you have been listening.

Do you know you can get personalized M&Ms? You could throw a party for a friend and serve M&Ms personalized with their photo. Might that make an impression on your friend? It might. And if they saw it as proof that you searched to find a unique way to honor their friendship, might you be more favorably inclined towards M&Ms? You might be. More trust.

You can custom design a lot more than T-shirts these days. Sneakers, for instance. Jewelry (BlueNile.com). Perfume (MyDNAFragrance.com). Postage stamps (Stamps.com). Everyone takes pride in being unique in certain ways. The more you can help them express that individuality, the stronger the relationship they’ll build with you … the more they will trust you.

You can go to crushpadwine.com and create your own wine. You won’t stomp the grapes, but you will select them, along with a choice of production processes, and, of course, the packaging.

There was a time when the cost of personalized products was prohibitive for most people. Not today. The technology has brought the cost way down. And you can create an effect worth way more than the expense.

Today, you can mix styles & colors to create your own Reeboks. Within the next few months, you’ll be able to put your own photo into the design. Sure, they will cost more. But what is the effect worth? To many people, that expression of individuality is worth many times the cost.

And if you can help others really send that message of indivuality that means so much to them, how will that translate in their trust for you, their loyalty for you?

Good questions to ponder, considering December 25th is only 4 weeks away.

I appreciate you!

Richard Dennis

Richard Dennis

Do you remember back in the day - maybe 15 years ago - when the coupon in a magazine ad would end with the following words:

Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery.

Can you imagine the threats of violence and - maybe - actual bloodshed, if you tried to take that long to deliver a product today? Technology has changed. Expectations have totally changed. Consumers expect delivery in seconds, or at worse, a day or two. Weeks or months is totally unacceptable. You’d lose all trust & goodwill with your market.

Stephen M.R. Covey titles his outstanding book, The Speed of Trust. Speed is in that title for a reason. For instance, the faster you produce a result, the more trust you’ll generate with your stakeholders. But that is only half the equation. The other half is your stakeholders.

Customers, vendors, prospects … they have technology now, too. They can move or change in a hurry.

Great recent example: Motrin ran an online ad that amazingly insulted mothers. In minutes, some mothers had shot & uploaded videos to Youtube, ridiculing the makers of Motrin and the product itself. The Motrin website was offline for a day while they changed their ad.

Remember when Clark Kent whirled his body and presto! Superman! That is what today’s technology allows anybody to do. We can react immediately and we expect immediate reaction from others, too.

In the Motrin example, a link to the first video got copied & pasted into blogs all over the internet. Can you say, “wildfire”?

To create & enhance trust, you need to react quickly, because that is the expectation these days. The faster you are, the more you grow the trust level. The slower you are … well … that’s obvious, isn’t it?

Take care,

Richard Dennis

Richard Dennis

In my opinion, your best strategy in becoming wildly successful at whatever it is you want to be successful at is … evaluate every facet of your dream in terms of “trust.”

For example:

“Does Step 5 create greater trust with my prospects? Can I tweak Step 5 to create MORE trust?”

Trust. Trust. Trust. Trust. Trust. If that is how you think about everything, you will never go wrong.

Steph Grenier recently wrote the book, “Blog Blazers: 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets”. One of the bloggers she interviewed is David Armano, who does the blog “Logic + Emotion”.

Before you read the interview, consider these questions and how they relate to trust.

• * What are 3 great tips for how to develop your ability to influence when you write?
• * How do you consistently reach out to more and more people?
• * What part do your opinions play in building trust?
• * What marketing creates the highest trust?
• * What is the #1 trust-killer for a blogger?

Now, read the whole interview through the prism of trust and note down the ideas you can use NOW in developing more trust in your business or personal life:

David Armano Interview

Hope you find this interview REALLY useful?

Richard Dennis

PS - Help me focus on what really makes a difference to YOU. Please click the “comments” link and tell us which idea in the interview you can use right now to make a big difference in your life.

Richard Dennis

I first ran into Guy Kawasaki probably 20 years ago. I rode a motorcycle, and Guy wrote a column for one of the motorcycle magazines … back before anybody had ever heard of the internet. Guy was a motorcycle techie, but he was also a writer who could create terrific word pictures. I really looked forward to his column every month.

Then one month he disappeared to go write about Apple computers. I missed him. And he’s morphed a few times since then. I run into him every now and then.

And today, management consultant Tom Peters has created a real treat for you … an interview with Guy Kawasaki about Guy’s new book, “Reality Check”. Guy doesn’t mention trust much … but his entire being gosh-darn-for-sure defines trust. I highly recommend this interview.

As always, read it from a “trust” viewpoint. From every sentence Guy speaks, what can you learn about creating trust with your personal or business stakeholders? I guarantee you will find a lot of lessons here:

Tom Peters Interviews Guy Kawasaki

Hope you enjoy it.

Richard Dennis

Richard

Some things, you just have to wonder about … Example:

The Federal Aviation Administration licenses pilots and approves new airplane design. When there is a crash, it’s investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. Obviously, to have the FAA investigate the planes & pilots they tested & licensed would be a conflict of interest, because they would have to investigate their own people & their own procedures. That’s why you have a completely separate group do the crash investigation.

However … the Food & Drug administration approves new drugs. In fact, by the Prescription Drug & User Fee Act of 1992, the FDA is actually legally paid by the drug companies to get faster approval of specific drugs. When there are serious adverse reactions to a drug, the FDA is also in charge of deciding whether or not to remove the drug from the market - a drug it originally claimed to have thoroughly tested, and which it approved. And the FDA handles the entire investigation of the case & the drug company involved … a company which is paying them for faster approval of its drugs.

Now … I don’t believe we need more government. But you know this is an example of a conflict of interest. I know it’s a conflict of interest. To have any confidence that life-threatening drug mistakes will be corrected, this system should have a “National Drug Safety Board”, totally unrelated to the FDA, which investigates adverse drug reactions … just as in the air transportation industry.

When you are talking to your spouse, or your kids, or a prospect or a customer … what conflicts of interest do you have?

• What is it you feel you have to hide from them?
• What topics do you steer away from?
• Which of your actions have you justified in your mind?
• Which “hot” questions have you really prepared for, so you can send the discussion in a safe direction?

Answering these questions will help you pinpoint your own conflicts of interest which could ultimately destroy the trust you may now have with your own “stakeholders.” Once you’ve spotted the conflicts, you’re in position to create tranparency. Revealing your own conflicts of interest is a great trust-builder, because you’re telling people that you believe they have the right to know the exact truth, and you’ll leave it up to their judgment whether or not to continue in a trust relationship with you.

That is a position of confidence which is very attractive.

Plus … since you’ve revealed the truth, you don’t have to try to remember what told them.

Take care,

Richard Dennis
Work With Me

Richard

Keep a notebook of your daily activities.

It’s not just what you do or what happens in your life. What’s important is that your visitors can see that you are actively working at building your dream … and you’re sharing the results with them. Keep notes of what worked and what didn’t work. Talk about it in your blog.

The more examples you give and the more stories you can tell, the more credibility you will have with your visitors. And the more they will trust you.

Example: yesterday, I went to visit one of my neighbors. Mike was an Air Force pilot in Vietnam, and he worked for the county government for many years before retiring not too long ago. He knows a LOT of people.

I need a meeting room for an evening business get-together in a few weeks. I could have just picked up the Yellow Pages and started dialing. Instead, I told Mike about it and asked who he would call. He gave me names & phone numbers of 4 people who he’s known for a long time, each of whom has a meeting room that might suit my needs. Believe me, when I drove over to Mike’s house, I never figured I’d get so much good information.

And then we talked for an hour, sharing a lot of thoughts & experiences. We discovered some strong connections between us. I gave him a copy of my book, “Evil Medicine.” (Mike is very interested in alternative health solutions.) I’ll keep Mike in the loop on my meeting, too, and which of his contacts I end up working with. Good chance Mike & I will eventually work together on something.

Points:

1. This story might inspire you to make a connection you would never have made otherwise.
2. People like to help out, if you ask them.
3. Mike and I seldom see each other, but today I have a lot more credibility with him than I did 24 hours ago. Who knows where that might lead?

So you can see several examples of increased trust from what I did yesterday. And if you set your goal each day to somehow create increased trust in one or more people, then over time, you will make contacts that help you achieve your dreams.

I appreciate you!

Richard Dennis

Richard

When I was a kid, we had a milkman. Heck … one of my uncles was a milkman.

A milkman came to your home 3 days a week and left the milk you had ordered on your front step. I haven’t seen a milkman in probably 40 years, but they used to be a standard part of the business scene.

Let’s say you wanted to offer a seminar to milkmen. A couple possible approaches:

1. You could run an ad in the daily newspaper with the date, time, & address of the seminar.

2. You could buy a list of milkmen in the local area and hire other milkmen to telemarket to them, tell them a bit about the seminar, its value to them, and why the best milkmen in town would get great benefit from this seminar.

Which approach do you think might create more trust in the milkman population?

OK. This article isn’t about milkmen, but it sure focuses on an effective way to create trust:

Effective Prospecting - The Red Velvet Rope Policy

I think you’ll find this article by Mark Slatin very useful even if you never drink milk.

Take care,

Richard Dennis
Work With Me

Richard

Many years ago I read - someplace - the idea that in business, you are always working with people in one of these four boxes:

1. People who know you and who know your product
2. People who know you but don’t know your product
3. People who know your product but don’t know you
4. People who don’t know you or your product.

The more time you spend in Box 4, the more you can be certain your business will die - probably soon.

The more time you spend in Box 1, the greater chance you have of creating a wildly profitable business.

These boxes are just another way of assessing trust in your business relationships. Obviously, the more time you spend in high-trust relationships, the better your results. And the more time you spend in zero-trust relationships, the worse your results.

So a big key is to move people out of Box 4 as quickly as you can. How? Give them something valuable. Give them information or training that they can turn into a profit, that makes them much more effective. Reveal techniques that work. The right people will be hyper-sensitive to the right offer from you.

It’s easy to do this from a blog, where most of your visitors will come from Box 4 - the box of death. If you immediately start helping them - with every post you write - you have a chance to move them up a box or two in a hurry.

And also, make sure they can’t misplace you. When they come, make them an offer they cannot refuse … offer them a hot, hot report with follow-up training, which allows you to stay in contact with them at least once a week. That way you can track them as you increase your trust level with them.

Be ready to answer their questions. And be quick to answer their questions and respond to their comments. Never slam a big red “BUY” button in front of their face, but on occasion, weave product references into your communication.

As they return to your community and become more involved, communicate with them more closely in a totally natural way. Email them. Get their phone number and call to talk with them about what they really want to see from your blog. What do they most want from their relationship with you? Ask them.

Go for deeper, deeper, deeper trust.

Never push them in any product direction. They know you are in business, but they feel 100% in control of that buying process with you. You and your customers & prospects will be operating in a high-trust environment, and nothing could serve you better long-term.

Richard Dennis

Richard

Many high-power advertisers have concluded over the years that blogs are worthless in terms of income. They’re probably right about the direct correlation. But what does that mean?

It means you can’t sell a product from a blog. That seems pretty obvious, given that blogging is one facet of social networking. People do not expect to be sold when they come to a blog, and the vast majority won’t stand for it.

However …

• If you use your blog to effectively build trust with potential customers, then it will definitely increase your bottom line. Consumers are a pretty darned skeptical group these days. If they’ve just found you by a web search, their confidence in you is probably non-existent.
• But if they start on your blog and find you to be open and informative, someone dedicated to educating their market, who won’t keep secrets from their prospects, then the game changes.
• If your blog gives them value and they begin to see you as an expert in the niche, someone who gives away valuable tips & information, then their thinking changes. They start to trust you, because we all dream of doing business with the expert in our niche.
• If you (or your blogger) is really good at relating to people and drawing them into discussion, then a community of people who like & trust you begins to build … and that is very attractive to newcomers.
• If you take the reader into your confidence and reveal your ideas & plans for the future … and ask for their suggestions & feedback … then they see that you are extending trust to them. That brings them to feeling increased trust for you.
• If you really cultivate your blog and share great tips & ideas and give good value and interact with your visitors and value their input and create a growing community, your blog will gain more favor with the search engines. And as your blog moves up the search engine listings in your niche, searchers start coming to your page with greater trust already built-in.

And as your community grows, many of your fans will link to you in their blogs or websites dedicated to your niche. That recommendation again increases the trust felt by new visitors … and certainly increases the speed of a new visitor converting to a new customer.

Do blogs correlate to income? Absolutely.

Take care,

Richard Dennis

Richard

You could be working with your closest lifelong friend in a business, someone you’ve loved for years and years. But if they don’t get the results you expect, you will lose faith in them. You’ll lose trust.

On the other hand, you can be thrown together with a total stranger. And if that person gets the results you’re looking for - quickly and repetitively - your trust for them will skyrocket. That person may be Jack the Ripper, but if your first experience with them is, they get results, then you will trust their competence. Over time, the character flaws will diminish your trust in that person. But still … their extreme positive performance goes a long way in a hurry. Results are a BIG fast trust-builder.

It’s become a bit trite over the last 20 years or so, but there is a phrase that really says it all: “Underpromise and overdeliver.”

Don’t bother talking the talk. Just walk the walk.

I once worked with a guy who was outstanding at what he did. He got good results, and he got them quickly. But even so, he always underdelivered. How could that possibly be? Because he overpromised. He hyped so hard, boasting of the incredible results he’d get, that he couldn’t possibly live up to his own words.

No matter how productive you are, when you consistently promise results that don’t happen, you lose credibility. You lose trust.

Think about the people in your business life and in your personal life who deliver on their promises. Compare them to those who don’t. For all of us, we’re much more likely to extend trust to those who have delivered results in the past.

One of Dr. Phil’s favorite sayings is, “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.” Can people change and improve? Sure. But mostly, they don’t. Mostly, they make the same mistakes over and over.

When you get the results people want, you get more support from both above and below. You get more flexibility, more leeway to do things your way.

I once interviewed a couple people who owned a nutritional products company. Using the information I got from them, I wrote a mailing piece. I selected a mailing list I thought might get good results. We put out a 5000-piece test mailing within a couple weeks of having met these partners.

They didn’t know me. They didn’t know what to expect. I’d had some good results in the past, but not for them, so there wasn’t much basis for trust.

About 4 days after the test went in the mail, I got a phone call from one of the owners. She said, “Well, obviously you know what you’re doing.”

They were deluged with credit card orders. Trust went from 0 to 100 in a heartbeat.

It’s crucial that you and the other person or parties have complete understanding & agreement on the details - exactly what results are expected. If they expect apples and you deliver 2 tons of oranges, that is not what they wanted.

Might look like great production to you - but it’s not what they wanted. So your performance was great, and yet, you killed trust. That’s why it’s critical to be 100% clear in what results are wanted. Be certain of the time frame and the budget, and when the results start coming in, verify that they are getting what they want.

Resist any urge to hype. Be open and transparent and optimistic, but do not hype.

Hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky once said he skates to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been. The better you get at prediction in the model you are working in, the better your results will be.

It’s important to establish a track record of results. That track record will get you trust more quickly. Be on time and within budget. And if it goes wrong, don’t make excuses.

Getting it right is your responsibility.

I appreciate you!

Richard Dennis