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

Richard

When you work or live with someone with a huge ego, how uncomfortable do you get?

They have to be the focal point. They have to be the one talking. Their ideas have to be the ones advanced. Isn’t it amusing to sometimes hear one talk about their great humility? Pretty funny, coming from a person who wouldn’t know humble if it bit them.

A leader with a huge ego to feed is a problem. And the problem is trust. When everything is about them, where is your trust level?

When they write, they refer to themselves in the 3rd person. You can actually hear them looking at themselves in awe. You wonder how can they possibly be serious?

But they are.

Getting the credit is crucial to the big ego. And that’s a real trust-killer with their group or team, because everyone wants to be recognized for what they have done.

But that leader with the big ego takes credit for what they do, and they take credit for what you do. The biggest of egos even seem to take credit for the fact that you exist; they are the only reason you are in a position to achieve anything.

Here’s the thing. If you are a leader, and your team achieves results, you will get plenty of credit. The smart leader gives out credit endlessly to those who have actually done the work … even to those who have made just a small contribution. If anything, they defer to their team, even when the credit really does go to them.

There’s an old line that you can achieve anything if you don’t care who gets the credit. That should be the mantra of a leader. When the leader focuses on getting the credit, how does that make you feel? How does that affect your trust level for that person? How does that affect the camaraderie and achievement level of the team?

Obvious, isn’t it?

Richard Dennis

Richard

Anytime you are working on any project with another person, nothing is more critical - and nothing is more overlooked - than clarifying expectations.

You think, “We talked about this. They know what I think.”

Maybe. Maybe not.

Did you email them a summary of your understanding of your mutual commitments after you talked, for them to confirm or adjust?

If not, chances are excellent that what you think is not identical to what they think. Words mean different things to different people. Sometimes some parts of what is said don’t get heard. Meanings get altered.

When I’m working with (especially) a new rep, I like to go over my notes from the section on “Clarifying Expectations” in Stephen M.R. Covey’s book, “The Speed of Trust.”

It’s a trust-building experience to simply get agreement with your project partner about

1. The need to make mutual commitments about the results you each want, who will get which result, the schedule, the cost, how you’ll measure results, how you’ll know when objectives have been achieved.
2. The need for each of you to completely agree on each of those commitments.
3. The process the two of you will use to ensure that you share and continue to share an identical vision.
4. How you will each account to the other regarding the commitments you are responsible for.

The more you each feel that the two of you are operating as a well-trained & devoted team, the deeper the trust you will have for each other.

Your job - no matter which side you are on - is to raise the trust to the highest level possible and then be vigilant in maintaining that level.

If you focus on and devote yourself to that goal - creating a high level of trust which each person you deal with - then you will be setting the right example and actually training your people to be the most effective leaders they can be.

I appreciate you!

Richard Dennis

You’re communicating with me, somehow, someway. There’s a reason for it. You know it, and I know it. It’s the first time. You’ve never spoken to me before.

I don’t know you. I don’t trust you. I have no comfort level built up with you.

There is an elephant in the room.

You have some agenda, and I don’t know what it is. It’s obvious you are in some way serving your own self-interest by talking to me. Otherwise, you would not have approached me. Right?

You’d better quickly show me how you are also serving MY self-interest, or I won’t listen long.

I’ve heard people say that the key to building a relationship from scratch is to go in with no agenda. But that is Pollyanna BS. If you approach me, I KNOW you have an agenda. Saying otherwise ruins your chance of gaining credibility with me.

The only way you can gain my trust long enough for me to listen to you is to give me a quick, logical, believable explanation of how our conversation will be a “win” for me, as well as for you.

And then give me the choice whether I want to continue the conversation or not. When you give me that choice, I see that you are different from everyone else. My trust in you increases. I see that you have confidence in yourself, and you’re not trying to force yourself on me.

You really only want to talk with someone who wants to listen to you. That is attractive. You’re not going to try to bully me into buying something. That is a relief. You’re not going to unleash hundreds of words without giving me a chance to respond. More relief.

So put your agenda totally out in the open. It’s got to be logical. It has to make sense to me. And it has to be apparent that it’s a win for me AND for you. If all I can see is the win for me … that’s not good enough. I know you’re not telling me everything. I know you are hiding something. You wouldn’t have started this conversation if this wasn’t a win for you. So tell me what it is. Tell me why. You need to explain all that to me, so I can evaluate whether I want to participate.

You need to get very good at quickly disclosing your relationships, your interests, and any conflicts you have. Make a point of every detail being strictly out in the open.

You can do this disclosure in layers. After each layer, give the person the option to continue or not.

In any conversation with a new person, you ALWAYS start in a low-trust situation. And when trust is low, people do not trust what they can’t see. So you have to show them. You’ve got to reveal. They need to understand and be able to picture your agenda.

Describe the person you are looking for. Tell them you are looking for a very particular person, someone with certain values, someone you can trust. “You answered my ad. I’m looking for a mate I can trust and eventually fall in love with. If you’d like to hear about my background, I’d be happy to tell you. But ultimately, it depends on what you and I think about each other. Can you trust me? Can I trust you? Without trust, there’s no future for you and me. What do you think?”

Be transparent with your goals. When you’re confusing, or you can’t give a satisfactory answer, that generally indicates to the person you’re talking to that you have a hidden agenda.

If you aren’t being transparent, that begs the question, “Why are you withholding information?” And the answer is probably that if you told the truth, they’d see it’s all in your favor, not in theirs.

So the principle is, do 100% full disclosure as quickly as possible. If necessary, structure it in layers and allow the person the chance to opt out of the conversation at any time. This is how you quickly build trust with a new person.

I appreciate you!

Richard Dennis