By the Ocean
Cloudy 77 Degrees
5:10 a.m.
They have to trust you.
These days, trust has been so badly abused that reasons NOT to trust you are the first thing they look for.
They’re scared already and they need the facts to back up the feeling. So their mind goes looking for them so they can move on to someone else.
I’ve been sending these messages for about 14 years now. Every day I show up. That means a lot to the people who have been around for awhile. Can you think of anyone else in your life who has shown up like that? It’s a big deal these days. Just tiny little emails like this. But that means nothing if this is your first message from me. There’s no trust yet.
Trust isn’t something you rush. You allow it to grow. You nurture it. You care for it.
Would you yell at an apple tree because it’s not growing fast enough?
But we do that with business all the time. “Go faster you silly thing! Go already! What’s wrong with you?”
It USED to be that “social proof” was a huge boost to trust. You could put up 40 testimonials and people would believe them.
Not these days. Because lots of people are so insecure that they started fabricating stuff like this. Imagine needing someone to like you that badly. That’s what we’re dealing with. Lots of fear. Lots of fake. Lots of weak people who have no understanding about who they are.
I ran a test a few years ago with a client. The ad spend (print ads in magazines) was probably about $15-$20K for each test. The ad that had NO SOCIAL PROOF, no testimonials, out-pulled the one that had testimonials.
That shouldn’t happen, but it did. Why? Making up stories about results is the easiest thing in the world to do in business so I won’t insult your intelligence by crafting one now. But I have a hunch. And that hunch is that, when it looks like you’re trying too hard to convince, people don’t believe.
Don’t try, just DO. Don’t try to get trust, do things that make you worthy of it.
If you can build a large social media following, that might mean something about trust…unless you know the truth about attention. The Matrix tricked entire GENERATIONS into believing attention itself was the goal.
This is why there is (fake) status in the answer to the question: “How many followers do you have?”
Attention is not the goal. I don’t want attention. I want powerful and authentic humans who want to achieve something real. And a lot of those people don’t have time to waste trying to look cool for other people so they can feel important instead of lost.
So where does that leave you? If are building a successful business and you want a strategy that works?
You start serving first. That’s how you build trust. You make (small) promises and you keep them. And you do it over and over again. Not only does this promise-keeping build a body of work, it also clarifies your thinking, allows you to optimize the way you show up for the world, and gives you unlimited chances to connect with the people you want to help.
This is what a media platform is for. It’s not flashy, there’s no hype, it’s not a tactic that’s going to go out of style. It is extremely strategic. You don’t just go out and do anything. You think through this because you’re building a system that will provide an enormous amount of leverage to your business if you do it right. Your media platform is custom-designed only for you and the people you want to serve.
SERVICE is my big “secret” to success in business. You start serving and you don’t stop. You might change how it works, you might change your focus, you might change the wrapping paper you put on the package, you might totally reinvent yourself, but the core desire doesn’t change. It remains a constant that people can feel:
EVERY TIME YOU SHOW UP, YOU LEAVE SOMEONE BETTER OFF.
That is how you build trust. It’s about how you make them feel on a longterm basis.
This might sound like the bar is getting higher. Like you have to work even harder than ever to become a success.
The bar is not getting higher, the opportunity is getting bigger for smart people who have what it takes to succeed.
And what is that?
A reason for being alive and a passion for helping people in a certain way.
Yes, you can get rich being a jerk, screwing people over, looking out for yourself. But no one wants to be around a guy like that, so I wouldn’t recommend that path. Plus, that road is crowded!
How can you build trust with those you can help?
That’s the question to start with, the rest you figure out as you go.