Trust in the truth

I usually leave it pretty open as to what I am going to write about in my weekly blog.  I prefer to be current, go with the flow and be open.

As I tossed around what I could write … it became clear that the global focus of this week is one of trust.  Between what is happening down south and who to believe, and the recent election in the UK – it seems to me that much of our challenge today is building trust, keeping it and not betraying it.

Who do you believe is working in the best interests of your country? Who do you think is putting the everyday person first, or does everyone have their own agenda, one that does not include you? How do you know what is true or what is all smoke and mirrors?

As a small business owner, there are some crucial lessons to be learned from the global political arena.  First as you work with your clients and potential customers, it is vital that you build their trust.

Because as is often said, people do business with people that they like and trust. So how do you build that trust?

1.              You are authentic in your dealings with people.

2.              You listen.

3.              You provide what people say they need, not necessarily what you want to provide. In other words, you focus on their agenda, not your own.

4.              You deliver what you say you will deliver. On time. On price.

5.              You are honest about what you can and can’t do.

6.              You care and show your client that you are interested in them as people, not as part of your money train.

Bottom line – you drop your agenda because inevitably it does become a win-win for all.

Another lesson - do not underestimate the power of young people.  As we saw in the UK, when you listen, respect and involve millennials, they will support you.  Ignore them at your own peril.  They are our future. Pay attention.

We live in complicated times. Times when it becomes harder to determine what is truth and what is not.  What we can do as individuals and as business owners is be true to ourselves.  

Because when we do that, we can sleep at night, knowing we have done our best, we’ve stuck to our values and believe that at the end of day, people will trust in what we say and do.

Users are losers

I always enter into a new business relationship thinking about what I can do to help someone achieve their goals, and if they dovetail with mine, even better.

But sadly I am learning that not everyone thinks this way.  Oh they may at first appear to be looking out for your best interests, but they can’t keep it up.  In the end their ulterior motives raise its ugly head, colouring and often damaging the working relationship.

Take the situation of a good friend of mine.  She has a supplier with whom she has had to detail every aspect of their working arrangement, otherwise they would twist it around to suit them best.  No win-win situation here.

Customer service is just not part of their vocabulary.  As far as they are concerned, there seems to be little pride in doing a good job, or let alone an outstanding one.  But like most rotten apples, they got caught out. 

A couple of the packages they mailed out have come back to haunt them, totally damaged because they took short cuts.  In studying the photos from the unhappy customers, my friend finds that these suppliers were not using, yet still charging for, the required packaging and instead were using free material which was inadequate for the task.

To me this flags two issues – they clearly don’t care and they have no ethics.  Their actions are totally dishonest in that they have been charging for a service they are not providing, and they know that they are not providing it. Now we are not talking about a lot of money, but their behaviour causes you to question their values, their moral compass and trust is gone.

The outcome?   They’ve lost the business.  So their attempts to squeeze more money out of their clients has somewhat backfired, because now they are not getting anything.  The gravy train has stopped. My friend is pulling the plug.

And let’s face it, once you have lost trust and there’s no shared philosophy on customer service, honesty and good old-fashioned ethics, you have nothing.  It’s done. It’s toast.

What continues to shock me, is how people can blatantly rip off others, without much conscious.  Another world I guess.  But at the end of the day, in my view, users are just losers, and it will catch up with them.

Personally, I prefer to take the high road.