4 Key Elements to Building Trust

Those of us who expect to be successful in marketing our products and services on the internet need to be consistent in adhering to the 4 Key Elements to Building Trust with our target audience. Actually, these four elements to building trust are critical for any relationship.

Think for a minute about those you trust. What qualities do they have that make them trustworthy?

My dad was someone people trusted.His ability to build trust in a relationship was probably one of his greatest assets.He was dependable. He kept his promises. Except for the fact that he had the typing skills of a duck, he would have made a great internet marketer.

When I worked as a financial advisor, I had a mentor by the name of Charles Greene who wrote a book called, The Trusted Advisor in which he describes the formula I share with you today:

When you break the formula down, the 4 key elements to building trust are:

Credibility

Credibility is about our words—what we say and how we say it. We are said to be credible when our words are believable and can be backed up with experience, expertise or outside authority.

The more you research and write about a subject, the more credibility you build with the visitors to your website. Building credibility is why you need to keep adding high-quality content to your website. Visitors to your site must see you as an expert in your niche.

Reliability

Reliability is established when our actions match our words. People are said to be reliable when they can be depended upon to keep their word. If you say you are going to call someone back by the end of the day and you don’t follow through, you are sending a signal to that person that you are not reliable.

Good intentions don’t count. Actions speak louder than words.

Intimacy

Intimacy in the Trust Equation occurs when 1) you know intimate details about someone and 2) they know you will not violate their trust.

Your website’s Privacy Policy is a crucial element in building trust with visitors who come to your site.They need to be assured that you will not share their contact information and that you will not keep hounding them with endless offers.

Self-orientation

Having worked with credentialed financial advisers I can say that self-orientation or “having a big ego” is one of the biggest deterrents to building trust in any relationship. Self-orientation is determined by where you place your focus. Customers can sense it when your focus is more on yourself than it is on them. They know when you care about them and whether or not you are willing to go the extra mile for them.

From observation, online businesses that are all about displaying the accolades of the owner don’t fare as well as those who keep their focus on the needs of their target audience.

Building trust boils down into being transparent and honest, being authentic and sincere, focusing more on the client than you do yourself and the integrity of doing what is right for the long haul in lieu of the short-term gain you might realize.

It’s Always About People

Notice Self-orientation sits alone in the denominator of the Trust Equation. From my perspective, it is the most important variable in the Trust Equation. An online business marketer with low self-orientation is free to completely and honestly focus on the customer — not for his/her own sake, but for the sake of the customer. Such a focus is rare among people. It’s especially rare in internet marketing sales people.

As my favorite salesman Zig Ziglar would say...

“You get what you want by helping more people get what they want.”

The truth in selling is that you succeed more at sales when you stop trying to sell. When all you focus on is helping prospects, they trust you more and buy from you more as well.

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