Improve My Business

January has already sped past us launching us straight into February, I hope you have gotten a great start to 2010. Being that it is February and this is a month were a lot of us spend a little extra time thinking about our personal relationships around Valentine’s day, I have decided to call this Relationship Month  and devote several posts this month to talking about relationships in business. Relationships are the heart of everything we do as people; celebrating, mourning, living, working, it is all about relationships, so I think it is only right that we devote so time here to talk about how to make sure you are forming the right kind of relationships in your business.

The first thing I want to talk about is trust. Any relationship councilor will tell you that trust is one of the cornerstones of a healthy relationship. If you can’t trust someone you can’t have a valuable relationship with them. You will be too busy trying to figure out if they are telling the truth or not to really appreciate them as a person and you won’t feel comfortable sharing your thoughts with them. This is doubly true when we start thinking about business relationships and money comes into the picture.

For better or worse most of us value our money above almost everything else these days, and thus we are very protective of our money. We would never give our money to someone we don’t trust and we can’t expect our customers to give us money unless they trust us. To be successful in business you need to have a network of trust with your suppliers, partners and clients. So how do we build trust with our clients, and find suppliers and partners we can trust? The answer believe it or not, is pretty simple. Trust yourself.

Most people have a pretty good sense of what is right and wrong, and who is telling the truth and who isn’t telling the whole story. The problem is we don’t trust ourselves enough to listen. Trust yourself to follow your instincts, if something seems like it will create ill-will or somehow cause someone to doubt the trust they place in you, don’t do it. If a supplier approaches you and you don’t feel one hundred percent comfortable, chances are it’s your mind trying to tell you that this supplier isn’t trust worthy, listen to it and ask the questions you need to ask to find out what is making you uncomfortable. Trusting ourselves and listening to our instincts will go a long way towards finding trustworthy people to associate with and making decisions that will build trust with our customers.

The second very important thing we can do is to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes. A great place to do this is marketing. In marketing you try to highlight the best benefits your product can provide and explain to potential customers why they should bring their business to you. However, the key factor in converting prospects into customers is trust. If prospects trust you, they are more likely to do business with you, and if they don’t trust you, chances are they will never do business with you. So when you put out a marketing piece, don’t just think, “Does this inform people about my product?” but, “Will this make people trust me/my company/my product?”

To do this, you need to put yourself in the prospective customer’s shoes when you look at your marketing. Ask yourself if there are any questions that you want to have answered after seeing the marketing materials, or if anything seemed out of place or disingenuous to you. Chances are that if something seems off to you, it will seem off to your prospects as well and immediately put doubt in them. Always be aware of how you are affecting the trust other people have in you and your business when you act, if you don’t you may find it very hard to find new clients before long, because no one will trust you.

Technorati Tags: Business, Business Relationships, Marketting, Trust