Who are you most likely to trust:
1. The guy or girl who tells you on the first date, he likes you but he’s also seeing other people
2. The guy or girl who tells you they like you, continues to date you for a few months and then one night, tells you they’ve been dating other people
Personally, I’ll take my chances with the first guy, because even though we’re not exclusive, I know where I stand with him.
I’m going into the situation with eyes wide open.
People prefer to be told the truth upfront instead of being fed a lie that later turns into the truth
People trust us, when we’re authentic.
Authentic people are much easier to trust because they don’t try to appear perfect and openly admit to their mistakes and shortcomings.
An honest person will always tell the truth and act truthfully but an authentic person is honest about who they are as a person.
The link between personal branding and trust
Recent research shows that companies that have high trust outperform companies with low trust by 300%.
You’d think that top management in companies would make trust their top concern but apparently not – research shows that only 49% of employees trust senior management and only 28% trust CEOs at all.
The questions you should be asking yourself right now are:
Do people trust me?
Is trust part of my personal brand’s promise?
How to be someone that people trust
1. Be open about your flaws
I landed my publishing deal for my book when I went on TV to talk about my depression and suicidal thoughts.
At the time I was convinced it was career suicide because here I was writing a book about emotional intelligence and mastering your emotions and all I could talk about was how I was the complete opposite in life.
But it turns out that people actually identified with that imperfection.
If you want to craft a unique personal brand, let the people you do business see the person behind the title.
When you're real, you give others the space to be open and real as well.
Be transparent about all your business dealings and people will feel secure enough to open up to you.
2. Listen without judgement
The quickest way to destroy trust is to criticise people and judge them without first listening and understanding them as people.
If you want people to trust you, you have to be open to hearing some harsh truths about yourself and still remain on good terms with people
3. Make trust your number one concern
Ask people you do business with who you need to be, in order to win their trust. And in turn tell them who they need to be to earn your trust.
4. Take responsibility for your actions
I’m learning to take responsibility for my mistakes without making excuses and creating a story about it.
Making excuses and covering up our mistakes shows lack of self-esteem and sends the message that we lack courage.
5. Live your word and honour your agreements
I openly admit that this is something I need to work on – I do the things I say I’m going to do but I don’t do them in the timeframe I promised, which kills my credibility.
My only saving grace is that I tell people beforehand when I’m going to need more time to do something but still that’s no excuse.
How would your life look like if you did exactly what you said you were going to do when you said you would do it?
How would your relationships look like?
