Today in a meeting of some really smart business owners, I was reminded again that there are really only two reasons that people do business with you; because they like you and trust you.   Products and services can be quantified, qualified, compared, analyzed and shopped for price.  You however are unique.  There's no one else like you.  You make an impact on people, good or bad.  And of course the company you own or work for has an impact on whether someone might like or dislike you, trust or distrust you, but it's not as important as who you are.  Think about it.  How many times have you not thought much of a company but loved one of their employees so you continued to do business with them?

So here's the deal.  What do you do every time you have an opportunity to interact with someone you already do business with or would like to do business with to build on what you know is the most important?  Do you give conscious thought to how you can make each interaction introduce or reinforce that you want to get to know them and care about what's important to them?  Do you also do the same relative to trust?  Do you have success measurement tools that help you keep score on how well you're paying attention to these two factors?  I'd put money on the fact that you don't.  I'll bet you have lots of metrics, most of which are tied to behaviors such as how often and through what mechanisms do you reach out to customers and prospects, dollar or deal size tracking, etc.  But seriously, I would have no problem laying down money that there's no mechanism for measuring what most people admit to knowing and believe to be true; that people do business with people they like and trust above all else.
 

I'm not saying that tracking how friendly people find you or how much they trust you is easy.  It's not.  I've never walked into someone's office where they have a graph or meter on the wall titled Trust Scale or Friend Scale.  But it's not a bad idea.   We all know that the more business one has which has come to them through direct referrals is a good measurement, but how many people actually track it?  How might you track your "friendliness quotient?  I'm not so sure.  Maybe you can shoot me some ideas.

Here's what I do know.  Social media done right can help.  Social media done wrong can really hurt.  Two big things not to do with social media are first, don't treat it like a popularity contest.   It's not a good idea to try to gather "likes" as you might on Facebook...that's just playing a numbers game and no one likes it.  Don't be afraid to be yourself.  The second is especially true the more senior you are.   True authenticity starts at the top. CEOs can't sit back and let their employees be the human face of the company.  You make a big mistake if you think that its ok to relegate "all that social sharing stuff" to those in your firm who haven't reached the same level of success you have or to think that you've reached a level of success where you don't need it.   If you'd like to explore this topic a little further you might want to check out this study by Weber Shandwick  where 82% of respondents said they were more likely to trust a CEO who communicates through social media.  Wow.  The study is worth a quick read.  Social media has a place in creating and building relationships and trust.  It's something that many senior leaders aren't doing well yet, me included.  But that's ok.  The only thing that isn't ok is to scoff at it and do nothing.  If you consider yourself a leader then you have to lead.  And as I see it, staying on top of ways to constantly be improving on how you get along with others in traditional and new ways is the only option.   Next week I'll continue with this theme and talk about how to get an edge in what I call the "trust based society".