What if someone asked you what your last words would be?
In essence, that’s what Daniel Burstein, Director of Editorial Content for MECLABS, asked of me when he requested I publish my last blog post today. Of course, this isn’t my last post, but I like Daniel’s idea and am honored to join other top bloggers in sharing our most important message.
For me, that’s to embrace the power of trust and let it drive everything we do. You see, trust is the foundation of a relationship. And relationships are what business is built upon. Without trust, there is no relationship and there is no business.
So how do you create that trust? Paradoxically, it’s never been easier or more challenging.
As we all know, social media has changed everything. It seemed like yesterday that marketers were able to micromanage every aspect of image and message disseminated to the marketplace. Now, our customers say who we are. So, of course, if what we’re saying about ourselves isn’t aligning with what’s actually happening, we’re going to be in trouble fast.
On the other hand, thanks to social media, it’s never, ever been easier to demonstrate why we are trustworthy and why we are worth doing business with. And this can make all the difference in the world in creating opportunity. I know it has for me.
You may recall that the dot-com bubble burst not long before 2003, and like many other marketing organizations at the time, my teleprospecting and lead generation business was seriously struggling. We lost our three top clients and 40 percent of our revenues in a mere two months. I was contemplating how we were going to survive the crisis when I recalled clients repeatedly telling me, “We really value your services. But we value more than just that – your ideas have really helped improve our lead generation results.”
That’s when inspiration struck. I thought, “Why not teach our future clients what we learned and add value before they even start to look for services like ours?”
When you give people what they value, without expecting anything in return, you build trust. So, with that in mind, I started the B2B Lead Generation Blog in October of that year. It was free, it was easy. And it has resulted in opportunities that I would have never imagined in my wildest dreams – from publishing a bestseller to becoming part of an organization the caliber of MECLABS.
Looking back, it feels nothing less than miraculous. Such is the power of trust. And that power begins with trusting yourself enough to embrace your own inspiration and take that first step. You never know where it may lead.
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Great Article Brian,I am reminded of a short story about a corn farmer, and his crops would always win at the country fair..and after taking the trophy this farmer would freely distribute his corn seeds to the other farmer contenders..every year.a Curious bystander asks him why does he ‘feed’ competition ?? . the farmer answers.. well I am doing it for my own good..Because a lot of wind pollination takes place thru teh year..and lot of ‘neighboring’ seeds also come into my farm. So if the Neighboring crops are of poor quality..my crop will suffer. But by contributing . everyone wins 🙂
This is SO true. If you don’t have trust you fail before you even begin. People have to be careful what they say on social media channels, because it can easily come back to haunt you.
Couldn’t agree more.