How to build trust in your organization
- Sun, May 15 2011
- Filed under: Marketing essentials
I’m currently reading Trust-Based Selling, which was recommended by my friend and nonprofit marketing blogger Jocelyn Harmon. Interestingly, many of author Charles Green’s reflections on trust apply to the world of nonprofit marketing.
Specifically, trust is the combination of:
1. Credibility: How people perceive our words
2. Reliability: How people perceive our actions
3. Intimacy: The safety or security people feel when entrusting us to do something
If you think of trust in terms of a formula, it’s the sum of these three factors divided by what Green calls your degree of “self-orientation.” Self orientation refers to how much you are focusing on yourself vs. your donors. The more you seem focused only on your own needs, the bigger the denominator and the lower the level of trust.
Strive to be credible, reliable and intimate - and always focus first on others over yourself. That’s how you build trust, and that’s how you strengthen a relationship.
Comments
Credibility, Reliability, and Intimacy-ha! I just couldn’t agree more. And though I believe in this 3 values, my personal favorite is “Credibility”. And there are so many things to say about this one word.
Eric Graham