You know your credit score, your bank account balance, and how your investments are performing, but do you know how much trust your clients have in you?
In any relationship, trust rises and falls much like the balance in a bank account. Your clients’ trust is more valuable to your business than any other commodity. If they know they can depend on you, you’ll have more freedom to propose new things and to negotiate when you have to, without endangering your relationship. On the other hand, if you let your account shrink, you will have an uphill battle just keeping that client, let alone growing your business with them.
In this way, your client is like your banker: They hold your trust account, but you make deposits and withdrawals through your actions. With a new client, you’re probably starting with a blank slate, a trust balance of zero. It’s up to you to build that trust. Deliver what you promised, when you promised. Deliver more, early, or under budget, and you’ll earn extra interest. Add value whenever you can—a little more service, a referral, or helpful advice—and watch your balance grow even faster. Under-deliver or overcharge and your account will shrink. If you lose trust when your balance is low, the account will close—you’ll lose the client.
Problems happen in business and in life. Communication is key to keeping your clients’ trust. Always own up to problems as soon as you know about them. Knowing your trust level with each client will help you decide how to proceed. If you’ve been doing stellar work for a client for a long time, you’ll have a large balance to work with. If you must deliver late, or the project will cost more than you’d estimated, you’ll be able to deal with that without emptying your account and losing the client completely. Of course, how you handle the situation greatly affects your balance. Tell the client early, offer real solutions, and go out of your way to make it up to them. Dealing with problems proactively minimizes the damage to your account, and you might even earn interest.
High levels of trust earn dividends in flexibility, new clients, and repeat business. Clients with large balances will refer their friends and colleagues to you—adding a degree of trust to those relationships from the start. Your website and business practices also build trust (or destroy it) before you’ve even met a new client. In the next post, we’ll discuss how all of this relates to how you and your website do business with your clients online. I think you’ll be surprised to learn of some things that can remove trust before you even have the chance to earn it!
Photo Credit Keith Williamson
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