Banking on Clients’ Trust

bank ledger

by Mike Masin on October 8, 2010

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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It’s 5PM, Do You Know Where Your Logs Are?

by Mike Masin on September 16, 2010

Actually, it doesn’t matter what time you do it but you have to do it
regularly and often. What is it? Reading your web server logs. They
tell a long and boring story that can protect your site from a bad
ending.

The good news is that you don’t have to read your server logs if
somebody that you trust reads them. Somebody that can identify the
threats and attacks and do what has to be done. Somebody that you
trust to do it regularly and often. My somebody is my hosting
company. I trust them and I don’t have to read my logs.

I know where my logs are, do you?

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Trousers or Browsers: Good Tailoring Makes a Difference

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I wear my jeans below my, ahem, waist. It’s easier but it isn’t my best presentation. When I want to improve how I present myself, I put on a suit with braces. My suits are tailored to present me in the best manner possible and braces keep my trousers where they’re supposed to be worn. [...]

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The ABCs of ShopSite APIs

March 6, 2010
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ShopSite is a versatile shopping cart with many built-in features that can be customized for your requirements. But sometimes you need more functionality and ShopSite knew that you might. They included APIs so you can use custom programming to expand and enhance your cart. API is an acronym for “Application Programming Interface.” Simply put, it’s [...]

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Using Foursquare, Gowalla and Geotagging to Increase Revenues

March 1, 2010
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When people want information, they don’t have to fire up their laptop or log on to their computer. Nope, information is even more accessible now thanks to 3G cell phones that give users an instant Internet connection. If you’re a brick-and-mortar business and want to tap into a new client stream, look no further than [...]

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