Building Trust Only When It's Convenient?

David Maister has an interesting blog discussion going on the topic of, “How Polite Are You?” It’s not mentioned in David’s blog, but how others perceive your politeness is part of your personal brand. The discussion on his post reminded me of a recent, similar situation.

Late last year, I attended an American Marketing Association meeting in St. Louis. I went specifically to hear the speaker talk about a subject that is very interesting to me – creating a trusted brand. The speaker was the founder and president of the company.

His company has some nice quotes on its website:

“Every brand is a promise. How will yours be kept?"

"Quite simply, business is built on trust."

"Every brand is a promise and every touch point represents an opportunity to make or break that promise – building or destroying trust in the process.”

Quite frankly, the speech was very interesting – at least to me. In fact, I sat next to the founder/president and we talked at length before his presentation.

Because I’ve studied trust development and the sales and marketing processes for a number of years, I asked the founder of this company if he’d be interested in taking a look at a report I’d written and give me his thoughts. I thought there may be some business synergies that would make sense. He said he’d be interested in taking a look and we decided on the best delivery mechanism.

I emailed him a link to the report. No response. I waited a few weeks and sent a follow-up message. Still, no response. I then “snail mailed” a hardcopy of the report and followed up again a week later. Again, no response. One last follow up a few weeks later. Again, no response.

Okay, so I got it. For whatever reason, this gentleman had no interest in talking – or even responding to me. That’s fine, it happens all the time in business.

But take another look at the quotes on his company website. He even mentioned a few of them in his presentation. “Every touch point represents an opportunity to make or break that promise – building or destroying trust in the process.”

I’m not sure there is a stronger touch point than one with the founder and president of a company. Reading his website and then hearing his speech, I had a very favorable impression of his company and personal brand.

Now? Uh, not so much. Hey, if you tell someone you’d be interested in taking a look at their report and ask them to take the time to send it to you, the least you could do, in my opinion, is reply. Am I wrong there? Even if it’s to say, “I’m sorry, I don’t have the time right now.” Or even, “I read the report, don’t see any synergies.”

I don’t know. Perhaps we’re all so busy in business today that we must pick and choose with whom we want to establish a favorable, personal brand and “weed out” the folks that we don’t. Has it come to that?  Are we at the point in business where we think to ourselves, “Hmm, I see the potential to make money with you, so I want to establish a trusted brand. This person, on the other hand, it doesn’t look like you can help me in the immediate future, so I don’t have the time to care what you think of my personal brand."

If someone has that mentality, should anyone trust them? Should we trust someone who only wants to build trust and have a favorable, personal brand when it's conducive to improving their own business situation?

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Rob Reed is president of Terrakon, a sales and marketing consulting firm based in St. Louis. Terrakon specializes in helping clients incorporate trust building sales and marketing strategies and processes to attract and win more customers.