It's All About Trust

In order to reach our potential customers, it is necessary to build a relationship of trust. This is not easy because a lot of factors are at play every day. This article discusses what trust is all about, as well as some ideas about how to establish your own marketing relationships built on trust.
DEFINITION OF TRUST
Among the dictionary definitions of trust are these that seem most important to our discussion:

• Reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.
  
  
• Confident expectation of something; hope.
  
  
• A person on whom or thing on which one relies: God is my trust.
  
  
• The obligation or responsibility imposed on a person in whom confidence or authority is placed: a position of trust.
  
• Something committed or entrusted to one's care for use or safekeeping, as an office, duty, or the like; responsibility; charge.
  
  
• Reliability.

This is an in depth discussion of trust; we will review only a few of the main ideas. Trust is an important aspect of life because it is how we build relationships with other people. However, it carries with it the risk of betrayal. This could be dangerous because we could lose the very things we have entrusted to others, including our self-respect which may be destroyed by betrayal. Trust is not practical in a situation where people feel pessimistic about each other.
Basic conditions for trustworthiness are commitment to do what is required, and, perhaps, to care in some way about the person doing the trusting. On the other hand, the person doing the trusting must accept some level of risk of betrayal. Loss of trust may not be because of strict betrayal, but it could consist of the lesser quality of mere disappointment. Those who will not accept risk must monitor those they rely on in some way; the fact of monitoring means the people involved do not trust each other. If people are suspicious of the actions of others, this means there is no trust between them. Trust requires that individuals be optimistic about reliance on another party. If you are pessimistic about someone’s ability to do what they say, you can never trust them. The trust relationship always carries with it the risk of betrayal or disappointment—this is why building trust is so important in marketing and business relationships.
WHY WORRY ABOUT TRUST?
This blog says the next 10 years will be concerned with building trust because of Gen X, the group of people now in their 30s and early 40s. They have less respect for authority and dislike being micro-managed by any hierarchy; a recent Deloitte survey shows most people who were job hunting before the current recession did so because they did not trust their employers. There was no transparency from employers–why trust will be so important in the coming years. Then there is personal transparency; it should come first before the transparency presented to the public. You must be truthful with yourself first.
WHAT CAN WE DO TO FOSTER TRUST?
The Omidyar Network says: Media, markets, and government can be powerful mechanisms for people to improve their lives. Yet to be effective, they must be transparent and accountable to the people they benefit.
Their approach is two-pronged:

1. Consumer internet and mobile technology will be used to enable people to connect with others and make more informed decisions.
2. Government Transparency should hold political leaders to a higher standard of accountability to provide more effectiveness for government to improve people’s lives.

Omidyar Network is one of what should be many efforts to improve trust among all segments of society. It takes money to promote such ideas and the Omidyar program is funded by the founders of eBay, a wise use of their money. Perhaps others will follow their lead.
WHY DOES TRUST REALLY MATTER?
Here is a discussion of Gen X and the way they were brought up to trust no one. It seems they are right, because public trust in all public institutions, banks, leaders at all levels, and government is lower than it has ever been. Building trust is very slow and can’t be done by spinning the facts. It requires the ability to look in the mirror and say, “You’re fat.” Though requiring infinite time and effort to c