Part Two: Building Trust
In part one of this series, which you can read HERE, we went over the idea that making a brand attractive to clients is similar in many ways to making yourself attractive on an interpersonal level, especially when it comes to romantic involvements- (that’s a fancy and highbrow way of saying "hooking up.")
In this email, I want to go over a few things that illustrate "what comes next."
In a relationship, there’s a million ways to "score" and pick up, but establishing a level of comfortability, security, and trust demands a specific strategy of key elements.
This is what separates those who can maintain a meaningful relationship from your average lothario, or what in the modern parlance of our times might be known as a "fuckboy," or "man-whore" or some other unpleasant appellation.
Using our hook-up to relationship analogy, there is one thing that women for millions of years have valued over everything else: money.
Kidding.
But...not really.
What evolution has created over aeons, no one can truly put asunder in a few short years of social conditioning.
Most women want security in a relationship more than anything else.
This takes a myriad of forms, from physical security, (feeling safe with you) to financial security (feeling safe relying on you), emotional security (feeling safe trusting you) and so on.
This feeling of trust and security must be fostered in many ways, and that strategy is nearly identical to how we establish trust and security with our clients.
First, after initial attraction phase, we must:
Build Rapport
After the physical decision has already been made, the establishment of a back and forth is critical if the connection is to last.
There must be some kind of stimulating exchange between the two parties, and for your brand, this means having an open line of communication with your customers and clients.
This can occur on various platforms of social media where you engage with your supporters and clients in comments threads, or a direct customer service experience.
Much of the conversation will be had from your end, in the form of content and so on, but it’s important for the client to know it isn’t entirely one-sided.
They will want to feel heard, appreciated, and valued.
Read Their Signals
A less often thought of method that is important to creating trust is taking care of their needs without them even telling you what those are.
Learning how to read the signals in order to better know what your clients want is critical as you move forward with your business, create products and so on.
Often, people will tell you one thing, but mean something else.
If you ask them what they want, and you give them that, it can turn out that it wasn’t what they wanted at all.
It sounds counter-intuitive, but this is especially true in business.
If you have done a successful job with building up your brand, you will know the exact kind of people it is attracting, and therefore have an incredibly strong intuition of what they want and/or need.
Having to constantly ask them what they want or need will actually deteriorate their trust in you and lead to them thinking that you might not know what you’re doing, or might not know them at all.
Having the right answer at the right time before they knew they needed it will go a long way toward making it seem like you have an almost mythical power of being able to take care of them and give them what they need to be fulfilled, and they will come to rely on this.
In a business sense- pay attention to data.
What posts or content get the most engagement?
What are they buying? Maybe even more importantly, what are they not buying?
Learn to read the signs. Learn the clients collective "body language" and stop asking them "what’s wrong?" and getting the inevitably icy "...nothing."
It’s a trap!
Ensure You Are Creating a Mutually Satisfying Exchange
People give up things to be in relationships.
The same is true of clients who support your brand and business.
They are sacrificing money, they are investing time, and they are proving their loyalty to you.
It is absolutely critical that you display your own loyalty, and that the value you provide to them is even higher than what they can provide you.
In other words, you need to "maintain hand" in the relationship- notions of equal exchange are nonsense. There is always an upper hand in any situation, and you always want to ensure it’s you who has that.
You can both be mutually satisfied- but someone will always be providing a higher level of value to the other. If you’re not sure who it is- it probably isn’t you.
The understanding should always be:
"I provide such a high level of value that I will always be in demand on the market, and the return that you can provide me with is not of a high enough level to even things out."
It sounds harsh, but in a business sense, what it means is a constant commitment to giving everything you’ve got to the relationship to know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that what you are providing is actually worth more than they are paying for it.
To illustrate:
I recently purchased a book of about 100 pages in length from a famous copywriter, detailing his various branding strategies.
The book cost $400.
Much of it was taken from emails I’d already received.
I gladly paid the price, and after reading it (twice) I had about 20 pages of notes- about ⅕ of the total length of his book!
I know these notes will distill into either a) another product or b) high level content and idea generation that will allow me to provide even higher value to my clients, and therefore make me money.
In the exchange, he was able to provide a higher value- he is a millionaire, and my $400 is a small fee for him.
But knowledge? Priceless.
Gratitude and Reciprocity
One of the basic tenets of business, especially with a brand that creates a loyal following, is reciprocity.
The feeling created in someone that they "owe you one" for something you did, followed by you thanking them for that payback by continuing the cycle perpetually.
In my crew, we have a habit of giving gifts often.
When someone gets a really special gift, they may laugh and say "ok, it’s a war."
What they mean is that they have been hit with this reciprocity concept, and their feeling of indebtedness will require they give a gift more lavish or meaningful than the one they received- thereby creating the feeling of debt back to the original gift giver.
It creates a "gift war" of sorts that can continue in some cases for years (I’ve seen and participated in them, and the feeling you get when you "nail it" with a really special gift and the look on someone’s face when they receive it is incredible.).
No one is giving the gift with the expectation of return- that’s called a trade, not a gift.
The spirit in which these things are done is critical.
No one wants to work for free, but providing value to people who align with your brand should be a process that you find meaningful in and of itself, or you may be in the wrong racket.
Rock and roll out there, today, Initiates.
It’s a big world and anything is possible.