I do not trust easily

I have been burned too many times before to let myself blindly trust people. When I have trusted people, they have a nasty habit of letting me down.

Which means my trust is hard to gain and easy to lose. It is one of the things that makes me good at business because I am always assuming that people don’t trust me and that those that do will stop trusting me any moment.

However, it creates forming new business relationships pretty hard, especially because I go into them assuming I will be screwed over (because historically I have been).

Usually, I like to start small with people and make them earn trust over time, but sometimes that’s just not possible. Sometimes, I have to bet the farm that I won’t be screwed over and risk everything on a hunch.

Now, let’s flip this around, and talk about your customers. Your customers are a lot like me.

They have trusted before and been burned before. They have been taken advantage of and are wary of everybody. They assume they will be screwed over because that is the default for most businesses.

If you start with that assumption, you’ll be better for it. You will design systems that will ease the mind of your customers. You will be extra vigilant because they are ready to run at a moment’s notice.

Most of your customers will want to start small, maybe with something free, or cheap, and test the waters with you. They will want you to earn their trust with something small, and make sure you will keep coming back before they let down their guard and spend more money with you.

Even if a customer isn’t skittish like me,  if you plan for the least trusting person in the room, then you’ll always overshare information, and keep people at ease. That is how you build trust. That is how you keep trust.