The Leadership Coach™

The Trust Experiment

Posted on 16. Nov, 2009 by Paul Andrew in Communication, The Leadership Coach™

I met a coach recently who had tried to give away $50 notes on the streets of Sydney. I was fascinated as he told the story about how hard it was to give away genuine money to strangers. Some people apparently thought it was a scam. Some avoided eye contact and just walked past him. Others actually crossed to the other side of the street when they saw him trying to hand out cash. What does that say about human nature? Why is skepticism the default setting for many of us? I wonder how many good things have I talked myself out of because they seemed just ‘too good to be true’.

For better or worse, people don’t tend to trust strangers. Think about what that means for your organisation. Too often we focus on the value of our product or service in the way we communicate with our target audience. We tell them it’s the best, the most, the first, the only. But you’ll have to do better than that to convince strangers who would cross the street to avoid free cash. Regardless of how valuable what you’re offering truly is, without trust it mostly falls on deaf ears.

So what can we do to bridge the gap?

1. Build some trust
Trust is foundational for relationship, and relationship closes the gap between us.

• If your goal in sales and marketing was developing trust (instead of pitching how amazing your stuff is) what would you do differently?
• What could you stop doing that has been eroding their trust?
• Who do they trust already and what could you learn from them?

2. Build a crowd
I suspect the $50 trust experiment would turn out differently in a crowded shopping centre. Instead of confronting individuals with my offer, if I was shouting it to a crowd it would only require a few people to decide it was worth the risk and a tipping point would be reached. As people saw others running to a guy who was handing out cash, more and more of them would override their cynicism for fear of missing out on a good thing. Such is the power of a crowd.

• How could you create the stampede effect with your one-to-many marketing?
• What else could you do to enable your core clients to spread the word to the crowd?
• Do people see a crowd when they look at you? Most people don’t want to go first.

3. Build their dream
A friend of mine called Taki is a marketing guru and he often says, “Education builds rapport, selling breaks rapport”. I write The Leadership Coach every fortnight for thousands of people and give it away free, but education has built rapport. So it’s no surprise that most weeks I receive an enquiry about a speaking engagement or leadership workshop as a result of these articles. In helping others build their dreams I’m seeing my own dream built.

• What could you do to help people achieve their dreams?
• Do they see you as a salesperson or partner in their vision?
• How well do you understand the dreams and challenges of those you hope to influence?

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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Related posts:

1. Health Check For The Trusted Advisor
2. How To Keep Your Team Sick
3. Who Is In Your Drawer?

Tags: Executive Coach, Leadership Coaching, Leadership Development, Leadership Training, Marketing