We believe … in belief.

It’s a big word, trust. Yet it seems to get thrown around quite a lot. We’re told to build trust through social, as a route to sell more. Organisations spend fortunes in an attempt to build ‘brand trust’ to attract new customers. Or, “we need to build trust in our proposal.”

It’s a word that gets used in such general terms, when it is rarely absolute. For example, my wife trusts me to look after the kids on my own, because I have repeatedly managed to so (well enough, anyway). Yet she doesn’t trust me to “be on my way in 5” from the pub because I have never, ever done so.

And what would be most people’s natural inclination if someone were to say: “trust me.”

You wouldn’t.

Trust is a human sentiment, shared between people. On that basis you can’t build trust online. Nor will anyone actually trust a brand before the people that are part of it have done what they said they would do. Trust can only really exist after the point of delivery.

For us, it’s important to get it right. Your definition of trust must meet your customers’ definition. Your marketing and sales messages need to reflect that shared view.

We believe it’s more effective to spend your time creating belief that you and your organisation have the skills or solutions to meet your customers’ needs first. Once you’ve made the sale, then concentrate on actually meeting the needs, and trust will follow. By all means start claiming you are a ‘trusted partner’ after that.

People buy from other people, and they will buy from people with credibility…people that they believe in.

But that’s different to trust.

Trust me.

Matt Neal,
Managing Director,
Differentiated