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Win trust by understanding goals

Prof. Mark Brown
Sep 5, 2018 · 2 min read

A key step in building trust with clients is to genuinely understand their objectives.

This is effective with internal or external clients, and it can be helpful to understand their personal goals as well as their business objectives. This demonstrates genuine interest, that you are not operating in a purely transactional way. This will move you in the direction of a trust-based relationship, and perhaps one day becoming a thought partner.

What can you do to understand their goals? Listen attentively and show genuine interest in what they are saying. Invest in the relationship by asking probing questions and sharing information about yourself as appropriate. Be patient and try to make the conversation about them, not just the business.

Two challenges make this more difficult. One is a perceived lack of time: many professionals feel rushed and overworked and are thus reluctant to invest even more time and ‘bandwidth’ in developing relationships. But these can be important differentiators in business. Ask yourself if you are investing enough time and effort in your client relationships.

A second challenge is our reliance on e-mail and virtual technologies for business communication. There is an efficiency argument for using these tools — speed and cost savings — but the decline in face-to-face interaction can make it difficult to establish rapport, empathy and trust. Ask yourself if there is a way to ensure some personal interaction with clients to establish and maintain personal rapport.

An additional benefit of these relationship-building conversations is the insights you may gain into business needs. Over time these insights can help you serve the client better and point to opportunities to expand the commercial relationship.

There is an old adage that says, ‘I don’t care how much you know until I know how much you care.’ This may be a cliché but there is an element of truth there: people want to know that we are engaged before they begin to trust us. In a fast-moving environment where business is often transacted virtually, this is something to bear in mind.

So another key to building trust with clients is to clearly understand their goals and objectives. Click on the link below to learn more about building trust with your customers and clients.

https://youtu.be/KxzKcuSR_h0

Mark Brown is a leadership educator and author based in Lisbon, Portugal. He likes to swim and play the piano, but not at the same time.

Contact Mark at www.time4clarity.com.

Prof. Mark Brown

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Prof. Mark Brown MBA is a leadership educator & author based in Lisbon, Portugal. He likes to swim and play the piano, but not at the same time #empathyatwork

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