According to Simon Sinek in his book “Start with Why”, “Trust begins to emerge when we have a sense that another person or organisation is driven by things other than their own self-gain.” How do you inspire trust from your customers – go beyond the profit.
If a business appears to be only interested in their profit and for themselves, then we don’t really like dealing with them to much, do we? We get to the point that we prefer to go elsewhere, so it’s really important for us to be clear on what else it is we stand for.
I believe that when anyone goes in to business, while making money is obviously important, their reasons for going into business are something beyond the money. They want to do something that is of value to other people. Of course then, what happens is that we get lost along the way with trying to get a business going and the day to day running. But it’s really important for us to get back to that core of what it is that inspired us to start the business in the first place.
For some people, depending on where your business is, you might be ready to go beyond the profit, and you may ask “What now? What can we do now to create a new sense of trust in the community? What can we do now that will benefit society in a bigger way? What is our greater purpose that we are being led to that really has nothing to do with the bottom line as far as profit goes?”
I whole heartedly believe that this is what people crave to do; To do something beyond themselves and to be of service to the greater community. When a business is able to do that, it creates loyalty both from the employees and the consumers.
Give it some thought. How do you create trust in your business for all levels of stakeholders? What is it you’d really like to achieve that may be outside of the normal business realm of achievement and profit? What is it that you can give back to society?
If you need some help in working through this, get in touch and I’ll guide you and your business through it.