“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” – Abraham Lincoln
Building trust is an incremental and cumulative process.
It’s incremental because it won’t happen overnight. There is no ‘instant trust easy button’. It takes time. It’s a slow drip strategy.
It’s cumulative because you need a ‘little bit of trust’ before you have ‘a lot of trust’. Each interaction that builds trust adds a little more into your trust account.
And, here’s the real pickle about trust. Although it can take a long time, and a lot of energy, to build…it can be destroyed in an instant. Vaporized. Poof!
Sometimes you might only destroy a little of your trust account. And, other times your whole balance can be wiped clean.
Being open, honest and transparent builds trust. Being secretive and deceitful destroys.
Being sincere and authentic builds trust. Being fake and schwarmy destroys.
Adding value builds trust. Wasting your audience’s time destroys.
