by JimRaffel on March 16, 2010
The concept of social media circles of trust has caused me to revisit my Three Types of Communication post from last June.
I was dealing with trust issues in my life when I wrote Three Types of Communication. In the previous six months I had made many bad choices inconsistent with my long-term life goals. I felt I could no longer trust my own instincts.
In the eight or so months since I wrote that post I have….
Met new people through social media like Twitter who support and encourage my strengths.
Found it interesting to meet people face-t0-face whom I already felt like I knew through on-line communication.
Realized accurately accessing someone’s trustworthiness face-t0-face goes much quicker when you have known them on-line.
Learned to trust people I meet on-line who have street cred.
Together with my wife began to form circles of trust with many of the people we have had communication with on-line.
For those who fall inside my circles of trust…
I am more comfortable relaying on written communication.
I am more willing to use rich media communications forums even for complex business discussions.
I absolutely love spending time with you face-to-face.
I’d be interested to know if the level of trust you feel with someone influences the communications mediums you are willing to utilize with them?
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by JimRaffel on March 10, 2010
Today I experienced first hand what if feels like to hold the currency that is the trust of another human being. Early in the day I learned that a new customer has chosen to go with my proposal based upon the recommendation of “Fred,” a customer I wrote about in my Regaining Trust post. Later in the day, one of my largest customers made a significant long-term financial commitment because he trusts that we will get the work done as we have in the past.
Last June I read Jeffery Gitomer’s Little Teal Book of Trust and began to realize that I had more than a few messes in my life which needed cleaning up. I had let down a customer who had become a friend over the years. After a month of hard work and introspection, I repaired the relationship enough to write the aforementioned post about regaining trust. This was about the same time I began developing my real, authentic and sustainable methodology for making decisions.
Slowly but surely over the past nine months I have continued following Gitomer’s advice and I have transferred the success I wrote about to all aspects of my life. As I regain the trust of those important to me, I am learning to trust others in ways I never have before. That leads me to Chris Brogan.
Chris Brogan writes extensively on the topics of social media and community. While reading his new book Social Media 101 I came across Chapter 48: Who Is Secretly Pitching You? Chris’s version of this post in his new book adds the context that the chapter had generated the idea for his first book Trust Agents.
How do you value trust in a personal or business relationship? Do you think of it as a currency like Chris Brogan does? Share your thoughts in the comments and I promise to respond with mine.
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