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.