How to Create Trust

When companies want to increase profits, there are a number of ways they can do it.  The most common are the increasing of revenues and the decreasing of expenses.  The issue with reducing expenses is that there is a limit to the amount you can reduce, whereas increasing revenues is theoretically unlimited.

To increase revenues companies need to increase sales.  To increase sales, most companies will either reduce their prices to attract more buyers or increase marketing, often a combination of both.  Marketing usually involves advertising and using an active sales process or team. 

There is one flaw in the marketing process however, and that is that it frequently comes across as self serving.  No matter how clever the advertising or sales team is, potential clients are well aware that the ultimate goal of the process is to sell them something.

There is one way to create trust in potential clients though, and that is to provide so much value at no cost and with no sales pitch that they continue to return.  Naturally, this can only be done in a virtual way, and there must be some end goal in mind.

Some of the largest companies in the world, Google, Facebook and Instagram do exactly that.  All three of them are entirely free and provide a huge amount of value.  The really interesting thing is that unlike the other sites, that encourage visitors to stay and consume their content, Google encourages searchers to leave its site as quickly possible when they find what they are looking for!

Naturally these companies make gigantic profits from selling advertising on their sites, but people can choose to deal with the advertisers or not, and this does not affect the value that they receive.  There is no expectation that they buy anything, only that they use the websites.

Providing this amount of value while not trying to sell anything creates the most important characteristic that people value:  trust.  Trust created from providing value AND having the clients come to you rather than going to them.  When people choose to come to you for value, it creates a feeling of safety because they made the decision.

Providing value so that people want to come back to you is one of the most powerful ways to create trust.