5 Signs a Potential Partner Could Hurt Your Business

Starting a business venture with a friend sounds like a great plan—what could go wrong? If they’ve been a loyal friend and a positive influence on your life, why wouldn’t they do the same for your business? While there are many successful tales of business partnerships that started out as friendships, you may be surprised…

Read More

Building a Successful Business is Harder without Trust

It probably goes without saying that without trust in your partners, your employees, or the people you rely on for parts or supplies, building a business is exponentially more difficult. As a small business owner, I’ve had partners I trusted, partners I’ve respected, and one or two who lost my trust. So when Lynda Bekore…

Read More

But Can I Trust You?

I can’t guess how many times I’ve written about trust over the past ten years. I’ve talked about the importance of the know • like • trust model, I’ve discussed the connection between trust and a brand’s equity and I’ve explored the role of trust in shortening the sales cycle. Suffice it to say, trust…

Read More

Leadership Skills: 5 Expectations Your Team Has for You as a Leader

Leaders help create powerful, cohesive teams that enable organizations to achieve their targets. Part of being a great leader is understanding what the members of your team expect from you. By understanding their expectations you become a better leader and help them become an even stronger team that can achieve anything. Here are 5 important expectations…

Read More

Transparency Leads to Trust

I really don’t like surprises. Granted, I’m anti-surprise to the extreme. I used to drive my mom crazy by ferreting out where she hid the Christmas gifts and then “guessing” what I was opening on Christmas morning. I suspect most people aren’t quite that determined to avoid surprises, but the reality is, especially when it…

Read More

3 Indisputable Traits of a True Leader

I was flying to a business meeting with an associate when he told me he didn’t think I was a very good leader. (Ouch!) Sensing that God had sent a messenger to tell me that I lacked humility, I took the bait and asked him why. He explained that it was because he’d never seen…

Read More

6 Ways to Make Your B2B Website More Trustworthy

Your website is your first impression to the world, and a trustworthy website gives you a leg up on competition. With competition consistently increasing, authenticity is essential to your online presence. This is especially important in the B2B space. Here are top ways to ensure that your site is trustworthy to a clientele that is used…

Read More

30 Proven Tips for Building Trust & Rapport with Clients

Twice a year we invite our clients to share their thoughts on how we’re doing and where we can improve as a company via a Net Promoter Score Survey. In our most recent survey, clients rated us 186% (or 41 points) higher than industry average. There’s no better feeling than seeing feedback like this: As consultants, trust is…

Read More

Theo Epstein and the Trust Factor in Leadership

Does trust really matter when it comes to leadership? After all, leaders pay people to do their jobs. Trust is somewhat beside the point, right? Actually, not by a long shot. Research both formal and anecdotal proves that organizations run as such suffer in big ways, including the bottom line. On the other hand, leaders who treat…

Read More

Are You Building High-Level Business Relationships?

In the world of entrepreneurs and startups, high level relationships are everything. You can’t start a business alone. You need partners, team members, investors, vendors, and customers. But people don’t realize that all relationships are not the same. There are people you only recognize on the street, business friends, and then close friends whom you…

Read More