Trust

If You Don’t Have Anything To Give

Garth Beyer

Have something to show.

If you don’t have anything to show. Hold your tongue.

It’s fairly simple that when you meet with anyone in your interested industry that you need something to give them or something to show them. (Best if you have both.)

However, time and time again I meet with aspiring writers, entrepreneurs and PR folk only to hear about their business plans, goals and ideas.

People care more when they see or touch something.

Not so much when all they do is hear it.

 

Stay Positive & Show + Give = Trust

Garth E. Beyer

Your Audience Is More Open Than You Think

Garth Beyer

When you create more connections, you’re bound to be more open. That’s something I love about the current state of society and the people in it.

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Part of me feels that I have Facebook and Twitter to thank for making people more open. Another part realizes that it is just a beneficial byproduct of the connection economy.

Yet, I see businesses and freelancers running with their arms held close to their chest so they don’t hit anyone, so they don’t make themselves open, so they don’t seem vulnerable. This is trite and counterintuitive.

I can barely begin to tell you how many people have told me things about themselves and their lives that they would never have mentioned eight years ago. Respectively, I owe it to them to be just as open (which is in our advantage).

It’s not a matter of mutual generosity, it’s more a risk at creating a symbol of trust.

This calls for you to reciprocate that risk. When you see that others are doing or acting as you do, you feel comfortable, you feel in place, you feel more willing to trust and invest in what that person is offering.

Just the same. If you want the business of those who are very open about themselves and their lives, you need to be open too.

This is why storytelling has become the largest importance of businesses, why brand matters, why sales are made on trust, not shininess.

 

Stay Positive & Open Sesame

Garth E. Beyer

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Sellers Need A Lesson

Garth Beyer

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I went to purchase a motorcycle over the weekend. While I wasn’t as knowledgable as the salesman at the motorsports store, I knew as much about the specific bike that I wanted as he did. Because I researched it and knew as much as him, he couldn’t upsell it.

The flaw with knowledge equilibrium between salesperson and customer is that the only connection remaining is price. There is nothing he can say to make me purchase the product other than giving me a number I want.

The catch is that if a customers knows more, they will pay less.

Dealers of all kinds need to spend the morning before work reviewing what has been posted online. The beauty about information when it comes to selling is that if the motorcycle salesman were to know as much as me, but told me they just read something about the bike online earlier that morning, I would certainly be more interested.

At the most simple form, it just shows the salesperson cares about the product, not just about selling it to anyone without half a mind to research before making a purchase.*

 

Stay Positive & Consider Buying Privately

Garth E. Beyer

*The internet is now the salesman. While there are still people with that title, their duties are much different. They are there to make a connection, show they care (about the product and you), and be the liaison of trust.

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Time, Trust, Respect

Garth Beyer

Time

Showing up on time has its perks, but you rely on other factors being in the right place to benefit you. You can show up early, but if no one is there… now what? blog?

The times of showing up early and benefiting from it are slowly passing. We’re entering an era that every meeting, conference, and think-tank coordinator has a tight schedule.

All the while, others (primarily the millennials – guilty) are making the most out of every moment. They are continuously asking themselves if they are getting more out of “this” than they could be if they went to “that.” Options infinitum.

Being there early doesn’t create trust. Being there on time does.

Respect is attached to time and not only respect for those whose time you are using, but your own time. In the connected world, we can monitor where various events, groups, friends, meetings, and coworkers are. We owe it to ourselves to be respecting our own time as we are respecting others.

Sometimes that means leaving “this” for “that.”

 

Stay Positive & Spread Your Time

Garth E. Beyer

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That’s Not Really A Guest

Garth Beyer

At your first encounter with someone, whether it’s online, during work, or – in my case – at a Toastmasters meeting, you may think they are just a guest. What is a guest, though?

A guest is someone whom you meet outside of your routine life that you may or may not see again. Furthermore, a guest gives you two options to choose from. You can either treat them as a friend and connect with them, or you can carry on with your day without getting to know them.

Interact or ignore.

Laypeople base this decision off the degree of certainty that they think they will see the guest again. Those who expect to see the guest frequently will often choose to sit down and have a conversation. Those who expect to see the guest just this once will often choose to go no further than “Hello there.”

The linchpins of the world know that they need – no… they feel that it is only right to treat guests the same way they would a janitor or secretary, which not coincidentally is the same way they treat the average layperson or CEO.

Successful people don’t look toward equality, they look toward being human, connecting, and igniting positive responses. The only perk is that later down the line, having a conversation instead of ignoring a guest may come to benefit you. Heck, it’s just a simple real-world application of Pascal’s Wager.

Engaging in the life of a guest may or may not benefit you, but it’s always best to interact than to not.

 

Stay Positive & You Never Know When/Where You Will See Them Again, Trust Me

Garth E. Beyer

Trust Issues Be Gone

Garth Beyer

I still hear people say that they have trust issues; that they have a hard time trusting anyone until they work hard to earn it. These people are missing out… big.

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” — Ernest Hemingway

I have always thought: you can either go through life trusting everyone until they lose it or you can go through life trusting no one until they earn it. Hopefully you can see the better of the two. But in the case you don’t (or you’re denying that you do), if you’re going to get screwed either way, wouldn’t you rather have your character be observed with the fact you have always given people the benefit of the doubt before you judged them without knowing their story?

Forever will I argue that trust is not solely earned – it can be given too.

Trust people, not cookies.

When it comes to people, trust, just trust until they give you a legitimate reason not to. As for cookies, well, raisin cookies that look a lot like chocolate chip cookies is why I will never trust another cookie again.

 

Stay Positive & Trust, You Can Always Stop If Things Don’t Work Out

Garth E. Beyer

How Do YOU Know?

Garth Beyer

Whether you’re the one asking or being asked, the answer has little to do with the mind.

You can analyze, strategize, and organize a project so that the results you want are surely the results you will get. But you never actually know.

Boy asks girl what her favorite color is. Girl says purple. Five years (or five months, or five minutes later – it doesn’t really matter) go by. Girl asks the boy what her favorite color is. Boy says purple. Girl frowns. “It’s blue,” she says.

Everything is networking and networking involves connecting with people and people change their minds more often than their clothes. What needs to be understood, though, is that despite these changes (e.g., fear based step-backs, road block detours, juxtaposed worldviews, popped filter bubbles.) the results aimed for can still be attained.

When you are at the phase of “how do YOU know,” you are immediately the authority, the leader, the one looked up to.

Truly, what they want to know is if they can trust you. If they can benefit from following you. And if you answer with “I just do,” you’re answering with your heart, not your mind.

And THAT is how you know.

 

Stay Positive & If You Don’t Feel It In Your Gut, Aim For Different Results

Garth E. Beyer