Trust. It's even profitable.

Trust is to success as influence is to leadership. You can't have one without the other. Stephen M. R. Covey, in his book Speed of Trust, tells us that we'll get deals done faster as our trust increases; us trusting others and others trusting us.

Covey outlines trust as Character and Competence.

Character is made up of Integrity and Intent.

Competence is about Capabilities and Results.

As he further breaks each of these down he identifies Integrity, Intent, Capabilities, and Results as the four cores of credibility.  Increase each of these and "deals" will get done faster. Increase the speed of getting business done and expenses go down. We know that as expenses go down, profits will go up.


The more you're trusted, the more you'll profit.

Simple. Huh?

Sync Your Lips with Your Feet

What you do speaks so loudly that what you say I cannot hear

- Anonymous

Stephen M.R. Covey states "trust is one thing that changes everything. Trust is common to every individual, team, family, nation and organization." Mr. Covey continues with building an excellent compelling business case for Trust and how it is something you can get better at.

Having become a student of Covey's brand of trust the past 4 years, I've used his teachings in my daily practice of coaching, training and life. The one factor that stands out higher than any other is his 2nd core of credibility -

Intent: What's Your Agenda?

You can find this in his words and detail beginning with page 73, but I'll give you my version.

1. Words and Walk; the words and the walk must be the same every time. When they aren't, I lose traction with the relationship and everything slows down. When the words and walk are consistent, then our relationship speeds up and will grow.

2. Watch out for Blind Spots; be aware of the fact that we trust people based upon how much we trust ourselves and our own feelings about trust. If our tendency is to not trust, then relationships don't grow and business slows down. If we tend to blindly trust others, then we'll get burned. Subsequently, as we trust well, we'll build relationships and business between within those relationships will flourish.

3. Willingness to Win/Win; intentions and motives. Is everyone in the relationship pointed towards not only the same end mission or purpose, but also goals along the way and the basis for how to get there? Does everyone understand the other person's "win?"


My favorite Trust Behavior is -

Create Transparency (page 152): tell the truth in a way people can verify. Be real, open and authentic. Over deliver your disclosure.

Opposite is - hidden agenda / withhold information / not disclosing because "they didn't ask"

Counterfeit - masking the real behavior and agenda with hidden agendas and motives / being passively-aggressive / technically telling the truth (Covey has this as part of "Talking Straight" but in practice I've found it to be important here also)


Our lips and feet come out-of-sync in many ways and that can be driven by a lack of focus, the greed to sell something at the moment and volatility. Some of us don't even realize what we are doing at the time, others of us do and mistakenly think the end result is the only thing that matters.

Look over your shoulder and be aware of what you leave along the way; bad and good - improve on the bad and relish the good. Practice trust well.

To that end......


Danny

Sales People Need Reserves and Margins, Too

The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the

man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.

 Adam Smith

Bryan Flanagan writes "sales professionals must build a physical, a mental, and a spiritual reserve. It's easy to run out of gas due to your daily selling activities. Therefore, you need to have something "extra" in your tank. This is where the reserve comes in."

Busy, but Not Having Fun - Part 1

There is a compelling business case for trust
and you can get good, or better, at it.

Stephen M.R. Covey

Tom was having a hard time keeping his staff calmed down about their top producing client. The staff, a processor and 2 assistants, had about all they could stand of the Realtor, Susan, and her assistants' daily badgering. Yet, Susan's team of Realtors did send them 6 - 8 loans per month (1/2 their business) and had for over 2 years.

The phone call to me seemed to be a last-ditch effort to try anything. After an hour of listening, asking questions and listening some more,  I asked everyone "what causes you to want to keep this relationship?"

The uncomfortable look on everyone's face told me more than the stammering answers. I had to finally ask "does at least one someone get laid off without this business?" Of course the answer was yes, yet it took everyone's effort to be ready for the multiple calls every day and there was no time to go out and develop new accounts.

More questions helped me to understand that Tom and his team sent regular (had even tried daily) updates to the team of Realtors. Still the calls came asking about every minute detail of every file. The Reatlors' assistants had even said "it is my job to call you on every loan every day and verify what is going on."

Quick calls by me to underwriters, title companies and other Realtors using Tom revealed his team's reputation to be excellent. I had little doubt that this was not a lack of talent, attitude, skills or knowledge on the part of Tom and his team but a lack of trust on  Susan's part and the fact that she believed her team's constant follow-up was why they were getting good service.

Over the next 2-3 weeks, I'll periodically tell the story of how Tom and his team turned the situation around, stopped the phone calls, decreased Susan's expenses while increasing his overall business and profits.

To that end.....

Danny

Trust. What Does It Mean to Sales, to Conflict, to Followership?

One of my "daylies" is to think about the recent past and what sticks out at me about meetings, appointments, conversations, etc, etc. I'll then right down those thoughts and compare to any notes; typically this takes 3-5 minutes and I move on. Ever so often, something causes me to pause and dig deeper.

This morning was one of those ever so oftens. My thoughts kept running to sales, conflict, sales, following, sales, conflict...

For whatever its worth, those thoughts led me to this video about trust. I first saw it almost 3 years ago when I was going through Covey's Speed of Trust train the trainer in DC. Let me know what you think.



Blessings,

Trusting Yourself First

I have a few firm beliefs. One of them is this; "if I can't trust myself, I will not trust others."


Covey, in The Speed of Trust, talks about self trust in connection with it being the principle of credibility. I agree that to be credible to others one first has to trust themselves, and how well one trust oneself is in direct proportion to how WELL one trust another.

I've struggle with this quite a bit because there are areas in which I think trust myself but don't feel I can trust another. So, I circle back around to - what is good trust? Am I blindly trust someone? Are the results of the trust in proper proportion to the trust being given in the event it turns out bad?

We have to be certain we have the proper concept of trust down first and then we have to keep circling back to our own trust.

Do I trust myself to do what I need to get done in even the small things. Example; definsive driving - after getting a speeding ticket I knew when I agreed to take definsive driving that it would be a very slim chance that I would set down at a computer for 8 hours, or go to a comedy class, or whatever. Give me a break! A comedy class about definsive driving. It obviously works but I'll have to have at least one more ticket first.

I digressed....agreeing with the Bee Cave court to take definsive driving was just plain stupid on my part and after not taking it, missing the next court date, paying the money I would have gotten out of, but paying for the definsive driving anyway, I now have another court date scheduled as I try get out of the $595 fine for missing the court date for not taking definsive driving that I knew wouldn't happen. I remember walking out of the court last March thinking "Smith! What did you just do? You agreed to set down and take definsive driving? Just pay the other $100 and be done with it!"

And what does that have to do with trusting others? Everything. In order to have a propensity to trust, one has to have a true north, a core, a foundation to start with. That true north starts with yourself. The Bible says to love others as we love ourselves. I know, it says to first to Love God, but that's another posting.

God Bless, learn to trust yourself.

To that end....