Money...Trust...Referral

While walking through my neighborhood today pushing the stroller while Eleni (my 5 month old little girl) slept I listened to the EntreLeadership Podcast as Dave Ramsey spoke with Seth Godin.  Now if you do not know who these guys are just Google them...plenty will come up.  I have read many of Seth's books and have enjoyed each one of them.

So...while walking and listening to them talk Seth mentions that customers pay in three ways:

Money

Trust

Referrals

He is a summary:

Money: self-explanatory

Trust: When I trust you, I'm giving you something that's emotionally difficult.  I'm out on a limb.  If you violate my trust I will carry around that feeling far longer than the money I lost from you.  Getting people to give you their trust is way more difficult than getting them to give you their money.

Referral: If people give you their trust and you treat it with respect, they will respond by giving you a referral.  Trust that leads to referral has a deep relationship component, and businesses that are transactional- vs. relationship-driven are doomed to fail in the coming economy.


Seth also stated that everyone in business is in the TRUST business.  As  a customer you have two choices - buy from someone you do not trust and then the lowest price is what you're looking for or buy from someone you trust and then price doesn't much matter.  The feeling you feel from the purchase is what matters.

How does all this fit into what we do everyday?

Pretty simple

We need to build a relationship with our customers that inspire trust from them. It is our responsibility to do this. (I will come back to the relationship driven idea in later blog posts)

We do this by providing consistent, HIGHLY SATISFYING service everyday.

We do this by caring for our customers.

We do this by anticipating their needs and wants.

As Seth said...If you violate my trust I will carry around that feeling far longer than the money I lost from you.


You can listen to the podcast here