The TrustBuilder Framework

In the second level of the TrustBuilders Framework, we are now transitioning from the cognitive trust we have just built to building emotional or relational trust. This helps us build deeper and longer-lasting relationships.

Essentially, we are answering the questions: Does this company understand how I feel? Do they respect my feelings and perspective, even if they differ from theirs? And do they care about my well-being and want to support me?

• Empathy. Having and showing empathy is crucial for building trust. Empathy refers to the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings, specifically in a way that allows you to anticipate their needs and concerns within the relationship. This creates a sense of safety and encourages vulnerability. 
• Respect. Respecting your buyers and customers shows them that you not only consider and value their thoughts, feelings, and boundaries (building on empathy), but also that you recognize their autonomy and agency within the relationship. Showing respect recognizes that their trust is important to you.
• Benevolence. Benevolence in this context refers to a company having genuine goodwill and a desire to support the other person's well-being, even when there is no immediate benefit to yourself. This not only strengthens the trust you build through empathy and respect but also highlights your reliability and integrity by demonstrating a willingness to prioritize your client’s best interest over profit. Benevolence also enhances transparency, as clients perceive the brand’s openness and honesty as rooted in care.

By cultivating empathy, respect, and benevolence, you build strong emotional trust with your customers, buyers, and partners. This leads to increased loyalty, positive word-of-mouth referrals, and ultimately, greater business success.

Why It Works

You probably heard the saying “We want to buy from people, not companies.” This speaks to our most basic needs as human beings to be part of a bigger tribe, to be social, and feel safe. We want to build relationships with the people we do business with. And for this to happen, we need to feel that the other person understand our needs and wants, respects us for who we are, and has our best interests at heart. If these are genuinely met, a relationship can develop and deeper trust is build.

The Underpinning Pre-Requisite: Unapologetic Customer Alignment

Whenever I coach my clients on this level, I stress the importance of being genuine here. This is not about how to manipulate your buyers into feeling or thinking that you feel any of these things, but to develop a culture that empowers your employees to actually be empathetic, respectful, and do what is best for the customer. The requirement for this is to have what I call ‘unapologetic customer alignment.’ You truly seek to understand your buyers’ fears, worries, and concerns, you align with your customer’s needs and wants, and you change your business processes and best practices to serve your customers first. 

The Result: Customer Advocacy

Once you do that, you advocate for your customers. You change your industry by demanding fair prices, better customer experiences, customer-friendly practices, and so on -  even it goes against established industry conventions. You start to ruffle feathers, but you are starting to implement change and your customers will respect you for it and start seeing you as a market leader.

Before we can trust any brand, company, product, or service, we as buyers must believe that what we are buying will meet our expectations or perform as we expect. Essentially, we have to be able to answer the question “Am I getting what I am paying for?” or “Is this worth it?” sufficiently enough before making a purchase. This is the minimum baseline we have to meet for a transaction to occur. 

Consequently, on the first level, we need to build a rational and stable foundation for cognitive trust based on facts. They are essential for establishing initial credibility, showing consistency, and laying the groundwork for a genuine relationship.

These tenets are:

• Competence. Trust often starts with competence. Buyers trust a brand or individual when they demonstrate the expertise to deliver on promises. Competence reassures buyers that expectations will be met. Simply put, trust cannot be built without competence.
• Reliability. Reliability builds on competence by demonstrating the consistent application of skills and expertise. It shows a track record of delivering on promises, creating predictability, and reassuring buyers that their trust is well-placed.
• Integrity. Integrity ensures that the brand or person’s actions align with ethical principles, establishing moral soundness. When combined with competence and reliability, integrity strengthens the buyer’s perception that the brand will act in good faith and will come through.

These steps are the fundamental cornerstones because they must be addressed before pursuing anything else. Skipping these is not an option if you are looking for long-lasting success. Can you sell a super-comfy blanket onesie by creating a viral social media campaign leading to a long-form sales squeeze page with tons of social proof? Sure, but these foundational cornerstones must be strong, deeply embedded, and unmovable for long-lasting business success. Anything else is like building a skyscraper on sand — it will eventually collapse.

Why It Works

Establishing trust at this level lays the groundwork for deeper, long-term trust that evolves into mutually beneficial relationships. However, this basic level of trust is often sufficient in low-risk scenarios (e.g., cautious trust), such as one-time, low-value purchases or commoditized markets. In these cases, buyers simply need reassurance that the product will perform as expected.

Even then, when faced with equally competent options — like choosing between mid-range washing machines — integrity and transparency become the deciding factors. These elements determine the message's trustworthiness and ultimately guide the final purchase decision.

The Pre-Requisite: Complete Transparency

You cannot build trust by being competent and reliable while acting with integrity alone. It isn’t enough just to DO or BE these things; we must communicate them effectively. Therefore, the underpinning principle or pre-requisite for this level is complete transparency. This requires us to be completely highly transparent, sharing unbiased, accurate, and clear information, even if it means sharing unfavorable or uncomfortable things sometimes. 

The Result: An Educated Customer That Trusts You

If you consistently answer your customers’ questions in a completely transparent way, you end up with a highly educated buyer. Complete transparency results in radical customer education. If you are familiar with Marcus Sheridan’s Endless Customers (formerly known as They Ask You Answer), you will know that being willing to talk about the things that others aren’t willing to talk about and showing the things that others aren’t willing to show will not only earn you the respect of your buyers, but it will make you stand out in your market as the best teacher and the Voice of Trust. This includes written, audio, or video content on topics such as cost and price, potential problems, versus and comparisons, best of, and customer reviews. 

As a result, your customers become educated about your industry, the solution approaches available to them, and which products are best suited for them. They will understand the value and they are able to make the best choices for themselves.