Introduction

Hello, welcome to this new edition of TRUST-able focusing on providing you with practical suggestions and ideas on how to build deeper trust with customers and prospective ones.

The focus of this issue is on one of the three key positive elements of the trust equation formula: intimacy.

Intimacy is the most powerful and underestimated factor that business should invest in to grow their trustworthiness. 

Though the word “intimacy” sounds familiar, we hardly associate it with business activities and we tend to connect it to the world of personal, sentimental relationships.

While businesses focus and get better by the day at building higher visibility (SEO) and authority (branding) they are still trailing in building deeper trust with their customers and prospective ones.

Building intimacy with clients and prospects is crucial for long-term business success, as it fosters trust, loyalty, and better understanding of customer needs, and it offers a unique opportunity to differentiate your business from your key competitors.

In this issue:

How to build deeper trust through intimacy. 

1. In person (Free part)

2. At-a-distance (Premium part)

Obstacles To Building Intimacy

Why entrepreneurs do not invest more in building trust with their customers?

Why so many businesses skip altogether paying attention to the factor that has the most impact over developing fruitful and profitable long-term business relationships?

Here’s why.

The three major obstacles preventing businesses from investing more in building trusted relationships through intimacy are:

1. Concentration on cashing in rapidly and on acquiring new clients at the expense of nurturing existing relationships. “We want to make money and we want to make it now” is the default mantra of most entrepreneurs.
   

2. Lack of appreciation and understanding of the value of building intimacy with their customers.
   

3. Focus on building trust via reliability and credibility than by intimacy (though intimacy is comparatively much more powerful than the other two). Entrepreneurs do so because reliability is relatively easy to attain by making and fulfilling a series of small promises.

Big Opportunity

We often expect that most of our sales result from a bunch of tactics based on ranking on Google through a thousand heartless SEO tricks, via paid ads and via social media media pushing.

How do you think this is a way to gain trust from others?

It ain’t one.

Trusted relationships require true, genuine, personal dedication and a willingness to get personal and intimate with both customers and prospects.

Getting intimate can be hard or even impossible to automate and scale. 

The major obstacle in getting intimate is on one hand the lack of understanding of its true value and benefits, and on the other, a general tendency to believe that it is too time consuming and distracting from the mandatory focus on immediate results.

But what on one side may look as a problem, always looks as an opportunity on the other.

If everyone is focusing on short-term results and on superficial-artificial-automated relationships, anyone who strongly focuses on deep-trust relationships may see, over time, some very tangible advantages and benefits.

That’s where the great opportunity is.

Most of your competitors are relying heavily on automated, technology-driven communications and marketing tactics, while neglecting personal and human touchpoints.

Very few entrepreneurs believe that it is worth to dedicate personal time to such an endeavor unless the company has only a few tens of clients.

It’s almost cliche to be ‘customer-focused' or ‘client-focused’ but people will sense when you’re going through the motions to make more money. Instead, practice opening yourself to empathy by being truly present, without distractions, and authentically responding to what people are saying and feeling. 

A strategic shift toward a longer-term mindset, with a high focus on building long-term trust rather than focusing exclusively on immediate sales, can help businesses foster much more fruitful, reciprocally satisfying, meaningful, long-lasting and profitable relationships with their clients. 

How To Nurture Intimacy

First thing is to separate this activity into two parts:

a) Getting Intimate in Person
Getting intimate with the people you meet and see physically.

b) Getting Intimate at-a-Distance (Premium section)
Getting intimate with clients and prospects at-a-distance by individually reaching out to past clients, leads and contacts for whom you have already done something positive or who have signaled/ expressed an interest for your opinion and for your services and products.

Get Intimate In Person

How we behave, especially when we communicate, determines the level of intimacy we can achieve inside a growing relationship.

In my experience, the behaviors that are most conductive to getting intimate with another person include:

1. Greeting by name

   This is very powerful and effective. Learn to memorize first names and always greet your contacts by using their name.

   .

2. Showing Genuine Interest (for the other person)
   Curiosity - Asking questions - Getting to know them deeper
   .

3. Knowing the Other
   Being aware of where they come from / what their key interests are
   Knowing their story, context and personal passions
   Knowing the names of their kids, pets, partners, etc.
   .

4. Deep Listening
   Helping others feel “understood, accepted, and cared for” through reflective, empathic listening.
   .

5. Being Direct
   Communicating with them in direct and informal ways
   Using “I and You” - avoiding too formal expressions
   .

6. Being Courteous
   Treating them with care and attention
   .

7. Giving Special Consideration
   Acting in their interest, even when they are not there
   .

8. Anticipating Needs
   Getting know what they need and what makes them comfortable
   .

9. Being Honest
   Showing transparency and openness
   Not hiding, not withholding valuable information
   .

10. Being Vulnerable
    Having the courage to show or expose your weak sides, errors, limitations
    .

11. Asking for Feedback
    Requesting critical comments on your ideas, proposals, work
    You show trust in their viewpoint
    .

12. Being Playful
    Being ironic, outgoing
    Providing an entertaining side, capable of looking at issues and problems without being too serious
    .

13. Gifting
    Giving unexpected presents, surprises

    (that cost you nothing, but which are perceived as highly valuable)

10 ideas / examples of unexpected presents

1. PDFs, presentations

2. Recordings of interviews

3. Good work you have produced in the past

4. Special access to something not available online

5. A playlist / compilation tailored to their taste

6. List of tools you use for something specific with your personal descriptions

7. List of resources you have created

8. Old course you are not selling anymore (with warnings)

9. 5-min checkup of their work

10. List of newsletters you subscribe to (your sources) 

Synthesis: The more I think about it, and the more it looks evident to me: to nurture intimacy you need to truly, genuinely care for the other person. There’s no way of faking it. Either you are truly interested in “the other”, or there is no way to build such intimacy.

All you need to build deep trusted relationships, is love.

Premium Section

→ Getting Intimate at-a-Distance

→ Personal Outreach

→ Get Intimate When Writing

→ Intimate Communication Channels

(for paid subscribers only)