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- How to Earn People's Trust — and Keep It
Welcome to One Thing Better. Each week, the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine (that's me) shares one way to be more successful and satisfied — and build a career or company you love.
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Today’s one thing: Being trusted.
That one thing, better: Always earning trust.
Do people trust you?
Could they trust you more?
We often have binary answers to this — it’s either yes or no.
But trust doesn’t actually work like that. Trust is a gradient — and once you appreciate how it works, you can build (and maintain!) trust in smarter, more careful ways.
It’s a concept called the trust battery.
Today, I’ll show you how to use it — and how it can help you build better relationships, professionally and personally.
What is the trust battery?
The idea is often credited to Tobi Lütke, the CEO of Shopify. He explained it like this in a New York Times story:
Another concept we talk a lot about is something called a “trust battery.” It’s charged at 50 percent when people are first hired. And then every time you work with someone at the company, the trust battery between the two of you is either charged or discharged, based on things like whether you deliver on what you promise.
To be clear: Nobody has one trust battery. Everyone has a different battery with everyone they know. “It’s a mental model for how to think about the relationship between people,” Lütke said later on a podcast. Jane’s battery with Amanda might be 30%, but her battery with Suzanne might be 98%.
Act wisely, and the battery rises. Act poorly, and it falls. Sure, you’ll never know exactly how charged a battery is — but once you focus on it, you’ll see plenty of clues.
I love this idea — so let’s take it a step further:
Our batteries require constant attention
As I wrote above, most people think of trust as binary: Someone either trusts us, or they don’t. But that would mean trust is unmovable. If we’re trusted, we can take it for granted or even abuse it a little. If we’re not trusted, then our situation is hopeless.
The trust battery forces us to think differently. Now we must factor trust into all our actions — because every action can impact the battery.
This creates healthy caution: If my battery with someone is at 80%, do I want to take a risk that could bring it down to 70%?
It also creates healthy patience: If my battery with someone is at 30%, I can incrementally grow it — up to 35%, 40%, and more. That way, I’m making progress while being mindful that they don’t fully trust me yet.
Even more importantly, it creates healthy perspective: The trust battery forces you to consider what really charges or drains the battery — and whether you’re unnecessarily holding yourself back.
That last part is tricky. And to be frank, I’m still learning it. Here’s why.
When to spend the battery
Let’s hit pause on the battery metaphor for a moment, and just get personal.
A few months ago, I was talking with my friend (and podcast cohost) Nicole Lapin about my personal-brand business. She thinks I can be more aggressive with it, and asked: Why don’t I market myself more? Why don’t I raise my prices?
I told her my fear: If I’m too salesy, people will trust me less.
For example: I turn down most advertising requests for this newsletter, which is why there are few ads here. I also rarely promote my offerings, like keynotes speaking or 1:1 coaching. Why? Because I don’t want readers (like you!) to feel like I’m just after their dollars. I’ve also kept my coaching prices low, because I don’t want others to think I’m too uppity or exclusive. And when I work with partners, I almost never propose upsells.
“You want to keep your trust battery at 100% and I love that,” Nicole told me. “But I think you’re overestimating what things drain your battery.”
This got me thinking. Nicole is right — I value people’s trust, and I’ve always been willing to make sacrifices to earn and keep it. I frequently give away my time and expertise, I ask for few favors, I’m rarely confrontational, and I never want people to feel like I have an agenda.
I’m comfortable with these choices. But as Nicole said, they’re premised on beliefs that may not be true.
For example: I rarely ask people for favors because I don’t want to drain my battery — but what if, for people I have trusting relationships with, asking for favors actually charges the battery? After all, I’m showing that I trust them enough to ask for their help. And when they can help, it makes them happy.
And what if sales pitches aren’t as trust-draining as I fear? It’s possible that, if I pitch services in my newsletter, most readers aren’t bothered — or maybe their trust dips just a few percentages. But when someone buys, and I deliver a lot of value for their dollar, they could trust me even more than before!
So, how are you charging your battery?
As I’ve written this, I’ve been thinking about how I charge my trust battery.
Nicole was right: I really, truly want to keep my batteries as close to 100% as possible — which isn’t always easy, and isn’t always possible, but I try.
So I asked myself: What works? What do I aspire to do best?
Here are 18 ways I recommend building trust:
Give with no expectation of a return
Ask deep questions and honor people’s answers
Assume good intentions
Be curious and genuinely interested
Be responsive
Be reliable
Be communicative
Be patient
Be additive
Be predictable
Recognize other people’s priorities, and prioritize them
Recognize other people’s concerns, and never inhabit them
Recognize where people are coming from, and meet them there
Never be reckless
When there’s an opportunity to be kind, even in small ways, be kind
When there’s an opportunity to be cruel, even if it’s tempting, always pass
If someone needs time or space, give it to them
Trust them too
Every day, you have multiple chances to charge the trust battery.
All it requires is your energy.
That’s how to do one thing better.
P.S. Want my help 1:1? In the spirit of following Nicole’s advice above, I’ll share this: I’m bookable for 15- or 30-minute consulting sessions, or monthly programs where I can help you develop a personal brand, improve your writing, grow your LinkedIn following, and more. Connect here.
P.P.S. Not getting paid what you’re worth? Here’s a podcast episode where Nicole talks me into increasing my rates. She convinced me — and she can convince you!
P.P.S. Miss my last newsletter? It was about how to ask for what you really want. Read!
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