Trust Builds Business
If high trust drives costs down and profits up, why not build more trust in your accountancy firm?
Engaging Tweets
Build high trust relationships and you build an environment for success in your business
Stop thinking that high trust cannot be built in your team and your business
Use high trust as a business driver for success
Why risk the future of your business by not building your levels of trust?
Why high trust can be a business winner and secure your future growth and profits
Create a high trust environment and watch your business flourish
Warren Buffet saw the importance of high trust in business and you can do the same…
Why is high trust important to your business? Just learn from Warren Buffet…
High trust makes everything in your business easier – learn from a simple but big business deal…
Stop thinking that high trust is not important to your business success
What happens when you focus on building high trust relationships in your business?
Warren Buffet used high trust to his benefit during a business deal and you can do the same…
If you want to take trust seriously in your business, shouldn’t you be measuring it right?
Multiply the levels of trust in your business and you multiply your success
Reap the rewards of building trust in your business by taking the high trust path
Do you know what impact the levels of trust are having on the performance of your business?
Get your strategy and execution aligned with a high level of trust for business wins
Your business wins when you execute your strategy in a high trust environment
Take trust worthiness seriously in your business when you use the trust equation
The 5 components of trust – use them in your business to increase efficiency and decrease costs
Your costs will go down and speed will go up when you apply the trust equation to your business
How to use the trust equation to secure the future growth and success of your business
Build success in your business with the trust equation and 5 components of trust
Use the 13 trust behaviours in your business and increase growth and profits
Improve the relationships in your business when you use the 13 trust behaviours
How to increase the profits and growth of your business by using the 13 trust behaviours
What happens to your business when you use the 13 trust behaviours to build, maintain and restore trust?
Build back the trust in your business using the 13 behaviours of trust, like Deloitte did
How did the 13 trust behaviours help Deloitte and how can you apply the same to your business
Deloitte achieved the unexpected when they applied the 13 trust behaviours to their business and you can do the same
Restore the trust in your business using 13 behaviours, learn from Deloitte
Your checklist to high trust in your business
4 helping hands to help you create high levels of trust in your business
Generate a high trust work environment with this ‘build trust’ checklist
Start using this ‘build trust’ checklist now for success in your business
LinkedIn Updates
1. Trust – a word that can mean so much, in so many different ways, to so many different people. The dictionary definition of trust is: “Reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence; confident expectation of something; hope.” What does trust mean to you and how important do you think it is to the future of your business? Click here to learn more.
2. For your business to be successful, high trust relationships are vital. You need to be able to trust your team, your customers and your suppliers. Where there is high trust in a relationship, everything is made easier – a high trust relationship is less stressful, more profitable, both emotionally and financially, and more enjoyable too.This all sounds simple, doesn’t it?
But click here to learn what trust might be common sense, but in business it is not common practice…
3. It’s hard to understate exactly how important trust is to your business. Click here to learn why, as a business owner, a lack of trust will be your biggest expense. Some costs are monetary, others are emotional. Trust does not happen all at once; gaining high trust takes work but for your business it will pay dividends…
4. Work on building high trust relationships in your business – high trust makes you better at everything you do as a business leader. When you build trust, you increase your ability to grow revenue, profits and capital value, and you might also enjoy your work more too. Click here to learn the importance of high trust and how it made a business transaction effortless for Warren Buffet.
5. Because both high trust and low trust impact on everyone involved in your business, the ability to be able to create trust is the critical leadership competency needed today. A low trust path has a negative effect on your business, but a high trust path impacts positively on everyone. Click here to learn how every day you choose which path you take – low trust or high trust – based on your behaviours.
6. As a trustworthy leader, you set the standard for the level of trust in your business, and your team don’t follow the strategy – they follow YOU…
If you are not a credible leader, your team will not embrace the plans, strategies and projects that will help your business survive and thrive.
Click here to learn why your business strategy is only as good as the trust that your team have in you.
7. In your business, what does it mean to you when someone is trustworthy?
How important is trustworthiness to you?
And how important do you think trustworthiness is to the future of your business? Click here to learn more.
8. Think about a relationship you have with one person in your business – whether this be a team member, customer or supplier.
One half of what creates this relationship is TRUST; the other half is TRUSTING.
One of you is taking the risk to trust the other; the other person must prove whether or not they are trustworthy. So, what does it mean to be trustworthy and why is this so important to the relationships you have within your business? Click here to learn more.
9. You are so busy running your business you have not got time to stop and measure the effect that low trust is having on your team, customers, profits and growth. But trust can make or break your business success. Click here to learn what happens to your business when you use the 13 trust behaviours to build, maintain and restore trust?
10. Trust is on the decline – have a look at any trust index (search Google) and you will see an erosion of trust in our culture and in many walks of life. People just don’t trust other people as much as they did a generation ago. And yet it is something so important to all of us and something so highly valuable that it’s worth investing time and effort in building, maintaining and restoring trust.
And… trust can be learned. Click here to learn more.
11. So how do you build trust in your business?
Click here to discover that the challenge starts with you… it’s about YOU building trust – your credibility, reliability, intimacy and your orientation towards others – before starting to apply the trust equation’s language and framework to others.
12. Click here to learn how Deloitte won a client back because they learnt from their previous performance and behaviours by using 8 of the ‘13 trust behaviours’ to restore their clients trust.
Maintain, build or restore the trust in your business using the 13 behaviours of trust.
13. You might think that trust doesn’t need special attention in your business, that it’s expected in any business relationship. But sadly, this is not the case… Click here to generate a high trust work environment within your business with this ‘build trust’ checklist.
14. Trust is hard to earn, easy to lose and fundamental to the future and growth of your business.
Because trust is vital to every aspect of your business, it pays to understand and use the language of trust and to use the frameworks that signpost trustworthy behaviour. Click here for the ‘build trust’ checklist to help you get started.
Facebook Posts
1. Trust – a word that can mean so much, in so many different ways, to so many different people. The dictionary definition of trust is: “Reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence; confident expectation of something; hope.” What does trust mean to you and how important do you think it is to the future of your business? Click here to learn more.
2. For your business to be successful, high trust relationships are vital. You need to be able to trust your team, your customers and your suppliers. Where there is high trust in a relationship, everything is made easier – a high trust relationship is less stressful, more profitable, both emotionally and financially, and more enjoyable too.This all sounds simple, doesn’t it?
But click here to learn what trust might be common sense, but in business it is not common practice…
3. It’s hard to understate exactly how important trust is to your business. Click here to learn why, as a business owner, a lack of trust will be your biggest expense. Some costs are monetary, others are emotional. Trust does not happen all at once; gaining high trust takes work but for your business it will pay dividends…
4. Work on building high trust relationships in your business – high trust makes you better at everything you do as a business leader. When you build trust, you increase your ability to grow revenue, profits and capital value, and you might also enjoy your work more too. Click here to learn the importance of high trust and how it made a business transaction effortless for Warren Buffet.
5. Because both high trust and low trust impact on everyone involved in your business, the ability to be able to create trust is the critical leadership competency needed today. A low trust path has a negative effect on your business, but a high trust path impacts positively on everyone. Click here to learn how every day you choose which path you take – low trust or high trust – based on your behaviours.
6. As a trustworthy leader, you set the standard for the level of trust in your business, and your team don’t follow the strategy – they follow YOU…
If you are not a credible leader, your team will not embrace the plans, strategies and projects that will help your business survive and thrive.
Click here to learn why your business strategy is only as good as the trust that your team have in you.
7. In your business, what does it mean to you when someone is trustworthy?
How important is trustworthiness to you?
And how important do you think trustworthiness is to the future of your business? Click here to learn more.
8. Think about a relationship you have with one person in your business – whether this be a team member, customer or supplier.
One half of what creates this relationship is TRUST; the other half is TRUSTING.
One of you is taking the risk to trust the other; the other person must prove whether or not they are trustworthy. So, what does it mean to be trustworthy and why is this so important to the relationships you have within your business? Click here to learn more.
9. You are so busy running your business you have not got time to stop and measure the effect that low trust is having on your team, customers, profits and growth. But trust can make or break your business success. Click here to learn what happens to your business when you use the 13 trust behaviours to build, maintain and restore trust?
10. Trust is on the decline – have a look at any trust index (search Google) and you will see an erosion of trust in our culture and in many walks of life. People just don’t trust other people as much as they did a generation ago. And yet it is something so important to all of us and something so highly valuable that it’s worth investing time and effort in building, maintaining and restoring trust.
And… trust can be learned. Click here to learn more.
11. So how do you build trust in your business?
Click here to discover that the challenge starts with you… it’s about YOU building trust – your credibility, reliability, intimacy and your orientation towards others – before starting to apply the trust equation’s language and framework to others.
12. Click here to learn how Deloitte won a client back because they learnt from their previous performance and behaviours by using 8 of the ‘13 trust behaviours’ to restore their clients trust.
Maintain, build or restore the trust in your business using the 13 behaviours of trust.
13. You might think that trust doesn’t need special attention in your business, that it’s expected in any business relationship. But sadly, this is not the case… Click here to generate a high trust work environment within your business with this ‘build trust’ checklist.
14. Trust is hard to earn, easy to lose and fundamental to the future and growth of your business.
Because trust is vital to every aspect of your business, it pays to understand and use the language of trust and to use the frameworks that signpost trustworthy behaviour. Click here for the ‘build trust’ checklist to help you get started.
Blog Posts
Blog 1 – Why risk the future of your business by not building your levels of trust?
Trust – a word that can mean so much, in so many different ways, to so many different people.
What does trust mean to you?
The dictionary definition of trust is:
“Reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence;
confident expectation of something; hope.”
There are keys words within this definition which embody the feeling and importance of trust:
- Reliance
- Integrity
- Confidence
Think about a relationship you have, either personal or professional, with a person that you trust. These 3 words are at the heart of that relationship.
You know you can rely on that person 100% to do what they say they are going to do or to be there when it matters.
They have integrity, are honest, have high moral standards and would never be disloyal.
You have confidence in them to be there for you, to deliver on time or to back you up when needed.
Where there is high trust in a relationship, everything is made easier – a high trust relationship is less stressful, more profitable, both emotionally and financially, and more enjoyable too.
Where there is low trust in a relationship, everything is so much harder and more stressful – it costs you and your business more in time and money, and it’s just not fun to work in a low trust environment.
For your business to be successful, high trust relationships are vital.
You need to be able to trust your team to do their work to a high level, deliver on time, hit deadlines and keep your customers happy.
You need to be able to trust your customers and for them to trust you, with the result that they will order from you again, recommend you to others and remain loyal.
You need to be able to trust your suppliers to make and deliver products and services for you as promised and that these products and services will be in good working order.
This all sounds simple, doesn’t it?
Trust might be common sense, but in business it is not common practice…
Click here to learn the importance of high trust to the future success and growth of your business.
Blog 2 - Focus on high trust relationships in your business, like Warren Buffet did…
It’s hard to understate exactly how important trust is to your business.
As a business owner, a lack of trust will be your biggest expense. Some costs are monetary, others are emotional; some costs can be measured, some cannot.
But you know that where there is low trust there are high costs.
Trust is the natural result of thousands of tiny actions, words, thoughts and intentions. Trust does not happen all at once; gaining high trust takes work, but it can pay dividends…
Like it did for Warren Buffet…
Imagine how nerve-wracking and difficult it is to start and conclude a billion-pound business acquisition.
These normally take months of wrangling and legal arguments, costing millions.
Yet Warren Buffet completed the £1billion purchase of McLane Distribution, with its 14,500 workers, from Wal-Mart based on a two-hour meeting.
How?
High trust between Warren Buffet and the Wal-Mart executives made a quick deal possible.
In your business low trust is a tax, while high trust is a dividend. Just like the diagram below shows, low trust slows everything down and increases costs, whereas high trust speeds everything up, keeping the costs low.

In the McLane Distribution deal, both Warren Buffet and Wal-Mart experienced the benefits of their relationship of trust in the form of a speedy negotiation with its associated lower costs.
Work on building high trust relationships in your business – high trust makes you better at everything you do as a business leader. When you build trust, you increase your ability to grow revenue, profits and capital value, and you might also enjoy your work more too.
Click here to learn how your business can benefit from the dividends of a high trust working environment.
Blog 3 – Multiply the levels of trust in your business and you multiply your success
Trust can make or break the future of your business.
Where there is trust, there is less stress and less complication.
Low trust in your business creates hidden agendas, interpersonal conflict, interdepartmental rivalries and defensive and protective communication. It slows the work down and sends costs up. A low trust workplace is no fun.
High trust in your business is so much easier – it makes everything better and has a positive impact on you and your team. Costs go down, your team and customers are happier and it’s a fun place to work.
Because both high trust and low trust impact on everyone involved in your business, the ability to be able to create trust is the critical leadership competency needed today.
A low trust path has a negative effect on your business. Customers buy less, your team are disenchanted, your suppliers favour your competition.
A high trust path impacts positively on everyone. Customers buy more, your team are enthusiastic and committed, suppliers go out of their way to help you.
Every day you choose which path you take – low trust or high trust – based on your behaviours.
You might think you have the right business strategy and have planned the execution of this strategy well…
But are you growing frustrated with the progress of this plan?
As a trustworthy leader, you set the standard for the level of trust in your business, and your team don’t follow the strategy – they follow YOU…
If you are not a credible leader, your team will not embrace the plans, strategies and projects that will help your business survive and thrive.
Your business strategy is only as good as the trust that your team have in you.
In his brilliant and insightful book, The Speed of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey discusses the 7 levels of trust and uses an equation to help you measure where you are now as well as how to build, maintain and restore the levels of trust in your business.
You will find links to this equation and the 7 levels of trust in this Business Breakthrough report.
Click here to learn how building and nurturing a high trust culture in your business start with you.
Blog 4 – When you use the right language and framework you build trust in your business
In your business, what does it mean to you when someone is trustworthy?
How important is trustworthiness to you?
And how important do you think trustworthiness is to the future of your business?
Think about a relationship you have with one person in your business – whether this be a team member, customer or supplier.
One half of what creates this relationship is TRUST; the other half is TRUSTING.
One of you is taking the risk to trust the other; the other person must prove whether or not they are trustworthy.
So, what does it mean to be trustworthy and why is this so important to the relationships you have within your business?
Charles H. Green, a world-renowned commentator on trust, suggests that we be more credible, more reliable and more intimate whilst reducing any focus on ourselves and our results.
He has developed an equation to provide some language and a framework around which you can unpack the concept and feeling of trust. Both the language and framework will help you understand how to build trust:

Trust – trusting and trustworthiness - the outcome of your behaviours means you’re worth trusting; in other words, you’ve earned the right to be trusted.
Credibility – competent, capable with relevant credentials, expert in your field.
Reliability – do what you say you will do consistently, have a good track record.
Credibility and Reliability are rational forms of trustworthiness; they are objective, and they can be measured and scored.
Intimacy – feel safe, respectful, appropriate, emotionally connected – emotional security.
Improving, building and increasing these 3 aspects will earn you the right to be trusted.
Self-orientation – selfishness, self-obsession, in it for me, not caring about others.
Making use of this formula and focusing on the components, measuring and scoring where possible, will help you to work on the relationships in your business and enable you to generate relationships of high trust.
Click here to use the language and framework provided by Charles M. Green to start to build trust by having a trustworthiness conversation in your business.
Blog 5 – 13 trust behaviours to help you build, maintain and restore trust in your business
You might not think about the consequences of low trust to your business or to society at large and, even if you did, you are so busy running your business you have not got time to stop and measure the effect that low trust is having on your team, customers, profits and growth.
But trust is on the decline – have a look at any trust index (search Google) and you will see an erosion of trust in our culture and in many walks of life. People just don’t trust other people as much as they did a generation ago.
And yet it is something so important to all of us and something so highly valuable that it’s worth investing time and effort in building, maintaining and restoring trust.
And… trust can be learned.
Steven M.R Covey points to 13 behaviours that can help you do just that.
- Talk Straight – Be honest, tell the truth
- Demonstrate Respect – Care for others and show it, treat others with respect
- Create Transparency – Tell the truth, be real and genuine
- Right Wrongs – Admit when you are wrong, apologise and be humble
- Show Loyalty – Give credit to others
- Deliver Results – Get things done consistently, make things happen on time
- Get Better – Continuously improve, be a constant learner
- Confront Reality – Tackle all issues, even the tough stuff
- Clarify Expectations – Disclose, reveal and validate expectations
- Practice Accountability – Hold yourself accountable first, take responsibility
- Listen First – Listen before speaking, understand, diagnose, listen
- Keep Commitments – Say what you will do and then do it, hold confidences
- Extend Trust – Extend trust to those who have earned it
There are more details about these 13 behaviours in the Business Breakthrough report, plus a clear one-pager in the tools attached to the report to help you and your team score yourselves.
The scoring will enable you to see your strengths and weaknesses and, as a result, identify what you need to work on to build greater trust.
Click here to read more about the 13 behaviours of trust and start using them to build, maintain and restore the level of trust in your business.
Blog 6 –
Build greater trust in your business when you use the 13 trust behaviours.
Trust might be a common-sense thing to expect in business, but it is not common practice.
Distrust is costly and miserable, slowing down everything in your business. In his book, The Speed of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey points to two sources of distrust:
Competence – relating to an individual’s results and capabilities
Character – relating to an individual’s intent and integrity
“…many organisational performance issues are actually ‘trust issues’ in disguise.” Stephen M.R. Covey
So how do you build trust in your business?
The challenge starts with you… it’s about YOU building trust – your credibility, reliability, intimacy and your orientation towards others – before starting to apply the trust equation’s language and framework to others.
“Self-trust is the first secret of success… the essence of heroism.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
YOU set the standard, YOU take the lead, and your team, your customers, your suppliers will follow.
And not only can trust be learned – RESTORING trust is also possible…
Here is a great story told by Stephen M.R. Covey in The
Speed of Trust about how one business used the 13 trust behaviours with great results:
Deloitte, the large audit and accounting firm, lost a very large client. This client had lost all faith in Deloitte and in their ability to carry out a trustworthy audit service.
With no intention of working with Deloitte again, they put the business out to tender.
And yet it was Deloitte who won the client back because they applied 8 of the ‘13 trust behaviours’.
To do this, Deloitte play-acted the conversation they believed their client’s board of directors might have had about Deloitte’s previous behaviour and performance as auditors. In the Business Breakthrough report, check out the 8 behaviours (from the 13) which they used to restore their client’s trust and win back the business.
Click here to discover that trust is a learnable skill which can be built and even restored (as Deloitte proved) and that investing time in developing trust will give you and your business a sustainable competitive advantage.
Blog 7 – Your ‘build trust’ checklist to help your build, maintain and restore a high level of trust in your business
You might think that trust doesn’t need special attention in your business, that it’s expected in any business relationship.
But sadly, this is not the case…
Trust is hard to earn, easy to lose and fundamental to the future and growth of your business.
Because trust is vital to every aspect of your business, it pays to understand and use the language of trust and to use the frameworks that signpost trustworthy behaviour. Here is a checklist to help you get started:
- See trust as an economic driver of business success - trust lowers costs and increases speed, making happier customers and a happier team. Lower costs and speed of work also increase profits.
- See trust as a learnable set of skills to build both character and competence – rather than dividing people into two camps of trustworthy and not trustworthy, start improving your trust behaviours and trust skills.
- Choose a relationship or team where you want to improve trust – put this trust-building to practical use and focus on a relationship which you want to improve.
- Use Covey’s 13 trust behaviours to identify areas that need attention, time and effort – choose the behaviours that will build trust fastest and easiest with the relationship you have chosen.
Click here to get more on the 13 trust behaviours as well as some really useful frameworks and equations to help you develop the skills and knowledge to build greater trust in your business.
Engaging E-mails
Monthly email to share the business breakthrough with your contacts.
Subject:
Your business wins when you build, maintain and restore trust
Preview text: Your complimentary business breakthrough
Main email wording:
Whether in business or personal relationships, trust makes life less stressful and less complicated.
A low level of trust creates conflict, rivalries and secrets and can slow down every part of your business. Decisions, communication and relationships are that much harder in a low trust environment.
Low trust also means high cost.
However, when you maintain and nurture a high trust environment, this impacts positively on everyone around you. Costs go down, team and customer engagement go up and it's more enjoyable as well.
All because you focus on improving trust.
In this ‘Trust Builds Business’ edition of Business Breakthrough you will learn, in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea:
- Stephen M.R. Covey’s 13 behaviours to help you build, maintain and restore trust in your business and how Deloitte used some of these behaviours to successfully win back a customer
- Charles H. Green’s trust equation which provides a language and framework to help you understand how to build trust
- the importance of the 5 components of trust and how improving and building these attributes will earn you the right to be trusted
Click here to discover how investing time and effort in building, maintaining and restoring trust will give you and your business a sustainable competitive advantage.
Email to go with Blog 1
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Business Breakthrough Subscriber Resources