Welcome to the December Carnival of Trust. The Carnival of Trust is a monthly carnival created by Charles Green, co-author of The Trusted Advisor, which focuses on the topic of building valued relationships with clients.

Trust can only be earned, but if you and your business can earn your customers trust then your business will go from strength to strength. If you’re not sure how to increase the level of trust, then the posts is this months carnival will give you some ideas.

How to Quickly Build Trust

Naomi Karten was recently asked: “How do you build trust quickly?” So she explains how. I think I’d have replied that you have to earn trust and it’s not something you either have or have not but rather a scale from low to high with hundreds of positions in between. Why you can quickly gain some trust, being trusted takes time.

A Secret about Rainmakers and Their Trusted Advisor Relationships

Ford Harding lets us in on a secret about rainmakers and their role as trusted advisors. I’m not sure I’d agree as I generally tend to be younger than those that I advise.

My Thoughts About Referral Based Selling

According to Jonathan Farrington “Salespeople who actively seek and exploit referrals earn 4 to 5 times more than sales people who don’t.” I can well believe it, but to get good referrals your customers have to trust that when they introduce you to a client or supplier of theirs you’ll do a good job.

Do You Trust the Phone Companies? We Don’t Either

Marvin Johnson wonders about the US phone companies and unfortunately they sound just as bad as BT whose actions don’t match their words either. I’m not sure why these companies haven’t yet learned to under promise and over deliver, instead they over promise and under deliver.

Google: Does it have to be all FUD all the time?

Mitch Ratcliffe wonders if Google is becoming the new Microsoft, relying on FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) rather than innovation to maintain it’s competitive edge. I tend to agree I don’t trust Google either when they behave this way.

Trust and the High Performance Organisation

Karim Beers considers on the quote “one of the most important lessons we can learn from an examination of economic life is that a nation’s well-being, as well as its ability to compete, is conditioned by a single, pervasive cultural characteristic: the level of trust inherent in the society.” and explains how to build trust into a high performance organisation.

Can Employees Produce Without Trust and Empowerment?

Lori Deschene wonders how employees are supposed to help the customer when management don’t trust them enougth to actually let them have access to the tools required to do their jobs. I’ve experienced this first hand when working as a software engineer and it’s crushing for employee moral. I don’t agree with the point that money is a motivator however as there are other ways to motivate employees.

Building Trust in the Workplace

Cheri Baker explores how to build trust in the workplace. I hope managers everywhere will agree that we need more of this.

Companies, Employees, and Social Media requires Trust

At his new job induction Jeremiah Owyang was told “We trust you, as we hire good people”, now he woders when more businesses will wake up to the necessity to trust employees in todays business environment.

A Matter of Trust

Do you trust your gut instinct? J Phillips has learned to trust his in order to avoid those whom he can’t trust.

For more discussions of the nature of trust, you can check out the Carnival’s previous editions:

Carnival of Trust #6 started of here at Trust Matters;

Steve Cranford at Whisper hosted Carnival of Trust #5;

David Maister at Passion, People and Principles hosted Carnival of Trust #4;

the anonymous but trusted Editor of Blawg Review hosted Carnival of Trust #3;

Carnival of Trust #1 and Carnival of Trust #2 started of here at Trust Matters.

Have a look at them.

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