Ever been told you are being selfish? Ever tried to take a toy away from one child to give it to another? The response is most likely “It’s Mine…” We are born selfish which is why sometimes it is hard to build trust with others.
We have come to the most important variable when discussing trust. It’s in the denominator of the trust equation as well. This means that the larger this variable is, the more it pulls down the other variables in the numerator. Yes it is math based.
We can be very creditable, reliable, and vulnerable, but if we are only doing this to help ourselves “WIN” we will actually “LOSE”. We will not be able to gain trust and sustain it if we are only out for our own gain. True we may be able to fake our selfishness for a little while to obtain short term gains, but trust is actually more like a marathon. People will figure it out fast enough as selfishness is like a spotlight shining bright into the night sky. There is no way to truly cover selfishness.
Selfishness tells people that we do not value them and do not care about them. Have you ever been around someone that you tried to give more and more trust and it just seemed to blow up in your face each and every time? It is really hard to keep wanting to extend them the benefit of doubt. After a while trust is just not an option anymore.
I had to come to this realization with someone that I have bent over backwards to help on quite a few occasions. Each time resulted in being taken advantage of due to their selfishness. I am very helpful by nature and want to help people from hitting some of the pitfalls that I have had to endure. This person was only focused on their wants without a care for anyone else.
By being selfish we can quickly turn relationships sour. In sales or leadership if this happens, we really start losing influence. Influence is the key ingredient to success in sales and leadership. Without trust there is no influence. Leverage is a term of is a term often people use as an influencing tool of holding something over someone so that they will do what we want, but once leverage is gone these people will revolt! When we do not have trust, people will be less willing to give us the benefit of the doubt and promote us to customer. Even Steve Jobs was asked to step down at one point at Apple.
I am constantly taking inventory in my life to gauge how selfish I am being. I’m sure I fail to live up to my standard, but my focus is on not being selfish. Instead, my focus is on trying to help everyone that I can. I put my expertise out there to help others gain knowledge. I do not do it so I can say that I have done it, but to share so that people can avoid mistakes that I have run into in the past. My goal is to help you become more efficient and successful especially with areas of sales and leadership.
The key is to really take an inventory of our relationships and see if there are any areas where we are being a little selfish. Are there some relationships that we need to apologize for selfishness? Have we made any recent mistakes that an apology will help start the road back to building trust? Selfishness can be fixed when we take an honest look at how we have behaving with others.
When we lower selfishness relationships and influence seem to increase at a rapid pace. We need to place value on others and not do anything to just advance ourselves, but humbly help others get to where they need to go. “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” Zig Ziglar
So here it is the full Trust Equation.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”