As we work to improve our relationships with our prospects and clients, we should be striving to solidify our level of trust. And an important component of building trust is reliability. Reliability, in the realm of trustworthiness, is synonymous with predictability or dependability.
It’s always better when we make and keep promises to others as the result of proactive measures WE’VE taken. We’re in trouble when we get held accountable by the client or prospect. If it gets that far, we’re in the danger zone.
Here are some ways that come to mind for incorporating reliability into our lives:
1. Have systems to track tasks and activities (i.e., set up a task in your CRM program).
2. Get clarity about who is doing what by when (i.e., define roles, responsibilities, and deadlines for each project).
3. Set up regular “check-in” meetings to measure progress with a manager, a co-worker, or the entire team at a group meeting (remember we tend to get better results when we’re committed to others – think personal trainer).
4. Utilize technology to set up reminders (i.e., make appointments with yourself to prepare and plan – don’t leave it to chance).
5. Have an accountability partner (again, as with #3, outside support drives better results).
6. Reverse engineer the process to avoid last minute scrambling by beginning with the end in mind and giving yourself plenty of time and margin of error (remember it always takes longer than we thought and we never do our best work when we’re scrambling).
7. Alert the other party as soon as you discover the promised deadline will not be met and ask for more time (remember people don’t like surprises – be honest, you may get a break).
There are some virtues that you can tweak while on the job. For instance, you don't have to be completely honest if you're having the worst day of your life and one of your clients starts out a conversation with "how you're doing?" You also deserve to take a break from diehard diligence at approrpriate times during the work week. But trustworthiness is different. We cannot waver in our integrity and we must invest ourselves fully into keeping it in tact.
As the old adage goes: "Trust is like a vase. Once it's broken, though you can fix it, the vase will never be the same again." To be the best professional relationship builders we can be, let's institute the necessary practices into our lives to remain reliable.
Mark Slatin is a VP of Sales at entreQuest who is outsourced to a wide variety of companies to coach their teams, improve their client experiences, and raise their revenues.
