People Do Business with People they Know, Like, and Trust – Right?

Originally shared in A Daily Dose Of Leadership on June 23, 2020.

We took an in-depth look at what we each need to work on to build A Cycle for Success in our own lives through the last several blogs, but those all required us to look inside of ourselves. But for any kind of success we’re able to create to have a shot at lasting, there’s something else we need to be very intentional about building with each person we interact with!

Most of us have heard the phrase People do business with (or buy from) people they KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST. But is that really THE truth?

I’ve studied and worked with tools focused on human behavior for more than twenty years, and that statement has always seemed to have quite a bit of merit. It wasn’t until I began studying the work William Marston did that we know today as the DISC Model of Human Behavior that I began to understand that this statement was A TRUTH but not always THE TRUTH…

The two-thirds of the population, those who tend to be more People-Centered, the idea of Know, Like, then Trust is spot-on. But for the one out of every three of us who are more Task-Oriented, being able to TRUST the person we’re dealing with is top priority. And if that TRUST isn’t there (and it’s never built), there’s a high likelihood that we’ll never get to a point where we LIKE the person. 

Before moving on, here’s a quick question to consider: If someone doesn’t TRUST or LIKE us, is there much chance that they’ll do business with us? And even if they do once out of necessity, is it very likely that it will be repeat business? Kind of hard to build A Cycle for Success then without trust as our foundation, huh?

I shared an article on LinkedIn yesterday called There’s No Lasting Success Without It… that was meant to serve as a guide for where these blogs will go over the next several days, and referenced a few quotes about TRUST that we’ll be digging into as we move forward. In the next blog, we’ll look at why TRUST is valued more in the Navy SEAL selection process than even technical ability and I’ll challenge you with a tough question afterward…