We live in a social world. Other people form a huge part of our life. They give birth to us, raise us, provide for us, teach us, feed us, clothe us, pay us.
Our lives are so much more convenient than those of our ancient ancestors because of how much more socially connected we are now. Take the clothes I am wearing right now for example. They were designed by people in one country, manufactured in another country, then shipped to the country I’m in.
The world is so advanced because of the sheer scale of cooperation we are now capable of. A clothing company employed those designers because they trusted those designers would do what was expected of them. Those designers turned up to work and did their job because they trusted the company would pay them. The company passed their designs to a manufacturing company because they trusted them to manufacture them. The factory workers turned up everyday because they trusted the factory would pay them. The factory passed the clothes on to a shipping company because they trusted the shipping company would do what was expected of them, whilst the shipping company trusted that they would get paid for doing so.
Trust enables the global economy. And as such it enables us to live the comfortable, convenient and advanced lives that we live today.
And when it comes to persuasion, trust is probably the most fundamental component.
Brands can only persuade us to buy from them when we trust that they’ll deliver what they promise. Doctors can only persuade us to follow their advice when we trust they know what they’re talking about. Banks can only persuade us to give them our money when we trust they’ll keep it safe.
But how does trust work exactly?
Predictability and Reward (or Safety)
The mind is a pattern processing machine. Through experiences it collects patterns about the world it lives in, that allow it to formulate rules for predicting what will happen and what we need to do to get what we want.
If I drink coffee then I’ll feel awake. If I sign a contract with this company then they will pay me. If I go home this evening then my wife will have dinner waiting for me.
Trust is also a pattern.
It’s a pattern that enables us to predict what other people will do.
If I study hard at this University then they will give me a degree. If I book an appointment with the chiropractor then they will fix my back. If I give money to the barista then they will give me a cup of coffee.
But what do we want other people to do?
The principle that drives all our behaviour is the Pleasure/Pain principle. We will always either approach pleasure (e.g. going on luxurious shopping sprees), or avoid pain (e.g. going running!). We also look ahead to the future and foresee future pleasures that we want to approach (successfully complete a marathon) and future pains that we want to avoid (going broke). Sometimes our future pleasure/pain is in conflict with the present pleasure/pain (e.g. successfully completing a marathon involves the pain of running, and avoiding going broke means not going on luxurious shopping sprees!). But whatever we do, it is always because we are either trying to approach pleasure or avoid pain.
This Pleasure/Pain principle also dictates trust.
About 10 years ago when I was new to Shanghai there were pickpockets everywhere, and it really wasn’t hard to spot them. Go to any busy area, and look for people walking closely behind others, crouched down with their arms outstretched trying to pull a purse out from a handbag.
Whenever I spotted a pickpocket, I could predict their behaviour very easily. They would wander around crowded areas, or wait by a wall until they found a target. Then they would approach that target and try to pickpocket them.
So I could predict their behaviour, but that didn’t mean I trusted them! As soon as I spotted one of them I would hold on to my belongings tightly, because I knew I might get pickpocketed.
Predictability is not enough for trust. We also need to be able to predict that they’ll either help us, or at least keep us safe.
I predict the barista will make a coffee that will wake me up, taste good and not make me sick. I predict the subway driver will deliver me to my destination and keep me safe. I predict the pull up bar in my bedroom will hold my weight and enable me to do pull ups without breaking in half and sending me crashing to the ground.
In essence, trust is the belief that we can predict whether another person, or thing, will help, or not hurt us.
So what can we do to get people to believe that they can predict whether we will help or not hurt them?
There are 4 areas we should focus on to achieve this:
- Transparency
- Respect
- Ability
- Consistency
Transparency
What’s in it for you?
This has always been a problem for financial advisors. Shanghai has a sizeable expat population, many of whom have a lot of extra money just sitting around, so naturally this has attracted a lot of financial advisors.
To be fair, over the last decade the quality of financial advisors in Shanghai seems to have improved significantly. But a decade ago it was a different story.
If you were an expat, somehow your phone number would make it into their database, and several times a week you’d get a call from an unknown number with an English speaker on the line:
“Hello, could I speak to Mr. Dixon please?”
It would start with a bit of small talk, some compliments about the amazing accomplishments you’ve seemingly achieved in your short time here, and then straight down to business as they try to book you in for a meeting with one of their senior consultants.
I went to a few of those meetings. They started off nice. Looking at my income, making some calculations about where I could be in the future, giving me some advice.
But then they would inevitably get pushy.
I had one meeting where they told me how much money I should invest, and pushed me to make a final decision by a certain date. They even went as far as to say “Now, I’ve given you a lot of advice for free today, and I can’t help you if you don’t help me, so…Introduce me to 5 of your friends…And if one of your friends becomes a client of our’s, we’ll give you a free iPad”.
They seemed desperate to get me to sign up to these investment plans, and get my friends to sign up as well.
Why were they so desperate?
What was in it for them?
Was it because they were super nice and caring and just wanted to help people? Ha!
Of course they would get commission from these.
But throughout the conversations, they would not once mention how they would stand to benefit from my investments. Which made me extremely suspicious of them.
Fast forward a decade and the financial advisers in Shanghai today are a lot more professional. The meetings I’ve had with them they have been transparent about how they benefit from this, and what their commission structure is. As a result of increased transparency, their reputation amongst the Shanghai expat community has significantly improved.
We are all human beings and we are all driven by the same Pleasure/Pain principle. The moment we open up about how we stand to benefit, the other person will suddenly find it a lot easier to predict our behaviour.
In my industry of training, I have gone to great lengths to show my clients what I really care about. I don’t care about the training, I care about behaviour change. I want to see change as a result of my training.
But why should they believe me? I get paid for the number of days of training I deliver. It would make sense that I care about selling more days of training than seeing change as a result of my training.
My argument is pretty simple; I don’t want to live a tiring life delivering countless days of low paying training. I want to live a meaningful life, delivering a few days of high paying, high impact training. The only way I can do that is by developing a reputation for high value. And the only way I can do that is by ensuring my training leads to positive behaviour change.
That argument shows my intention. Of course, that argument alone is not enough. I have to follow up with Consistency (which we will get to later in this section). So I always push for more than the training itself. I push my clients on their real needs and what impact would be considered high value. I push for follow ups, I push for coaching, I push for only training the right people. I follow up with my clients, even if they don’t care about follow up. I ask for their feedback, I ask how things are going, I suggest extra things they can do. Not every client cares as much as I do, but I do everything I can to show them I care about more than the training itself.
Respect
What’s in it for them?
So transparency shows your intentions. When they know why you are doing something, your behaviour becomes easier to predict.
But they also need to know you will aid them in either approaching pleasure or avoiding pain. In other words, they need to know that you care about their intentions.
A decade ago, those financial advisors were not very respectful. Their cold calls would come at any time, and if you didn’t pick up the first time they’d keep trying. Sometimes if you blocked their number, they would call you from another number. They had very little respect for boundaries.
And boundaries are a good place to start with respect. When our boundaries are respected, we feel safe and in control (pleasure). As soon as they are violated, we feel threatened and out of control (pain).
Respect is all about doing our best to either help them (allow them to experience more pleasure), or not hurt them (allow them to avoid experiencing pain).
If we respect peoples boundaries, then the next thing to do is to respect their needs.
Needs are again about pleasure and pain. What pleasure are they looking to experience right now, or in the future. What pain do they want less of right now, or in the future.
The financial advisers I have spoken to in the last several years have been a lot more respectful of my needs. I’ve explained I’m not in a position to invest as my wife and I are putting our savings into property for now. Maybe in a few years we will have needs they can serve.
And the financial advisers of today have so far respected my needs. They were able to do so because they spent time listening to me and asking questions. But they’ve also done a bit more than that as well.
They’ve gone beyond respecting my needs, and have actually helped me.
When I’ve had questions about how to transfer money abroad, who I should open bank accounts with etc, they have been more than willing to help me. They answer my questions patiently, they give effective advice and have even introduced me to other people that can help me.
If we respect their boundaries, learn more about their intentions, and do our best to help them, we greatly increase the chances of building trust.
Ability
Transparency is about making your behaviour easier to predict, and Respect is about showing your empathy and care for their interests.
But we also need to show them that we are capable of helping them.
It is entirely possible for them to trust us to hurt them.
I would totally trust a pick pocket to steal my things. I know that’s most likely their intention, I know they most likely have little respect for my needs, and I know they are more than capable of stealing from me without me even noticing.
It is also entirely possible for them to trust us to do a bad job.
For example, I’m sure my friends would trust me to do a bad job of flying a plane. They know I’m not a pilot, they know I have no experience of flying planes, they know I would have no clue what to do in a cockpit. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t trust me to fly their plane!
So we need to show them we have the ability to help them, or at least not hurt them.
There are several ways of proving this.
Qualifications:
A financial advisor should ideally have certain qualifications, from certain establishments. It would be easy for me to go online and check what kind of qualifications would be best for them to have. And I could ask my financial advisor to show me their qualifications.
Association:
If the financial advisor works for a well respected financial advisory firm, then I’m more likely to trust them. When I go to that firm’s offices, and I see the financial advisor in that office, interacting with the staff in that office, I’m going to assume the firm trusts them, and that makes it a lot easier for me to trust them.
Reputation:
A quick search for this financial advisor’s name online should tell me all I need to know. I’ll find websites with reviews and comments about them telling me if they are good or not. I can also ask my network what they think of this financial advisor.
Demonstration:
They could also demonstrate to me their ability. They could show me their own predictions about what to invest in and how much those investments are likely to go up by, and I could follow those investments myself and if I see the same results then I’m likely to believe that this advisor knows what they’re talking about.
Consistency
Finally, we need to make a conscious effort to make our behaviour easier to predict.
This involves repeatedly demonstrating the same behaviour in similar contexts. It involves doing what we say we’ll do. It involves making sure different people have the same experience of us.
In my work, I have a number of clients who have worked with me repeatedly for a number of years. They have seen me use the same approach to understanding their needs, to designing a solution to fit their needs, and to delivering that solution to fit their needs.
Many of those clients have even see me update my approach and get better.
They now know what they’ll get at the very minimum, and some of them even predict they’ll get a better service than they did before.
It is obviously much easier for me to work with these clients than clients who don’t know me.
Every so often, I meet with a new client for the first time, and the difference in trust is striking. They are a lot more likely to doubt what I say and challenge me on my ideas. They are a lot more likely to make me work hard to become their supplier.
But every so often the old clients I have will refer me to a new client, and that new client, despite not knowing me, will have a lot of trust in me. They trust that if their close contact has had a positive experience with me, then they’ll have a positive experience with me.
The less consistent we are, the harder people will find it to predict our behaviour, and the less they’ll trust us.
For example, on the day I’m writing this, the exceptionally skilled and talented UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov has just announced his retirement from the sport. Now, this is the kind of sport where people retire but then come back again. For example, Conor McGregor in March 2019 announced his retirement from the sport on social media, but in January 2020 he returned for another fight. Then in June 2020 Conor McGregor announced his retirement again, and naturally people doubted it!
But Khabib Nurmagomedov presents a much more consistent image to the world. He comes from Dagestan, is a muslim, and has consistently shown to the world through his comments and appearances on social media how much he values family. He consistently presents the image of someone who is true to their word. And scanning through social media comments this morning, I haven’t yet seen a comment doubting his retirement.
Consistency creates predictability.
Building Trust
When it comes to trust and its relationship with storytelling, remember that the mind is a pleasure seeking, pain avoiding, pattern processing machine.
Stories activate these features of the mind to help the mind understand, care about, and remember something.
By activating these features in specific ways, we can also help people trust us.
By showing transparency, respect, ability and consistency, we can help other people’s minds see what they need to see in order to trust us.
