In today’s age of business, credibility means more than anything. That means your credibility as an owner, the credibility of your brand, your business, your products and services, and everything else you do.
Massive ad budgets and campaigns simply cannot substitute for credibility because eventually the truth will be discovered. Social media ensures that the truth is discovered. That’s great for small-business owners who are working hard to build their business the right way. It also involves spending more time establishing and maintaining your credibility. These are the 4 Tips to Building Trust with Consumers.
- Establish Credibility on Your Website. Think of your website as an online handshake. It’s a way people instantly assess you and your business. Many people will get their first and most lasting impression of your business from what they find there.
This isn’t necessarily about your website’s design or responsiveness (though those things certainly are important). It’s about the kind of message your website sends about you and your business. To ensure your website is deemed credible it needs signs of third-party certifications and associations, must be organized and show thought, easy to use, allows people to contact you readily, and more.
- Establish Credibility in Your Services. Don’t strain your credibility by being willing to sell just anything. The products and services you sell should be those you are willing to put your name and face behind. Yes, sales matters—but not if it compromises your ethics as a company because you have team members pushing too hard and stretching boundaries of what’s really needed. To ensure this doesn’t become an issue, it’s vitally important that training becomes the center of what you do as a business. Your team should also know your company mission and ethics—and team members should always take them into consideration when presenting homeowners with options.
- Establish Credibility in Your Brand. The most important quality you will need to establish credibility in your company brand is consistency. Every time you’re visible on social media, every time people see your ads, every time one of your trucks rolls through a neighborhood, every time your techs walk into a home, your company should be seen exactly as how people expect to see you. Clean. Professional. Honest. Upstanding. At your very best. A company they want to do business with.
This can be a lot of hard work, as it turns out. And that’s not because of the effort to avoid projecting the wrong image. Much of your time and effort will be spent trying to project the right one. This means training regularly throughout the week, ensuring everyone is neatly dressed in clean uniforms, insisting that your trucks are spotless, and projecting a unified message in all your marketing efforts. As an owner, it’s also important you shape your brand by being active in the community, taking on speaking engagements, helping raise funds for groups that need help, etc. You should always be present.
- Establishing Credibility in Your Reputation. Another reason to avoid selling just anything in your business is the Internet has made the world transparent. Selling a homeowner too hard can have a dire impact upon your reputation. The damage angry customers can create online can often not be undone. It can ruin a company. But a spotless online reputation can generate an endless stream of leads, even in times that typically are the slowest.