You can now LISTEN to these articles on the ScLoHo Media & Marketing Podcast!  Here’s a link to this weeks episode.

In the beginning,  I mean very beginning, some say thousands of years, others claim millions of years, depending on your belief system about the origins of mankind, there was a certain element of the human experience that is still critically important today.

I don’t care if you believe in the Big Bang Theory or Evolution or the story of Adam & Eve as told in the Bible, there’s a certain element of the human experience that is dangerous to ignore if you are a business owner or in charge of the advertising and marketing of a business.

What is this particular element of the human experience that I am placing such importance on?

Trust. The question you need to ask is: Are You Trusted? 

Better yet, you need to ask others to answer that for you, about you because you have a personal bias.

I gave a lot of thought to what are the very basics of business success and that’s where the term Trust comes from.

But it’s deeper than business. Trust is a critical element of the human experience.

Indulge me for a moment and I promise not to get all preachy on you.  Adam and Eve in Genesis were tempted to trust the snake and eat the forbidden fruit offered to them in the Garden of Eden, with devastating results.

I bet that after that experience they became skeptics of offers that seemed to be too good to be true.

You and I have learned that same lesson, the lesson of skepticism if something appears to be to good to be true.  We want to trust, we really do.  Yet we have an almost unexplainable gut feeling when something is not quite right, when something or someone appears to be untrustworthy.

If I don’t trust my doctor, I am not going to take his advice without checking further.

If you don’t trust your mechanic, you are not going to give him the okay to repair stuff on your vehicle that you didn’t even know was wrong.

If you don’t trust the guy cooking your burger to wash his hands before touching your food, you are not going to eat that burger, right?

If you don’t trust your future spouse to be faithful and true, you are not going to really marry them…  see how important the trust factor is in everything, yes every aspect of our lives?

Your business marketing needs to build and reinforce trust.  Trust is earned. It is your reputation.  We want to trust you know what you are doing, you are going to do what you say you are going to do and that if there is ever a problem, you will stand by your word.

Your advertising needs to also mimic and echo the trust factor. Ads that only push low prices or unbelievable deals can actually damage your reputation and cause us to be skeptical, not trustful.

With the rise of peer to peer electronic communication, we call social media, your customers and potential customers are talking about you and you have no control over the conversation.  Do every thing you can to make sure are talking positively about you by only giving them reasons to trust you and you will be rewarded.