Trust Isn’t Blind Faith: How Leaders Build It Without Getting Burned

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There is a certain amount of just trust you have to just fling out into the world. Yeah. The difficulty in your voice there, like, oh yeah, there is. You have to give trust to earn trust most of the time. Yeah, but when does that become blind faith and you're just playing a lottery?

When you're driving your car.

Oh, there's got to be more to this. Stay tuned.

She's He's the marketing and operations guy.

If it's broken, you need the Business Fix.

Every day I get in my car and I trust that everyone's going to do exactly what they're supposed to do. They don't. Most of the time.

No, but see, what's interesting about that. Ah, see, this is a great way to start this out. So because to me as a motorcyclist.

Oh, you should have absolutely no trust of anyone.

I don't. But what it is, is I am constantly looking at what people are doing. So, and I mean, I'm in milliseconds deciding if I can trust that car or not.

Yeah. Continuous monitoring.

Yes. In milliseconds, I'm like, okay, are they weaving? Are they? I'm looking for those telltale signs of texting, of watching videos. I'm like, in my mirrors.

You have to.

How close is the person behind me? Because I do not— I would not look good as the center of a sandwich.

No, it's not. That's not an option.

Not a good look. No. So it's hard on the podcast too, is, uh, there's some people that will probably be a bigger fan without me, but I think we've built this. But to me, so it is, it's that constant, like, some people would say it's blind faith in other drivers, but really to me it is, it is paying attention Very intentionally.

Yeah, it's good management.

Yeah, it's management. It's management.

Total self-awareness.

And it's awareness of the idiots around me.

Yes.

'Cause there are some of them. Yeah. There's a large majority of the population that probably shouldn't be. I am really looking forward towards autonomous vehicles. Although autonomous vehicles typically can't recognize motorcycles either.

That's a, yes.

I noticed that Tesla ran over two motorcyclists that way. Nonetheless, it's a hell of a way to introduce a topic.

It's not outside the standard deviations that they don't—

no, no, no, it's not. Um, but we know, we know how it happened and why it happened. Um, trust is something we use a lot in business. Um, it's often misunderstood. There's different ways to look at it. I mean, it was an act of trust for us to sit in the studio together.

Yeah.

To be like, "Oh, what's this idiot gonna say on the microphone?" 56 episodes later. Right, 56 episodes later. Chrissy has learned to trust her gut feeling more and not do the things. To me, like, The simple upfront is trust is based on evidence, patterns, and data. Patterns, mm, kind of my thing. Verified. Blind faith is based on hope, a good feeling, or this is when it typically happens, a desire to avoid conflict.

Yeah, yeah, skip the pain. We'll just avoid the pain.

Right, we'll just trust him. Yep. We'll just trust him. I'm curious about this. How do you build trust with a new leader without falling into that blind faith trap, or just where you're like, "Here's the keys.

Good luck!" And hope for the best.

Right. Lock up on your way out.

Yeah. No, I mean, you sent me this topic and I was like, "Oh." Chrissy Myers, I'm gonna have to like really dig into this. This is like a therapy session. So first I would say I have to check my own instincts around it because as like the visionary, as CEO, I wanna trust people fast 'cause I wanna move fast.

Same.

Like I just, same, just do it. But fast trust without structure is blind faith. You've gotta have that structure around it. So before you even start with that structure, you have to first be willing to invest the time. So you gotta interview, you've gotta develop, you've gotta coach. That is not a fast thing. No, it takes time. You're taking time, a lot of time, getting to know those people, especially when they're taking on critical things from you in a management role. So I anchor everything in, you know, proof, pattern, predictability. 3 Ps. So proof— trust starts with evidence. Yep, yep. Not vibes. We talked about— we talk about vibes a lot. It's not a vibe, it's not energy, it's not— I like them, I like them, They'd be great.

They also have cats.

Yeah, exactly. It's not, "I don't really want to know if they can or not. I just really want to hope." Hope is not a strategy. We talk about that all the time. So in proof, I want to see how they think, how they communicate, and how they make decisions under pressure. Because charm is easy to fake. Competence is harder, especially over time. So if I can't see it, I can't scale it. So I want proof of their capabilities. All right? The second one is pattern, and that is really where that consistency is. It's consistency over time because consistency takes competence, right? One good week doesn't build trust. One good day doesn't build trust unless they saved you from a burning building. Maybe that's different. But 5 consistent weeks, you really start to build that trust. And this aligns with what we've talked about before, that trust is built on repeated behavior, not one-time performance.

Yes.

Again, same thing with like leadership. We talk about clarity, consistency, and care. Pattern is modeling consistency, seeing consistency in that person.

I've seen it where an employee, they do something wrong 10 times, they do it right once, and suddenly they think it's better.

No. That is exactly, no, that is, that is, yeah, that is an anomaly in the pattern.

Correct. Correct.

So the third.

Once is not a pattern.

Yes, once is not a pattern. So then the third is predictability. All right? So it's the "and then." This is the one that leaders miss often. I want to know how they're going to respond when things go wrong. How do I predict their behavior? Because leadership isn't tested when things are working. It's really tested when things are breaking. And if you are hiring someone to fill in those leadership gaps, predictability is really important. So when things go wrong, how is this person reacting? So I'm going to ask them, like thinking about this, this is a self-reflection for you. How is this person reacting when things go wrong? Do they go to you? Do they hide or avoid a hard conversation? Do they snark and snap at others? Do they become that brilliant jerk? And then how fast can they rebound? How fast can they triage? How fast can they navigate and then autopsy for improvement? It's about predictability and knowing that they can do that thing because trust isn't built when things go right. It's really revealed when things go wrong.

It's funny, I love the hide thing because as soon as you said that—

under their desk—

I was just gonna say in the closet. Six of one, half dozen of another.

You know what, are they laying on the floor in the middle of their office? Are they like avoiding anybody from talking to them? Like, yes. So that's why it's really important. You've got proof, pattern, and predictability. It's all of those things. Show me. I want to make sure that it's something that's going— you're doing this over time. And then what can I expect from you? It's It's not hard to say. It is difficult if you like to go fast to maintain your patience. You have to be patient through this process.

Yes. And especially too, as I know you're a fast learner.

Yes.

You expect people to learn at your pace. And that's tough because not everyone is going to do that, especially when you're teaching them how you learn.

No.

Which may not be how they learn. There's all sorts of ways to test your patience with that. I mean, there's delegating. And then there's dumping. Yep. Once again, the guilt was palpable.

I've been a dumper.

Same, same. Just go ahead and take care of that, okay? Thanks. Let me know when it's done. Um, how do you, how do you put that in a trust-based culture? Like, how do you, how do you build that rather like in trust rather than— how do you make it trust rather than just, uh, do it?

Exactly. Because I mean Dumping is where founders accidentally sabotage trust. They do it all the time.

Yeah.

Yeah. So they may say they're delegating, but actually what they're doing is disappearing or they're faux delegating. So there's one of two things.

I'm faux delegating.

I'm giving this to you, but not really. Or here you go. And I am somewhere completely different because I don't even want to know what's going to happen because it's just better if I don't. That's either one of those. No, don't do either one of those.

You are pulling the pin and handing them a grenade and walking away.

And walking away.

Here.

And then you're in the next room, you're like, yeah, I thought that, that sounds about right. And you keep walking. No, don't do that. So founder's touch is really the ability to stay present without staying in control. So you gotta think about, you know, it's, you're connected to the standard, but you're not necessarily connected to every task. You don't have to do the work as the founder, but you do need to reinforce expectations. You need to stay in communication and you need to keep the mission visible. And I would say when you're working on this, it truly becomes delegation when you are You are the one that is holding your core values as the founder. So you need to make sure that you're holding your core values, you're training to your core values, you're hiring and firing based on your core values. You are the keeper of the flame around your core values. And then you have to let the other people do the work, which means you have to let them also make the mistakes and also let them get the credit. Did you hear me? Get the credit. You have to let them have credit. And I would say that As much as letting them make mistakes, because you want to save them, I would argue the harder piece for a lot of managers and leaders is to allow other people to have the credit. Because it's really easy to say, I built this, and these people work for me, and so I am responsible for all the things. I have done it. No. Do not take all the credit. That makes you a jerk. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes not so brilliant. So don't do that. The other thing that happens if you are not seeking credit, you're not doing that, let's talk about check-ins. Because I think there are some founders who are like, I'm gone. I just trust them to do it because I don't want to have to check in because if I check in, that means I may have to redirect and I may have to fix it and it may be broken. It's just denial is a much easier place to be. All right? And then there are also people who are like, I'm not going to check in because I know I'm a control freak and I'm going to jump back in and I'm going to be problematic. Here's what I will say. Check-ins are not control, they're protection.

Yes.

Yes. They protect the employee from invisible failure, the business from silent drift, and the relationship from misunderstanding. They are not micromanaging. If you do check-ins the right way, you are not micromanaging. You are helping like micro move things where they need to go. So if I'm checking in, my response is I'm not questioning you, I'm supporting you.

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I— to me, this is where, like, the— I'm going to make another sports analogy. Coach. Yeah, be the coach.

Exactly.

You cannot run out onto the field and kick the ball.

No, you get in trouble when you do that, right?

Um, that also sounded like the voice of experience. Is, uh, At least metaphorically.

Metaphorically.

No, I mean, be the coach. Stand on the sideline, offer suggestions, tell them what the end result needs to be. But yeah, be the coach. When— what's interesting with the trust thing is what's tough is sometimes you have to realize, is this trust? Is this a skill gap? Is this a betrayal? Like, How do you figure that out?

Yeah, so where leaders get emotional, we need to get objective. So let's go back to proof, pattern, predictability, those 3 Ps. So skill gap is a break in proof. They didn't know how, they didn't have training, they didn't understand the expectation, in which case when there's a break in proof, you're going to coach. Yep. Right? Behavior gap is a break in pattern. They knew, but they didn't follow through consistently. That's a correct, right? Betrayal, break in predictability. Okay? They acted outside values, they broke trust, they chose themselves over the mission. Cut. Y'all love my sound effect. So there's, there's some responses that come to this, cuz immediately, like I'm saying, like we're gonna coach, we're gonna correct, we're gonna cut. Okay. But Chrissy, you don't understand. I need this person to run my business. Yes, they're a jerk, but they're our jerk and we have to keep them. No, you do not. Not today.

They're our jerk.

They're our jerk.

They're our special jerk.

Trust me, Josh, I can't tell you how many times I've been in a conversation with a business owner around their personnel. And they are saying, "But we have to keep them because they're our per—" I'm like, "You are getting sued. Your organization has lost how many customers at this point? You are hemorrhaging revenue, you are hemorrhaging employees, you are dealing with it, but we have to keep them." No, you do not. You do not. I promise you, you don't. Yikes. Yeah, and so this is where that brilliant jerk hits the wall, right? So when someone refuses to align with their mission, it's no longer a development issue, it's a values issue. You don't cut for mistakes, You cut for misalignment. Yep. Yes. So, and I would say this is where those feelings get really messy and you have to dig in as a visionary, as a CEO, as the business owner, and be honest with yourself. I mean, we said at the beginning of this podcast, hope is not a strategy. Delusional is not a strategy either.

It's a delay tactic. Delusional is not a strategy. It is. We both know those business owners too. We do.

And I'm gonna be honest, I have been delusional and it is not a strategy. Same. It is a delay tactic and it has cost me significantly. So again, we do this podcast so people like don't make the same mistakes we did.

It's funny when you say the cut for misalignment. Yeah. The visual that comes into my head, you're the captain of the ship. If someone else tries to grab the wheel out of your hand, you're sending them to the brig.

Or they're down in the— they're drilling holes in your boat. Right. You wouldn't tolerate that. No. No.

No. No. They'd walk the plank. Seriously.

They're aiming the cannon at the hull. No, that's not going to work. And then you're like, "Nah, we'll just coach them." No, you will not. They are literally trying to kill you. Stop it. They are trying to kill your business, which is your livelihood, which in essence is your baby. We've talked about this. Your business is your baby. They are holding a knife to its throat. I'm sorry, this is not a hostage negotiation. We are going to eliminate the threat. Pfft! Exactly. Don't tell me that they are absolutely integral when they are trying to kill the business you have built. No. No, they are not.

We got Chrissy riled up with that one.

Sorry. Yes, you did.

No, I love it. I love it. I love it. Poke the bear. Yeah, I know.

This is supposed to be a soft topic. It's not. So let's operationalize it. Okay. How do you turn trust into a hard operational metric?

Build the I see the data bridge. Yes. And don't think of this as the— this is not the Golden Gate Bridge here. This is not some fancy thing. No. This is not something that you float across. This is, I told you to do the thing. Did the thing get done to how we say it's supposed to get done? I mean, To me, if I have to go to anyone in my organization and be like, is this done? I'm either A, missing something operationally, or B, just too lazy to look. I'm okay sometimes with too lazy to look because I will send— oh, I am too. I'll send the message to someone sometimes and be like, hey, do we have this done? Because I know it would take me 4 or 5 minutes to look, and they either are working on it or they just finished it, so they are going to know. Yeah, I don't want to have to open up Asana and go through a couple of different I can just be like, hey, look at it. Maybe I'm in, I'm sitting someplace, I'm, I'm whatever it is, I'm on my phone, it's on my mind. So sure.

If you're in consulting and you're training, a great way to ask that question is, how did that go? Yes. You say, how did that go? You're not saying, did you get it done? But you're, they will parrot what happened and you may actually get some additional coachable, trainable moments to it too. Wonderful.

It's the same way we talk about like when people ask us to be a guest on the podcast. Yes. And I respond, tell us which is your favorite episode.

Who's been our favorite guest?

Who's been your favorite guest thus far?

None of them, because we don't have any.

Stop sending us that email. There's that lack of trust there, obviously, right off the bat. To me, it— there's like, I know who's getting what done when. Yes. Now, am I going in and looking at the finished product to make sure it's still where we're at? Yes. I'm spot-checking stuff. Quality control's a thing. 100%. You gotta do it. We've gotta do that. And we occasionally catch things. It happens. We are working with humans. Yeah, we're allowed to make mistakes. Correct. Nowhere in there has I seen someone that have been trying to do something specifically wrong. That is where it changes for that. Me being a math guy and a logic guy, trust is consistency Time's time. That's it. Oh, that— I mean, if you're consistent over time, you have my trust. Yeah, that's it. If you're not consistent over time, guess what? We, we have questions. We have a lot of questions. Consistency is what transforms an employee from a personality into a known variable. If I give— when I send a podcast to Lance 3 days later, it's coming back done. Yeah, that's it.

It's just— there's clear expectations. Yes, clear SOPs.

Yes, there's, there's not a flair to it. There's not any— it's just coming back exactly as I had hoped. Yes, done. That's because there's the known variable there is that consistency over time. We've done this hundreds, if not thousands of times already. So When someone's consistent, I'm not managing their mood, their efforts. I'm monitoring the process. This way, there's less for me to manage. Yeah. Imagine that. When you've got the right SOPs and everything like that. And if the SOP is followed 100 times, I have 100% trust. Huh? Yeah. If I have to hope that something's getting done.

That's not peace of mind. No.

'Cause I've had those times too. Years ago, I had an editor where I'm like, hey, Is this done? And she's like, what? No, no, no, this project I sent 5 days ago. Oh, that project? What project? I forgot about it. Um, yeah, it— and it— the problem is, is it takes 2 or 3 times out of 100 to totally kill that. Um, I also like to look at scheduled versus random verification. Yeah. Operational trust requires periodic verification.

Yes.

Like you said, quality control. Mm-hmm. Trusting the system means that you trust that the audit will catch errors before they scale. You're looking for errors to catch before they scale. You're not looking for reasons to go down and yell at Bob.

No, that would be targeting in retaliation. We don't do that. Correct.

Talk to the HR company about that. Yes. There's two that I look at with this. There's a scheduled audit. There is the, hey, like everyone knows the standard. This is just validating that everyone knows where we are supposed to be. Yeah. It's for training. It's for an alignment. I expect you to be at this point at this point in time. The random audit is the one that validates that the team lives the standard. If they know an audit's coming, in many cases, they will go in and clean stuff up. I know a number of organizations, some of them medically oriented. Oh gosh, yeah. Where they, when they know a state inspector's coming, I know of one specifically where when a state inspector was there, they were calling the liaison like 7, 8 times a day. How's it going? Is it going okay? "Hey, how's it going?" That's not trust. It's not trust at all. The one that I like is my sister's husband was a health inspector. Think of restaurant inspections. And I have seen this in action before. If they know the health inspector is coming— Oh, it's a very different restaurant. Oh, the parking lot is spotless. The kitchen is spotless. The dining— All the chairs are organized. It looks like their grand freaking opening.

Yes.

If he shows up at random, let's just say there are some restaurants that I will not be visiting in the area. Yeah. Just because of the fact, when he would go in, it was very different. To me, you need to have both the scheduled audit and the random audit. The problem is, from a leadership standpoint, the random audit still kind of needs to be scheduled. Yeah, because if you don't schedule it, you ain't never gonna do it. No. If I don't put something like— if it's not on my calendar, it's not gonna, not gonna happen. Yeah, it's not gonna, not gonna, not gonna work here anymore. Like, our calendars are similar. Like, hey, I've got 7 minutes while I'm in the car between here and there. You want to talk? Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah. If you are only— if you only audit when it's scheduled, you are building a culture of cleaning up for the boss. Yeah. If you audit at random, you are building a culture where the standard is the only way that work will ever get done. It's going to get done this way no matter what. And in that, once you have that through that auditing process, through that random audit process, That is where you build trust. Yeah. Not just blind faith that, mm, I think they did it. Maybe. Right. Right. On the external side. Now, this is one that I find interesting because there's vendors and then there's the customer side of it. Yeah. On the vendor process, there's the I don't trust people or promises from a vendor. I trust a process.

Yeah.

When we're vetting a new vendor. Yeah. I ask about their process for filling orders, shipping items, their payment terms. What is the process for this? And it very quickly becomes obvious if they have a process for it or if they don't. Well, you know, we just, we get the stuff and then we ship it out.

We send it to you. Right. We send it to you.

If they say, no, no, when the salesman gets the order, it's submitted into our system, which gives us a ticket down in the warehouse where we print the stuff off. Great. No problem. Shut up. We're good. Exactly. That is that base trust because if they have a process, I can work with that.

Yeah. Here's our standard contract. This is how it works. I don't know if I like your payment terms. I think I'd like more extensions. Like, I don't think we can work together. I had that, I had that conversation with a prospect by email. They're like, I don't like that we have to pay this within 15 days. This is a concern. I'm like, if you have a concern that you can't pay your bill in 15 days for hours that we're going to work, then maybe we shouldn't work together. Yeah, it's totally okay to do that. 100%. You have the right to ask. And they also have the right to say no, I'm not going to do that.

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I'll give you a few seconds to go to the website while we get ready to get back to the show. It's funny because we've done the same thing, like, on I always say trust, but be decisive with customers. Yes, it is a two-way street. If we set the deadline, we meet it. If there's an operational hurdle that makes that not possible, we're going to tell the customer before the deadline hits. Yes. Not surprise them like, no, hey, I know you needed this Thursday and it's Friday. So in our business, We offer terms. Yes, we do that for most people. It's something unique to what we do. Most podcast studios are like, pay before you sign up. Yes, we're like, hey, well, we'll give you terms on stuff like that because it once again, it makes it easier for the customer. It does. Now, I have had a customer fall behind. Yeah, we granted a short extension of about a week. That deadline passed. I immediately pulled down all like a month's worth of scheduled social media posts that we had already done for them. Within an hour, he's calling me, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, like what happened?" I'm like, "You didn't pay your bill." It's like, "But you took down my entire social media, like all my social media for the next month, which you haven't paid for." Yeah, that's how it works. And I mean, it came down at 12:01. Yeah. We didn't have payment at 12:01. Guess what? We're done. And it was interesting because like for me it was the, I want to work with you, but you need to know where we stand. And pulling the post sent that clear message like, hey, trust. Yeah, you trust us. We're having a tough time trusting you right now.

What do you mean you won't run my payroll? You haven't paid us in a month, so we're not going to run your payroll anymore. That's not an awkward conversation for me to have.

No, no. And it's funny because it's a conversation none of us look forward to. No, not at all. Because you want the money and it's a tenuous thing. Yes. But in the same sense, I only want to work with people that I trust.

Yes. And set expectations at the very beginning. We have gotten much better. Again, that response about, "Well, if you have a problem with paying us within 15 to 45 days, then maybe we have bigger concerns than whether or not you should be a customer." you get better at those conversations over time. So yeah, the first one you want to throw up. The second one you still want to throw up. By the time you get to like the 10th, you're like, oh, this is easy.

I got it. Right.

And it's just like, let me at it.

To me, the other thing is, is that I will tell people, I like, I don't get emotional about stuff like this. I know a lot of people do. Yeah. And what I always tell them is cry beforehand. Yes. Cry. Settle the hell down and then make the phone call. Yes. Cry first. Yes. Don't wait till you have—

when they start crying or they start— want to see you just— or they get angry, you just know you have—

now you've got your answer. 100%, right? It's not the answer you want, but it's the answer you need. It's, it's an answer. Yes. And it's the answer that lets you know how to move forward. Um, the other thing that I found too is, is the, like, trusting their reaction Um, we talk about clarity is kind, direct is kind. Um, if something goes wrong, employees should know. Like, that trust— I should know how my employees are going to react, and they should know how I'm going to react. Absolutely. Um, I've had so many people where you had no idea how they were going to react. Um, if you screwed up on— like I say, if someone screws up, like, let's say something that's got a 7 or 8 screw up out of 10, um, they should see a 7 or 8 level of, of consequences to that. Or I don't want to say yelling and screaming, but reaction to it. Yeah. Um, if they screw up small, like let's say level 2 or 3, it should not be between 2 and 8 is what they receive.

You have to be stable.

Yes. And the, the problem is, is there's zero trust there. And the, the thing that I found is when I was at the truck dealership. The owner was wild with stuff like that. One time there would be zero reaction, the next time it would be an 11 reaction. And you have no idea what you're getting into as an employee. And then you're on eggshells all the time. Correct. So if the employees can't trust you, this is one of those things where it has to be a two-way street and you have to give a little more first. Yeah. You're the one in control. You're the one with the power. You have to show a little bit of vulnerability with that. Otherwise, that's never going to happen. Something else that completely breaks trust is the flip-flop decision. You can ask this— like, I dealt with this for a long time with a boss. You can ask the same question the same way with the same data one week apart and get two wildly different answers. Um, it results in complete paralysis for your organization because they can't do anything. No, because everyone's hiding in the closet. Um, if there's no trust there, everyone's hiding in the closet. This— have I ever mentioned why, like, people should have some SOPs for stuff? A couple times. It's kind of like the clarity thing for you. Clarity for you is SOPs. For me If you have SOPs, you can— I mean, you know exactly how to react. You know, I mean, you at least you have a very tight range on how to do things. It's not about stifling creativity. It's not about demanding perfection. It's about ensuring consistency. Consistency doesn't mean exactly the same every single time. It means results within a specific range. And that's what people need from you personally. As well as professionally when it comes into the business. It— this comes down to that: coach, correct, cut. Because if you have— and I mean, once again, people are going to leave you. Yes. If they can't trust you, that is the number one reason why people leave. That's their— them— that's them cutting you. That's every single time. Um, I, I still always like going back to the, the Office example about this. Yes. When Michael Scott's I think I need to manage this on a more micro level. Like, what's that called? So is it microgement, or just good operations if you're verifying everything?

So verification isn't micromanagement, it's maintenance. Because trust doesn't remove visibility, it really requires it. So you've got to be able to pay attention. Yes. You audit systems, you don't audit people. I mean, but if you don't check the process, drift is inevitable. It just is. You're gonna go off course if nobody's paying it. And then you're like, "Why isn't anybody paying attention?" Well, that was your job, leader. That's your one job.

Pay attention. It's so funny. I talk with people about this in podcasting all the time. We talk about pod drift. Because you start talking about a subject and the next thing you know, 15, 20 episodes later, you're about 25 degrees off and you're like, "How the hell?" How did I get over here?

Come back, right back to your, your thesis, right?

Yeah, trust the process or trust the person.

Oh, she's like, I have to choose. No, no, no, they're not both standing on trapdoors.

When you pull the lever, the one disappears into the pit of despair.

So I would say good people can get lost in a bad process very quickly. So if you have to fix it, you bring the team along. So if there's alignment, you fix the process first and then you fix the personnel issue if you have both at the same time. But I would say oftentimes it's not bad people, it's good people in a bad process.

I wholeheartedly agree with that because it's, it's usually the process is broken somewhere. And like most people, if you tell them what the end result is and you tell them what we need to do to get there. Yeah, they want to do that. They want to do things right. People want to do things right. Yeah, if they don't have a good guide for how to do it right, they're gonna— yeah. How do you market trust without saying, hey, we're trustworthy? Because there's so many businesses I see that are like, as soon as I see like trust in the marketing, I'm like—

Your trusted advisor. Right. Your most trusted resource. Right. I'm like, yeah. Building trust since 1982. Right.

You're selling used cars. Yeah. As soon as I pull this off the lot, the transmission's coming out the bottom. Yeah. How would you do that?

I think it's showing up with clarity, consistency, and care. It's really showing your values, showing your purpose, and it's the results. So I would say an easy way to market trust is in the responses of your clients and customers. They're usually your raving fans. So, I mean, how would you do it, marketing expert?

Well, I want to make a great point to kind of exactly what you said is showing them that they can trust you. Yeah, you make a great example of that because community is part of your values. Thanks. And you guys, You're seen all over the place doing things in various communities that like we say it and we do it. We say and we do it. The flip side of that is we care. Like the whole message, we care about our customers. Please continue to hold for an hour and a half. Yeah. Like when I hear that your hold time is only 46 minutes, you're like, yeah, yeah, no, you don't care about me. You don't care about me at all. That is the, like, that is how that goes wrong. So some key takeaways from this.

Yeah.

Move the goalposts to a dashboard. Stop asking people, how's it going? And start looking at the shared data. The information's there. Yeah.

When you use proof, pattern, predictability, that helps you go from blind faith to trust when you're delegating.

So use those 3 Ps. Love it. To me, the audit is kind, meaning that I trust you. It's to make sure that the machine is still working correctly. Yeah.

And model how you want this in your organization. So don't be an ostrich, put your head in the sand, unless that's how you want everyone else to behave too. Model what you mandate. Don't be an ostrich.

Kill vendors. Not literally. Let's go with cut vendors. If you just have to trust them, you should feel the trust. Don't feel like you have to trust. Don't feel like you're hostage to them. Go out and find someone that's a better relationship. Gut feelings. Intuition or just bias or laziness?

Like, ah, sure. Okay, so there is science in intuition and gut feelings. It's about like the millions of micro decisions that you've made over time. There is actual science around your gut. I believe in it. I just don't believe when people are being like— I think if you have really good self-awareness, then you probably have good gut instincts. If you do not have self-awareness you don't.

It's interesting to me because with that, I see, and we've all been snowed. Yeah. But it really is, is you're looking at patterns, you have built a library of patterns that you have watched, whether you're aware of it or not. You're relying on those for sure. Yeah.

Can a remote hybrid team have the same level of trust as an in-person team? Hell yes. Duh.

It's about the leader. It's not even just about the leader. I mean, to me, it's the simple question, "Is the shit done? Is the shit done the way we want it to?" If the answer is yes, then you've got trust. I don't need a trust fall with people. Trust me, as heavy as I am, no one wants to catch me anyways. So yeah, no, I don't need any of that. No. What's the fastest way for a lose— for a leader to turn into a loser of trust?

Oh, you blame your team for something that you own.

Oh, gosh. Have I—

like, you've talked about blame so many times.

Yeah, it's that to me. The other piece to that is too, is when you say, hey, I'll look at that for you and you don't. Oh yeah, it sounds small.

No, it's not. It's one of the biggest things you can do. I would say it's worse than blame. Yeah, and it's ignoring them.

It's so easy to do.

It's so easy to do. If you do it, apologize immediately.

Yeah, I try. It's why I try and put deadlines on things so that way they have a way to come at me and say, hey, it's Thursday, you said Wednesday I'd have this. And I'm like, oh gosh, I'm sorry.

And that is fixable. I mean, because I know as, as business owners, we run in a lot of different directions. But that one, when you miss it, you say, look, I am so sorry. I know you're waiting on this. Let me do it right now.

Yep, yep. And it's got to be priority number one. Um, what's interesting is what we have next week.

Yeah, what is it?

Listening to the other side. And I felt like this— constructive dialogue, imagine that. Wow, okay. What triggered this for me is I listen to a lot of podcasts that I hate. Yeah. Same. It's difficult. I usually don't do it before I come into the studio. No, thank goodness. That being said, thanks for coming along for the ride this week. Hopefully you trust us to talk about something again next week, and the week after, and the week after. We trust that you— well, we have blind faith that you will tell us what you would like to see. Please. We'd love to hear hear your comments about it. Um, do us a favor, go to businessfixpodcast.com. As always, take care of yourself, take care of someone else if you can too. We will see you very, very soon.

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