Entrepreneurs skip trust-building activities like marketing and speaking because they feel rushed for sales. But trust is the only sustainable path for service businesses, especially risky or new ones. Start cultivating it today.
Sales takes trust and trust takes time. I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs, typically the ones who are feeling a little bit poor, and they are saying, wait, I need to build my sales. I don't have time to market. I don't have time to speak to communities. I don't have time to basically do the things that will allow them to build trust in the market. And what I find is you don't have time to not do those things. The most single most important thing you can do, in my mind, is build trust, build reputation and relationships in your target market. So that people will trust that when you're coming in, you will provide value to them. And it doesn't really matter what kind of service you're providing. All of them require trust. And especially it's going to require trust if you're providing something that they haven't really seen before that has some sort of innovation or risk to it. So don't expect that you're going to go in and meet a bunch of people and then make a sale right off the bat. Maybe you will, and I wish you well for that. I would encourage you, go build trust and start today.
