Trust is a necessary thing in business.  As business owners, we need to have trust in order to succeed.

Think about the last time you picked one vendor over another.  Do you remember the reasons you went with one over the other?  My guess is that “trust” had a play in your decision.  Which vendor/company did you feel you could trust the most.  Which one would treat your business as if it was their own?  These are important questions to ask as we navigate decisions in our life.

How great is it for a business owner when there’s a trusted relationship with an insurance agent, Internet/IT/telephone service specialist, doctor, dentist, accountant, cleaning person, lawyer and banker?  When these relationships are strong and in place the infrastructure for growth is stable and strong.  It’s important to have experts in and around us to be successful.  If you’ve ever hired someone on a whim and been badly disappointed this point can’t be made strongly enough.  It’s not enough today to base our decisions on a single phone call, meeting, or a friend’s referral.

All industries have associations.  If you’re getting ready to have brain surgery do some research to make sure the Doctor has all of the proper affiliations – confirm which hospitals the Doctor is associated with.  If you’re going to evaluate the voice and data service for your business, see what the BBB (Better Business Bureau) has to say about the companies or consultants you’re evaluating.  Are they part of CSIA (Colorado Technology Association) or the technology association in their respective state?  What kind of online presence to they have?  I have found that if a business takes care of their online presence this is usually a reflection of how they’ll take care of you and your business.

I believe that in order to find those individuals and companies that you trust you’ll have to first have a few bad experiences.  My goal as a business owner is to do my research on the front end, check the things I need to check so that I minimize those bad experiences.  Once you find that vendor or company that is the expert  – trust them to do the right things to support you.