How to Build and Maintain Trust in Business Relationships

Summary: How to Build Trust in Business

Trust is the cornerstone of successful business relationships, yet it’s often overlooked in today’s fast-paced, digital environment. Without trust, even the best strategies can fail to resonate with customers and partners. To address the challenges of digital marketing, explore "Overcoming B2B Digital Marketing Challenges". For insights into driving growth through digital strategies, read "Unlocking B2B Digital Growth with Proven Strategies". Learn how live streaming can foster trust and transparency in "The Power of B2B Sales Live Streaming". Lastly, examine why marketing often fails to build trust in "Understanding Why B2B Marketing Fails".

You'll Discover:

• The key factors that build trust in business relationships.
• How digital strategies can enhance or undermine trust.
• Ways to foster transparency and authenticity in your approach.
• The role of trust in long-term B2B success.

The relationship between the time a business buyer knows a vendor, and the level of trust in business relating to spending, is well-documented in various studies and industry reports. This dynamic is rooted in fundamental principles of human behaviour and trust-building and is key to B2B digital growth. To understand this area, I have researched some of the details and analysed the available data to understand this phenomenon better.

As a real-world example, the way in which we present ourselves to potential businesses is via our Digital Consultancy, which we see as your key to business success and growth.  Whilst not just an opportunity for a shameless plug, we have made our entire website open access to enable anyone to learn everything we have on offer.  Our consultancy simply offers speed, making the choice entirely yours, without us saying "you can only buy this from us".

Building Trust in Business Over Time

1. Psychological Foundation:

• Trust is a crucial element in business transactions. It’s built over time through consistent interactions and reliability.
• The concept of the "Mere Exposure Effect" developed by Robert Zajonc suggests that people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. This applies to vendor relationships as well.
• The Nobel Prize winner and author Daniel Kahneman wrote in his book ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’, “A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from the truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.” Page 62.
• Whilst not advocating misleading content, it demonstrates that repetition is key to communicating your brand and product(s).

2. Content as an Educational Tool:

• Providing valuable content helps in educating the buyer, positioning the vendor as a thought leader and a reliable source of information.
• Content marketing strategies, such as white papers, case studies, and webinars, contribute significantly to building trust.
• Most people prefer not to be ‘sold’ to, and by educating your prospects ensures the decisions they make are based upon their research – using your data!

 To buy the above image as a poster, visit: https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Visual-Book-Thinking-Fast-and-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman-by-TKsuited/132602344.E40HW

Evidence and Data

Trust and Relationship Duration

A study by Edelman Trust Barometer highlighted that 65% of respondents say that the most important factor in deciding to buy a new product or service is their trust in the company. And trust levels are significantly higher among those who have engaged with a company for more extended periods of time.

Spending and Relationship Duration

According to a Harvard Business Review study, they said customers who have known a vendor for more than 5 years tend to spend 67% more compared to those who have known the vendor for less than a year.  Therefore, long-term relationships lead to repeat purchases and higher transaction values.

Establish Mutual Trust in Business Before They Become Prospects

A fundamental problem with B2Bs is that they do not place enough or indeed any importance on attempting to engage with the 86% of businesses who are researching and attempting to learn about new products before they make themselves prospects. Not being aware of this will undoubtedly impact marketing challenges affect growth.

In many cases, a CEO expected the BDRs and sales teams to seek out prospects, identify their need, make the appointment, and get the sale.  Whilst it worked in the 90s and 2000s it does not today.

Prospect engagement happens at the last 10-15% of the buyer’s journey.  It is imperative you think and plan how you want to engage in the ‘silent conversation’ (Review our page explaining The System – a comprehensive illustration how to exploit this buying time)

Strategies for Building Trustworthy Relationships

Consistent Engagement

1. Maintaining visibility on social media: Automated posting of graphics and adverts with consistent branding ensures adherence to repetition and the “Mere Exposure Effect”.
2. Regular Check-ins with existing customers: Scheduled follow-ups to maintain the relationship without being intrusive.
3. Feedback Loops for users: Actively seeking and acting on feedback to improve offerings and demonstrate responsiveness.

Content Marketing

Studies show a correlation between the quality and depth of content produced, meaning any information you create must deliver on a certain expectation of competence, which is key to business success.  A few paragraphs as a blog will not and does not constitute relevant content!  In real terms, the same mut apply to all content, written or recorded.

Whilst long-form content will attract more engagement and shares, it also requires more visual effort, i.e., the authors need to include sufficient images and graphics to complement the text. 

A report by SEMrush ‘State of Content Marketing 2023’ showed 51% of articles had one image and only 5% had seven or more images.  However, the articles with seven images achieved more page views, shares and backlinks.

For starters, here is a template for written content:

1. Educational Content:

• Articles, eBooks, and infographics that address pain points and provide solutions.
• Regularly updated content keeps your content fresh and will keep your audience engaged and informed.

2. Interactive Content:

• Live streams, video, podcasts, and Q&A sessions all contribute to fostering direct engagement.
• Case studies and success stories help demonstrate real-world applications and the benefits of your products and not just the features or attributes. Make sure your prospects know what your product can mean to them, what’s in it for them, what’s the ROI.

Personalisation

In an age where B2B buyers want to self-serve, self-educate and remain anonymous, personalisation becomes a sensitive subject, prior to a buyer becoming a customer.  Whilst you may think personalisation is a good indicator to building trust in business, it has the opposite effect.  Remaining anonymous means just that; prospects do not want to encounter personalisation because they immediately think you'll be pestering them with incessant cold calls.

Deliver content to prospects how you would like to be communicated with:

• Tailored Communication: Personalised emails are ok, and content recommendations based on perceived buyer intent and preferences
• CRM Systems: Using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools to track interactions and cautiously customise follow-ups

Real-World Examples

1. Salesforce: Salesforce has built an extensive library of resources, including webinars, eBooks, and customer success stories. This has helped them establish a strong rapport with their prospects and customers, leading to increased trust and higher sales.

2. HubSpot: HubSpot’s inbound marketing strategy is centred around providing valuable content. Their use of blogs, templates, and free tools has not only educated their audience but also built long-term relationships that translate into higher customer lifetime value. *

3. salesXchange: We have created a varied and large B2B resource of content assets ranging from infographics and memes to articles and book. In addition we have over 100 videos, live streams and podcasts along with their respective transcripts. This has enabled us to post over 400 items every month and repeat, to ensure we adhere to the repetition and mere exposure effect as previously mentioned.

Conclusion

The assertion that shorter vendor relationships correlate with lower trust and spending, while longer, content-rich relationships result in higher trust and greater spending, is backed by substantial evidence.

Businesses that invest in building long-term relationships through consistent engagement and educational content are more likely to see increased trust and higher spending from their customers.

Action Points to Build Trust in Business

1. Invest in Content Marketing: Develop a comprehensive content strategy that educates and engages your total addressable market, maintaining quality over quantity.
2. Consistent Exposure: Maintain regular, value-driven contact with your total addressable market, prospects and customers.
3. Leverage Engagement: Exploit live streaming, video and podcasting, combined with accurate management of CRM systems to personalise communication and track relationship progress.

By implementing these strategies, your business can foster stronger relationships with buyers, ultimately leading to increased trust and higher spending. This approach not only aligns with the principles of human behaviour but is also supported by extensive research and real-world examples.

A word of caution; big tech and MarTech SaaS vendors have succeeded in convincing B2Bs to significantly invest in their technology, however, whilst they have created vast libraries of content, it has not helped businesses to scale up. Reading about marketing automation 'doth not make an expert'.  Caveat Emptor - Buyer Beware!

Bear in mind, the same number of businesses fail every year, with or without investment.  So, I urge you to research the effectiveness of existing marketing automation and the respective strategies before deciding to continue with it.