In today’s globalised, competitive market, building a relationship of trust with your market is key to the success and longevity of your brand. You don’t just become a trust brand overnight, and if you really want to succeed, there are four phases of direct action that you must commit to, in order to become an authentic trust brand.
Ask “Why?” Before You Commit to “What?”
Before you can start on the process of building a trust brand, you must first understand who you want to be as a brand and why, and make a promise around that. Your brand promise is something that you hold yourself or your brand to, where breaking that commitment would have a dramatic effect on your brand. Essentially, this trust relationship is the tether that connects your brand to your market – customers should trust that you completely, honestly, and comprehensively deliver on your brand promise, whatever it may be.
Structure Follows Strategy
Once you are intent on building a trust brand, it’s important that you support your brand promise with methods, structures, processes and behaviours. Connect yourself to the brand promise and enact a strategy, followed by structures and standards of behaviour that hold you and your business team true to delivering on that promise. Make sure that the structures, processes and behaviours you develop are capable of replication and measurement, that way you can assess how well you are following strategy and delivering on your brand promise.
Create a Culture of Positive Disruptions
In order to develop a trust brand, you must develop an internal culture constantly focused on pushing the boundaries of, and delivering on your brand promise with reliability. If you can turn a weak spot into a strength, or an excellent performance into an outstanding behaviour within your brand, you can create positive disruptions from which relationships of trust arise. Trust comes from constantly meeting and exceeding market expectations, and whether you’re a personal or a corporate brand, creating a culture of positive disruptions is vital for enduring relationships of trust. Positive disruptions allow for deeper understandings and connections, because it illustrates your passion to innovate beyond the norm, to present your brand in a way that surprises and delights those who connect to it.
Make your Commitment Visible
Visibly showing others that you personally champion, support and value the delivery of your brand promise is key to the development of trust relationships. This must go beyond the words and voice of your brand, and the claims that it makes, to the actions you take and the strategies you enact. To create a trust brand, you must make the delivery of your brand promise visible, so that others can connect to it, recognise it, and value it in the same way that you do.
At the end of the day, becoming a trust brand is about a commitment to providing something that surprises and delights others, and shows your infectious passion for what you do. It requires a commitment to strategy and behaviours that sustainably engage and disrupt – doing what isn’t expected to go above and beyond your brand promise. Trust brands know who they are, and are passionate about consistently delivering on their promise, to create emotional, valued and strategic relationships with their market that will see them succeed long term.
