Does your customer trust you?  I mean: does your customer really, really trust you?  Do they pay your invoices not just on time–but without checking? Do they always sole-source you? Do they never push back on price? Were you invited to the CEO’s daughter’s wedding?

None of those questions necessarily indicate trust. But, if your customer really trusts you, then you will probably have some similarly extraordinary indication of that fact.  If nothing extraordinary is happening–then maybe your customer doesn’t really, really trust you.

Don’t be embarrassed– extraordinary levels of trust are rare. You’re not alone. But–wouldn’t it be great if your customer did trust you like that?

What prevents that? Why don’t they trust you?  If we can identify the causes, the solutions will be clear.

Here are the Five Reasons your customer might not trust you.

1. They don’t believe you.  I don’t mean they think you’re flat-out lying. More likely, they just think you don’t really know the answer. Or, you know most of the answer, but you’re overstating your expertise. Or, you don’t have the experience to justify what you are telling them.  Or–especially–that you don’t understand theirsituation enough to make a sensible recommendation.

There are a dozen reasons why they might not believe you.  But they all result in not trusting you.

2. They think they can’t depend on you. I don’t mean they think you’re a flake.It’s much more benign. They might mean they had a bad experience once, and worry it might happen again. Maybe they had a bad experience once, and think you haven’t apologized for it–and they can’t understand why.

Maybe they mean your intentions are great, but they feel your procedures and processes aren’t as good as your intentions. Of that they can depend on you, but not on the rest of the system.  Or maybe they just think you don’t fully understand what you are promising.

In any case, they’re still not trusting you.

3. They don’t feel safe with you. I don’t mean they walk away when you’re handling knives–I mean there’s some information they don’t share with you.  Have you ever had a customer invite you into a decision process later than they should have? That’s because they didn’t feel safe sharing certain information with you. They felt you couldn’t appreciate it, or understand it, or behave appropriately around it.  So they just didn’t invite you in.

They probably didn’t even think about it. It just didn’t occur to them to invite you in.  Which means their lack of trust in you is unconscious.  Whatever–they’re still not trusting you.

4. They think you’re too self-centered. Not that you are greedy, or evil. Just that your thoughts center around yourself–not around them. You may think you’re always focused on them–but that doesn’t mean they feel it.  And if they don’t feel it, they don’t trust you.

5. They Think You’re Holding Back.  Not that you’re keeping some dark secret from them–just that you don’t seem forthcoming to them. And therefore, they are never sure what you are thinking, or what you keep hidden from them.

And if they don’t know what you’re sharing and what you’re hiding, not only will they dream up the worst, they’ll assume you have bad intentions.  In any case, the movie still ends the same–they don’t trust you.

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Those Five Reasons amount to problems of credibility, reliability, intimacy, self-orientation, and authenticity. The fixes are equally clear, though not always easy:

1. Tell the truth, and pretty much all of it, all the time.
2. Say what you’ll do, then do it; honor your word.
3. Be super-sensitive to context; know how your customer feels about issues.
4. Practice paying attention to others.  Really, really listen.  Just listen.
5. Be yourself, and be open about who that is.

Then get ready for some extraordinary customer behaviors. That’s what trust does.

This is a very tough thing to do. It takes time and lots of effort to get to know yourself, and serenity will be your best allied because sometimes, you will need to let go of your misperceptions about yourself. You will need to be realistic since not everybody can become President of the United-States.

Apple created an innovative retail experience by studying a company known for its customer experience — The Four Seasons. According to Ron Johnson, Apple senior vice president of retail operations, Apple Stores would attract shoppers, not by moving boxes, but by “enriching lives.” Apple would offer customers a concierge-like experience, much like a customer would receive in an elegant hotel. The lesson — don’t move the “product.” Enrich lives instead and watch your sales soar. Carefully review each customer touch point with your brand, and take the opportunity to create more meaningful relationships with your consumers. Look outside your company for ideas on how to stand out from your competitors. Above all, have fun. Passion is contagious. If your employees are not having fun, your customers will not be, either.

The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs (McGraw-Hill, 2010)

He is committed to building simple, uncluttered design. This philosophy allows Apple to build a continuous stream of products that wow and delight customers for their elegance and simplicity.

In October 2008, Apple introduced its next-generation MacBook laptop computer. Jobs invited Apple design guru Jonathan Ive onstage to explain the new process of building mobile computers, a process that allowed Apple to offer notebooks that were lighter and sturdier. Ive told the audience that Apple’s new “aluminum unibody enclosure” eliminated 60 percent of the computer’s major structural parts. Reducing the number of parts naturally made the computer thinner. Contrary to what you’d expect, eliminating parts also made it more rigid and robust—the computer was stronger. According to Ive, “We are absolutely consumed by trying to develop a solution that is very simple, because as physical beings we understand clarity.”

Your customers demand simplicity, and simplicity requires that you eliminate anything that clutters the user experience — whether in product design, website navigation, marketing and advertising materials, or presentation slides. Say “no” more often than “yes.”

This advice applies to your career and personal life as well. The lesson — don’t spread yourself too thin. Find the career that intersects your passion, skill, and the ability to make money doing it. Once you find it, focus on it, work at it, and dedicate yourself to excellence in that area. Say “no” to anything else that will distract you from pursuing that career. If you are looking for work or frustrated with your current job, there will be plenty of friends, families, and colleagues who offer unsolicited advice on what’s best for you. Filter out the ideas that might derail you from the career that best matches your strengths and passion. When you find it, pursue it with a single-minded sense of purpose.

The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs (McGraw-Hill, 2010)

Sure, “listen” to your customers and ask them for feedback. Apple does that all the time. But when it comes to breakthrough success at Apple, Jobs and his team are the company’s best focus group. Asked why Apple doesn’t do focus groups, Jobs responded: “We figure out what we want. You can’t go out and ask people ‘what’s the next big thing?’ There’s a great quote by Henry Ford. He said, “If I’d have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me ‘A faster horse.’”

How do you see your customers? Help them unleash their inner genius, and you’ll win over their hearts and minds. Nobody cares about your company or product. They care about themselves, their dreams, and their goals. Help them achieve their aspirations, and you’ll win them over the Steve Jobs way.

The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs (McGraw-Hill, 2010)

One thing that Twitter is not is an online mall where people come to buy or sell things. You don’t need Twitter if you can’t promote your offers, you would be sorely mistaken. You see, that is where the true power of Twitter is, in the fact that it isn’t a marketplace.

Twitter should not be considered a cheap form of advertising because treating it like a traditional advertising medium will get you nowhere. On the other hand, this micro-blogging platform ranks among the most effective and powerful marketing tools that you can use. This is due to the fact that Twitter is the perfect place to build relationships with your target market and this is critical to your online marketing success because consumers have changed a lot over the past decade.

Once you have set your goals and you have chose the most effective venue, you are ready to start your demand stimulation program:

1. Start your demand stimulation program at least 9 months in advance;
2. Get your act together by creating a message that will reflect your unique positioning;
3. Start a PR campaign with a roadshow that will culminate at the trade show. Make sure you get a great story to tell with new products. Announcing features is not enough, but announcing clients’ positive results will drag lots of attention;
4. Build a momentum using social medias;
5. Make sure your logo is on the first page of the show website. Become a major sponsor;
6. Buy keywords on the show website’s search engine or sponsor specific pages;
7. Send personal invitations to all your clients and prospects (those invitations must be sent by your sales people). Invite your most influent prospects by calling them directly. Offer them a good and honest reason for them to come to your booth;
8. Rent leads lists form trade magazines and the trade show itself. This is one of the most effective way to drive people to your booth;
9. Send personalized offline invitations. A great opportunity since nobody sends direct mail anymore;
10. Advertise in trade magazines;
11. And most importantly, prepare your post-show activities before going to the show. Now the real work begins.

Remember, the single most important thing to drive demand stimulation to a trade show is to have a unique story to tell.

In 1979, Jobs took a tour of the Xerox research facility in Palo Alto, California. There he saw a new technology that let users interact with the computer via colorful graphical icons on the screen instead of entering complex line commands. It was called a “graphical user interface.” In that moment, Jobs knew that this technology would allow him to fulfill his vision of putting a computer in the hands of everyday people. He went back to Apple and refocused his team on building the computer that would eventually become the Macintosh and forever change the way we talked to computers. Jobs later said that Xerox could have “dominated” the computer industry but instead its “vision” was limited to building another copier.

Innovation — the kind with a big “I” that moves society forward — doesn’t happen without a bold vision. What vision do you have for your career or your company? Yes, you need to follow your gut and do something you are passionate about. But while passion fuels the rocket, vision points the rocket to its ultimate destination.

The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs (McGraw-Hill, 2010

Breakthrough innovation requires creativity, and creativity requires that you think differently about…the way you think.

Scientists who study the way the brain works have discovered that innovators like Jobs do think differently, but they use a technique available to all of us — they seek out diverse experiences. This reminds me of the story behind Apple’s name. The idea fell from a tree, literally. Jobs had returned from visiting a commune-like place in Oregon located in an apple orchard. Apple co-founder and Jobs’ pal, Wozniak, picked him up from the airport. On the drive home, Jobs simply said, “I came up with a name for our company — Apple.” Wozniak said they could have tried to come up with more technical-sounding names but their vision was to make computers approachable. Apple fit nicely.

Jobs creates new ideas precisely because he has spent a lifetime exploring new and unrelated things — seeking out diverse experiences. Jobs hired people from outside the computing profession. He studied the art of calligraphy in college (a study that found its way into the first Macintosh), meditated in an Indian ashram, studied the fine details of a Mercedes-Benz or European-made washer-dryers for product ideas, and evaluated The Four Seasons hotel chain as he developed the customer service model for the Apple Stores. Look outside your industry for inspiration. Bombard the brain with new experiences. Remove the shackles of past experiences

The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs (McGraw-Hill, 2010)