It has been interesting to watch the ebb and flow of the candidate’s positions within the various polls leading up to the caucuses and primaries.
Much has been made of their media campaigns, their individual gaffs, their individual debate victories or defeats. But one thing stands out that is only now getting the play it should—their perceived trust quotient.
Two men in particular are getting a lot of play right now based on a single aspect of public perception—Obama and McCain.
It is immaterial whether one personally believes either of these men is trustworthy or not. The interesting thing is that the prospective voters being interviewed are more and more often referring to Obama’s and McCain’s perceived trustworthiness as their reason for supporting them. Their support isn’t based on agreeing with their stance on issues, it isn’t on likeability, it isn’t even on personal connection. It is that people trust them.
Will either win their party’s nomination? Of course, at this point we don’t know. Although Clinton is distrusted by a large number of potential voters and isn’t considered likeable by many, she has the strongest machine in politics working for her and she has a good deal of perceived experience with her potential voters. Edwards also has serious issues with both trust and likeability but can’t be discounted at this point although his chances are slim. And despite Obama’s high trust rating and his likeability, his Achilles’ heel is his serious lack of experience.
And although McCain’s trust rating appears to be currently the strongest of any Republican candidate, he has a long way to go and formidable odds to overcome. His perceived trust comes from the belief that he speaks his mind and sticks to his positions even if those positions are not popular. Certainly, his beliefs appear to be at odds with many of those he needs support from. Yet, even many of those who disagree with his stated positions consider him a serious contender because of the trust he has built with many potential voters.
However, from a sales perspective, one thing is clear—people buy trust more than they buy likeability or even experience. And, if like Obama, you can combine trustworthiness with likeability, the temptation to buy is almost irresistible.
Stumble It!
Your conclusion is very interesting. From computer security and usability perspective, both likability and experience are the key factor for developing trust for a user to use a computer (application).
While in real life you argue that trust supersedes likability and experience. Why is so ? Any thoughts on how this trust was first created and then continuously sustained ?
Comment by ashish — February 5, 2008 @ 4:40 pm
Ashish,
I don’t think likeability or experience have a great deal to do with trust. Trust, for most people, is based on consistency of actions. I know people that I don’t particularly like but I’d trust with my life. I know many people I really like and enjoy being around that I don’t trust in the least. I also know salespeople who are inexperienced but whom I trust, so I choose to buy from them (yet, keeping an eye out to make sure they have the proper support from their company to insure the purchase goes as it should).
Trust isn’t created by words or being ‘likeable.’ It is created and sustained through consistent actions that reflect honesty, sincerity, and integrity.
We tend to think that we gain a prospect or client’s trust by doing things they like (actually, for most it’s saying things the prospect or client wants to hear). That isn’t gaining trust. At most, it’s sucking up—and that ‘trust’ will eventually evaporate once the ruse is found out.
Real trust is built by doing that which is in the best interest of the client and sometimes that is the exact opposite of what the client wants. Nevertheless, as the client learns that you know what you’re talking about, that you actually do what you say you are going to do, and that you give honest guidance even when it isn’t what the client wants, you gain their trust.
The idea that one can walk in and 30 minutes later walk out of a conversation having gained the trust of a prospect or a new client is wishful thinking. You either have someone who doesn’t think or, more likely, you have established enough of a relationship the prospect is willing to give you the benefit of the doubt—to be tested by your actions.
Real trust isn’t built in a few minutes—but it can be destroyed in a few seconds.
That having been said, combining trust with likeability is close to irresistible.
Comment by pmccord — February 5, 2008 @ 5:23 pm
Charles Green notified me that his comment seems to have been flagged as spam and killed by the spam blocker. So, here is Charles’ post:
Paul,
>
> Congratulations on your inclusion in the February Carnival of Trust, hosted this month by Michelle Golden at Golden Practices.
>
> As someone who works on trust issues in the corporate world, I echo your views. I like to think of trust as consisting of four main
> factors–credibility, reliability, intimacy, and a low level of self-orientation. Of those, the least powerful, surprisingly, is
> probably reliability, even though it’s something we measure enormously in lots of business (e.g. compputer issues).
>
> But when it comes to buying, you are right. Buyers place a whole lot more emphasis on things like their perception of whether or not the seller has their own interests at heart, or those of the buyer. That affects things like “when things get tough–which they assuredly will–is he going to cover his butt, or work to make sure I get what he agreed to when we shook hands.” That kind of trust, if delivered on, beats the heck out of a product’s dependability rating, for
> example. Even a broken clock is right more often than a clock that runs slow; it’s very easy to predict a shark–it will always behave
> like a shark.
>
> Thanks for this subject and this writing. It adds to the good work on trust that is out there. I commend the Carnival of Trust blog to your readers to see the other nine entries that made the Top 10, at
>
http://goldenmarketing.typepad.com/weblog/2008/02/carnival-of-tru.html?cid=100139858#comments
>
> Charles H. Green
>
> http://www.trustedadvisor.com
>
> http://www.trustedadvisor.com/blog Trust Matters
Comment by pmccord — February 5, 2008 @ 10:26 pm
Hi Paul,
I’d agree overall with your statement that trust and likeability are not the same - but I’d argue that they are somewhat linked.
At a minimum, being liked gives you an entry point to establish trust - the unlikeable rarely get far enough in a relationship to demonstrate reliability.
And even if someone has demonstrated reliability over time - if I don’t like them then my level of trust is diminished. Not fair or justifiable, but human nature I guess.
I’d also say that there are different types of trust - the question “trusted to do what?” needs to be asked.
I remember very clearly working with the management team of the Dubai office of an oil company a number of years ago. They’d had in an “organisation development” consultant who had been working with them on trust and had done the usual “trust fall” exercise (getting people to close their eyes and fall backwards into someones arms).
I spoke to one of the managers about whether this had helped with levels of trust in the team and he made the very sensible point that “Sure, I trust him not to let me fall and break my neck. But I don’t trust him not to **** me over in a performance review.”
Our level of trust in someone is very much dependent on the task at hand. We may trust Obama to tell the truth and stick to his word, but do we trust him to successfully run the economy?
In consulting, I may trust you to write a report analysing my competitors; but do I trust you enough to share my fears over my ability to lead the company?
As you rightly say - reliability is key. But trust generated by reliably producing high quality reports doesn’t carry over into trust to share sensitive information. You need to demonstrate reliability in the relevent tasks. I guess he thing to do is to say “relevant reliability”.
Ian
Comment by Ian Brodie — February 8, 2008 @ 11:40 am
Ian,
I agree to some extent that likeability and trust have some correlation. Although I believe it to be vague—more making the eventual trust easier to reach as you mention than having a direct impact on the conscious or unconscious decision to trust.
More specifically, I do agree that trust generally isn’t universal but is compartmentalized. “I’ll trust you to dog sit but I don’t trust you to manage my bank account.”
The Obama and McCain perception of being trustworthy is interesting. Voters, of course, don’t know either of these men. The trust is perceived trust, not experiential trust. The exit polls indicate people perceive these two as trustworthy—or at least more so then their opponents. That trust I think can be lost even more quickly than we could lose the trust of a client because it is built on nothing but perception, not on personal interaction. In fact, it may be built on nothing more than a desire that Obama’s “change” be real or the respect one has for McCain’s POW experience. Obama’s change is a promise with nothing to support it at this point except words and the image of being genuine; and although McCain’s POW experience was real, it has nothing to do with the majority of his current political positions. Nevertheless, each man has “earned” his perceived trust from a huge number of citizens. Time will tell how well or poorly that trust has been imbued to them.
And as you mention, there’s the flipside, many trust that Obama and McCain are trustworthy—they will do what they proclaim they will do—and consequently will do everything they can to keep one or both out of the White House.
We most often think of trust as something positive, but as you point out—it can cut the other way too.
Paul
Comment by pmccord — February 8, 2008 @ 3:19 pm