#225 - Build trust and credibility in business by doing this
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Trust and credibility are the real competitive advantage in business. Not your logo. Not your latest offer. Not even your pricing. Let’s face it: potential clients can compare you to ten other businesses in under five minutes. Trust is what makes someone choose you, pay you and stick around.
The good news is you do not need to be the loudest or the flashiest to build trust. You just need to be consistent, clear and professional in the places that matter most. Here are the foundations I always come back to.
Start with the Basics on Your Website
If someone lands on your website, can they quickly see that you run a legitimate business with proper systems in place? Website terms and conditions are a simple but powerful signal. They set expectations upfront and show you take your business seriously. This is not legal fluff, but part of your client experience.
Have a Privacy Policy That Matches Reality
A privacy policy is no longer optional. People are more aware than ever of how their data is collected and used, and they want to know you are handling it properly. A clear, accessible privacy policy builds confidence because it shows respect. It tells your clients you have thought about their information, not just your own operations.
Keep Your Client Agreements Current
Your client agreement or terms of service should reflect how you actually deliver your work today, not how you operated two years ago. When your documents are up to date, clients feel safer signing. They know what they are getting, what is included, what is not and how the relationship works. That clarity reduces friction and increases confidence.
Make Your Enquiry Process Easy to Follow
Confusion kills trust. If your enquiry process feels messy, unclear or overly complicated, people assume working with you will feel the same. A simple, clear enquiry process shows you are organised and reliable. It also helps the right clients self-select quickly, which saves everyone time.
Nail the Onboarding Experience
Onboarding is where trust is either reinforced or quietly lost. Once a client says yes, they should experience a smooth handover into your process. Clear next steps, consistent communication and documents that match what you promised in the sales conversation all signal professionalism. This is where you show them you do what you say you will do.
Remember That First Impressions Are Always Happening
People are forming opinions about your business long before they speak to you. Your website, your emails, your documents, your tone, your process all add up. The goal is consistency. You want someone to land in your world and immediately feel, “This business has its act together.”
Trust is not built in one big moment. It is built in a hundred small ones. Get the foundations right, keep them current and treat clarity as part of your brand. That is how you earn credibility, and that is how you keep it.
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[00:00:47] Tracey: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Rise Up in Business Podcast. Thank you for joining me. Today, I am gonna talk about something that is relevant for you in business. No matter what stage you're at, whether you're just getting ready to start out, you've been in business for a year, or whether you've been around for a lot longer, today's episode will have something that you can take away and implement straight away. I'm sure of it. Today I wanna talk to you about how it is you are building trust and credibility in your business. Just about every business owner I speak to has got some type of growth aspiration.
[00:01:24] So whether that's a new business starting out and you're wanting to attract more clients to reach a certain revenue milestone or whether you've been around for a lot longer and you are looking to make more impact. And to make more impact, we need more reach. So just about everyone I talk to has some type of growth aspiration.
[00:01:43] The question I ask then is what is your trust and credibility strategy? How are you building trust and credibility? And yes, there's lots of talk about funnels and referrals and people that are doing speaking engagements and a whole host of other ways that [00:02:00] business owners are engaging in to get more clients, repeat clients, new clients, more clients.
[00:02:06] They're all talking to me about wanting to get more clients. I need to pause here and ask you, how are you building trust and credibility with people coming into your zone, with people coming into the top of your funnel, with people coming to your website? Where does it start for you and how are you utilising that to increase conversions?
[00:02:27] So to increase prospects to paying clients. What's the strategy? Something that's often overlooked because business owners don't see this as sexy and shiny and fun, is the legal document side of things. So when we're talking credibility and trust, a lot of business owners will say to me, I've worked with a graphic designer to do a great logo, or I've paid someone to do the email signature in my email footer, or I've paid someone to develop my website.
[00:02:58] Or I've paid someone to develop a media kit for me, and that's all great. And it's important, and I'm not saying it's not, but what I'm saying in my experience, moves the needle more in terms of real quality clients acting on the trust and credibility that you've built are the legal documents, the frameworks that you have in place to establish yourself as the real deal professional.
[00:03:25] And if you think about it, when someone's coming into your funnel for the first time, or they're referred to you or they've seen you on socials, just about always, the first thing they do is go to your website to check you out, to make sure you're the real deal, to make sure you're legitimate, to see what you are about, to see if they like the vibe.
[00:03:42] And more often than not, the feedback I'm getting now, which is different to three or four years ago, because consumers are becoming so increasingly educated on these things, the feedback I'm getting is that people are scrolling to the bottom of the website and they're having a look for website terms and conditions and a privacy policy.
[00:03:59] I kid you [00:04:00] not, and if you don't do this already, I suspect that you might after listening to this episode, because I've brought your awareness to it. It's always the way, isn't it? When someone brings our awareness to something or when we decide we want something or we wanna focus on something, we see more of it.
[00:04:17] So, they're scrolling to the bottom of websites and they're having a look for website terms and conditions and a privacy policy. Personally, when I go to somebody's website and I scroll to the bottom, if they don't have website terms and conditions and a privacy policy, I close a browser and I move on to somebody else because it's sending me a message.
[00:04:37] It's sending me a message of either I'm not professional, I don't even know about it, didn't know that was a thing, or I'm not professional and I don't care. That's why I didn't bother doing it. And I've heard people say over the years, no one reads it anyway. To that, I say, yes, they do, firstly and secondly, that's not the test.
[00:04:58] It's not about that. It's about your trust and credibility piece, your professionalism, your legal compliance. So that's the answer to that. Really short and sharp. No point going down that path any further. It's irrelevant. So when we're building trust and credibility with our audience, we wanna make sure that we're not putting up any hurdles or roadblocks so that they can continue their journey with us.
[00:05:20] So think about it this way. Someone's either seen your ad or seen you on socials, or someone has mentioned you and they go to your website. And they're having a look around. They scroll to the bottom website, Ts and Cs and a privacy policy. You'll find there's an increasing number of people who are actually clicking on these documents and reading them as they should and as you should before you decide to engage with somebody so that you know what they're about.
[00:05:42] It helps build trust. It's a filter for me. It's a filter for many of my clients and my business friends that this is how we determine whether we're gonna go to the next step. This is how we determine whether we're gonna reach out, book in a discovery call, send a message, make an inquiry to [00:06:00] see whether or not there's a vibe to see whether or not we're a good fit, to see whether or not I wanna work with this person.
[00:06:04] Same deal goes with you. We don't want objections. So if someone's landed on your website and they've seen your beautiful design and they've seen your color palette and it's lovely, and they've looked at the logo and they've read the copy and isn't this great, and they scroll to the bottom, we don't want 'em to leave at this point.
[00:06:19] We don't want 'em to leave. So we need to make sure that you've got properly drafted website, T's and C's, and a privacy policy, which by the way, if you've a long time listener, you'll know very well that it's a really important document and pretty soon it's gonna be law, law that you have one. So there's that.
[00:06:36] So once they get to that point, they reach out, they connect with you, what is your inquiry process or your discovery process? If someone books in for a call with you, is there an automated process where they receive their Zoom link? They receive a follow up, it's in the calendar, no one's mucking around looking for links at the last minute. You jump onto a call.
[00:06:56] Fantastic, professional, seamless. You have a conversation. They love what you do, you vibe. Excellent. When you're getting off that call, you are probably saying, I will now do this. So whether it's a quote or a proposal or something that you're gonna send them through, you're saying, I will now do this. Question I have is, do you then do that?
[00:07:17] What's your process for then doing that? Because this is really important because we're building trust or undermining trust at every step of the way. So when you jump off that call or that process, whatever it might be, when you say you will do this, my question to you is, what do you have in place in terms of your processes and systems to make sure that you do?
[00:07:37] That's my question. Then you move on to doing it. You're sending out your proposal or your quote. Ideally with your terms of service or your client service agreement, or you wait for the quote to come back accepted, and then you send out your client service agreement. Whatever that nuanced process looks like for you is great, provided that it's clear and that you execute it consistently.
[00:07:57] So let's say you get to the point now where you send out your terms of [00:08:00] service or your client service agreement, what's the reaction? We want the client's reaction to be: Excellent. This is a continuation of professionalism with this person. Everything's on brand. This looks so good. It feels so good. It sounds so good because everything we talked about, I can see articulated here in the quote or the proposal or the terms of service of the client service agreement, whatever you call it. But we want the continuation because this is the next touchpoint. We want consistency right from the very first time they heard about you, to land on your website, to look at your legals on your website, to connect with you, to talk to you, to now you have followed through.
[00:08:40] Excellent. The documents are all consistent. This is what we talked about. This is what I wanna do. So we've gotten to that point, and now I say, are there any objections we need to deal with here in your client service agreement? Is this agreement or are your terms of service consistent with how you're going to do business, consistent with what you've told them in the call?
[00:09:00] If the answer to all of that is yes, well done you. Well done you, because you've just positioned yourself really well to allow your client to come back and say, it's a hell yes from me to working with you. In which case you've converted. Now it's important that you have processes and systems to follow through. Service delivery, invoicing, all the things because you're so clear on what you've set out in your terms of service for your client service agreement that you know how to operate and you operate consistent with it.
[00:09:32] Pausing here, if you're scratching your head or you're shaking your head saying, no, I don't really think my terms of service or my client service agreement is consistent with that. I'm not really sure. I put it together a few years ago from looking at a few others, or I bought a template and probably needs an up level or a refresh, then yes, I would suggest if you are even thinking along those lines, then it's certainly time for a review and a refresh and perhaps a bit of an [00:10:00] update because it's really important that this document is a tool that you are using to convert prospects to paying clients because it's trust and credibility every step of the way.
[00:10:09] So once you've got that to the point where it's doing all the things it needs to, and it's an accurate representation of your business and how you do business, you've converted and you move through. Once you've delivered your beautiful services, you've issued invoices in accordance with your terms of service, exactly how you say you're gonna issue the invoices. You've dealt with variation requests, as you say, you will in your terms of service. You've been paid, you've completed the project, your offboarding process is just as important as your onboarding process. So what does that look like? You finish the project, what does the client get at the end?
[00:10:48] Obviously, they get the beautiful project, the beautiful outcome, the deliverables, but a beautiful off-boarding email. Thanks so much. It's been a pleasure, or whatever your language might be. Here if you need, this is how you can engage me further. If anything comes up, here's the link or reach out via email, or this is what it costs for ad hoc sessions.
[00:11:06] Whatever that might look like for you is just as important because if we hit all these milestones that I've talked about here in terms of trust and credibility pieces, by utilising your legal documents the way that you should, not only will you have met client expectations, but you have exceeded them.
[00:11:24] And that my friend, is how we guarantee return clients, referrals and positive reviews. And as I say on here, so often as small business owners, that is what we need to be achieving if growth is one of our objectives. Repeat clients, word of mouth referrals, positive reviews. That's what we want. We all know as business owners that unhappy clients will tell more people than happy clients, and the ripple effect can be devastating.
[00:11:56] So we don't want that. So just by being intentional with [00:12:00] how we're building trust and credibility and h aving that at the forefront of your mind for each of the touch points with your clients can be an absolute game changer in terms of converting prospects to paying clients, so the yeses, which has a flow on effect to your growth objectives.
[00:12:17] So this is a short and sharp episode that I really wanted to shine a light on how you can be using your legal documents, which let's be honest, you need them anyway, so you may as well be utilising them and leveraging them to the maximum extent possible. And this is how you do it. So can I only suggest that you take a moment now and sit down and ask yourself some questions? One, do you have proper website terms and conditions on your website? Two, do you have a privacy policy on your website? It's crucial. Three. Are your client agreements or your terms of service current up to date, and do they accurately reflect you and your business and how you operate?
[00:12:57] The fourth thing is what's your inquiry process? Your discovery process? Is it really clear? Does it cause confusion? Does it create more questions than it answers? Hopefully not, but is it really clear? Have a think about that. And then five, your onboarding process. Do you do what you say you're gonna do once you get off those calls? Do you follow through? What's your process?
[00:13:19] Six. The overarching question here is what message are you sending to clients, to prospects when they discover you for the first time? What message are you sending your clients when they're working with you? We want it to be stellar, professional, outstanding, excellent service. Absolutely consistent. Talks the talk, walks the walk. That's what we want to achieve that position to be in, where you can say, not only do I meet my client's expectations, but I exceed them. I really hope that's been helpful. If you've got any doubts about any of this, please reach out and ask the question.
[00:13:56] Let's have a conversation. Drafting these types of documents [00:14:00] tailored to each unique business is what I do and there's a reason I do this. And if you're a longtime listener, you'll know very well my background in litigation and dispute resolution and, and what I'm trying to achieve in this business with setting small businesses like you up for long-term sustainable success and just utilising these tools to build trust and credibility such an incredible way to uplevel your business and help achieve your goals. Please feel free to reach out and ask questions. Have a conversation anytime. That's what I'm here for, and if you have a business friend or somebody that you think would benefit from listening to this so they can ask themselves those reflective questions and make decisions to move forward, I'll be so grateful if you would share the episode with them.
[00:14:43] As always, thank you for listening. I'll catch you next time.
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