Without your customer’s deep and abiding trust, a long-term relationship simply isn’t possible. It builds confidence in your technology’s ability to deliver. It’s trust in you, the people behind your company, that sets the direction and creates the value. That kind of trust exists only between humans.

This level of trust can only be earned. It hinges on your customer’s belief in your commitment to their current and future success, especially when times get tough.

I was interviewing a senior executive at one of my customers’ key accounts. At the end of our discussion, I asked, “What is the greatest value you get from the company I represent?” The exec replied, “Our salesman. He’s part of our team. He understands what we need and gets it.”

If the humans behind your key customer base believe in you, as proven by your word and deed, and trust you with their future, you possess the single greatest competitive advantage and driver of customer lifetime value. CLV is the single greatest driver of long-term profitability, especially in B2B SaaS.

Hint: you can’t back into this. Earning trust requires you to walk the talk and be human.

How well are you earning customer trust?

Here’s a quick survey that will identify gaps between where you are and where you want to be in working to earn your customer’s trust. It’s based on the seven best practices of B2B companies that have established long-term profitability, and those that have not.

Where are you in each of these best practices? Score on a scale of 1 (least) to 10 (most).

• You conduct regular qualitative research (e.g., enhanced NPS) to better understand your customer’s progress, marketplace threats, and satisfaction with your service and support.
• There is a central resource for all team members that includes mission and vision, customer persona and needs analysis, messaging, use cases, and detailed case histories.
• You are committed to an ongoing program of research and publishing leadership content to help customers be more successful.
• Your team has deep domain expertise in your customer’s marketplace.
• Internal measurement includes metrics that are critical to your customer’s success.
• Incentives are both revenue-based (short-term sales) and profitability-based (innovation, customer lifetime value), and all team members partake.
• Key team members are regularly at clients’ offices for meetings, strategic planning, problem resolution, and bonding.

If you score 10 on any one best practice, or 70 overall, we should be investing in your company. A score of 5 to 7.5 and you’ve got some work to do. A 5 or under and you’ve got a big opportunity.

The heart of the matter is heart

Let’s not forget that deep and abiding trust is exclusively between humans. AI builds the platform of reliability, but then it’s us, and our willingness to put ourselves out there, to invest our humanity in someone else’s success as the best way to ensure ours.

Every single person on your team earns, or does not earn, your customer’s trust every day. It’s got to be a mantra. If there’s a fork in the road, if a decision has to be made, earning trust is the criterion. Achievement is incremental, and reinforcement is constant. It’s the journey, not the destination.

Everyone must walk the talk. Here are three steps that will educate, equip, and motivate.

Step 1: The talk

Everything you’ve done on brand, mission and vision, and positioning gets molded into the story of how your organization, and every single team member, is focused on accelerating your best customers’ success as dedicated professionals and human beings.

This is rooted in how your customer defines success, the challenges they face, and how they describe the future state they desire. That gives them the reason to believe.

Be careful, this is only for those who match your ICP or ideal customer profile. Those outside tend to be more expensive to service, generate less revenue, and leave early.

Don’t assume you already know, because it blinds you to the reality that their success isn’t caused by your success. It’s the other way around. 

Step 2: The walk

This is how you want your team members to act every day. It’s the embodiment of the talk, because it provides the rationale. It equips your team with the knowledge to help your customers succeed with your products, services, and humanity.

For instance:

• How are they organized? Who are the decision-makers and influencers, and what do they need to be successful both personally and professionally?
• Exactly how do you provide value today, as illuminated through detailed use cases and case histories?
• How should this value be messaged to customers and prospects?

It’s best if this compendium of information is published and easily accessible, as in a pillar page. You can’t expect everyone to sing from the same hymnal unless you publish it.

Step 3: Putting it all together and taking it on the road

This is walking and talking culture change. You need team members to expand and internalize. In my experience, every successful change effort shares one goal: to educate the culture on how they will benefit in the future state, and to give them the tools to excel.

First, each team member must have a solid answer to the question, “What’s in it for me?” That answer, to be believable, must be about measurement and reward, and begin with a dollar sign. Money talks. Without this reason to believe, the training and the tools will fall short. Questions?

Here’s the answer. This level of trust only happens between humans. Your team must all be on the same page, work in unison, and focus on building profitability through earning trust.

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