Steve Huey's Blog » trust

The Importance of Transparency

Steve Huey — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 13:07:45 +0000

In today’s world Transparency is essential. Why? Because transparency builds trust. Trust is absolutely important in building relationships and relationships are the cornerstone of a solid business.

Who needs to know? Your employees – that is easy. Your investors – that is important. Your clients – that may be controversial. It is easy to understand that your employees need to know because you rely on them to help the company grow and reach its goals. It is important that your investors know what is going on or they will not continue to back your company. Your clients? I would put forth that if you keep your clients informed and they really understand how you are doing, they will support you and help you be successful as well.

You gain transparency by sharing information. You gain transparency by communicating to your stakeholders. Communication is the key to transparency! Try sharing information with all these stakeholders and see how your transparency will build trust, deepen relationships, and help your business grow.

#1 Rule of Life

Steve Huey — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:58:58 +0000

Add more value than you take!

That is it – the secret to all living. If you can create more value you will get more value. Think about it – if you give more love you will be loved. If you are friendly more often – more often people will be friendly to you.

In business you should seek to add value to your clients and partners – if you create a lot of value you can charge a lot of money (capture a lot of value) for your services. If you run a business that has pricing pressure and you can barely pay your bills then you are not creating value. EBay created value by creating the world’s largest garage sale. Sears created value by bringing goods to the American farm families and captured much value fifty years ago only to be replaced by Wal-Mart who created economies of scale value. Microsoft created value by placing software infrastructure in the hands of programmers and later by placing productivity software in the hands of “Office” workers.

Create more value than you consume and your life, and that of your business endeavor will be easy!

Trust – The first requirement of doing business!

Steve Huey — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:58:57 +0000

In order for ANY business to take place there has to be some level of trust. Trust must be established for a vendor to sell anything to a customer, for an accountant to prepare the taxes of a client, for an entrepreneur to raise $1 from an investor.

If you cannot establish TRUST then any business relationship is doomed. If you lose trust you need to stop everything and repair the situation and once trust is fully lost then the chance of a go forward relationship is largely lost as well.

Work to build it – work to keep it – if you do you will be able to maintain the relationships necessary to be successful.