More Seth Godin: “Build trust before you need it.”

“The best time to look for a job next year is right now. The best time to plan for a sale in three years is right now. The mistake so many marketers make is that they conjoin the urgency of making another sale with the timing to earn the right to make that sale. In other words, you must build trust before you need it. Building trust right when you want to make a sale is just too late.” [Full post]

The only sales I’ve ever done was in the form of affiliate relations for our networks. Whenever a new GM took over at a radio station, I felt like the clock started ticking. My challenge was to meet, get to know and earn the trust of the new boss BEFORE I needed something from him/her. There’s just no shortcut to building trust.