Trust Yourself/Earn Trust

On the heels of our post that mentioned that lack of follow-up is becoming shockingly common, we were encouraged to see today's post by Andy Robinson in his Executive Coach blog.

Andy writes that keeping promises to others has a direct impact on your own self-esteem and sense of integrity. This is because any promise you make is, first, a promise to yourself. Break it, and take a hit to your self-respect and self-confidence. That simple.

In the agency business earning a client's trust in the first job of any good account person. In this setting, you can understand how hyper-critical it is to trust yourself . . . then earn the trust of a client. In fact we can sum up exactly how important in just one word: money. Want to make money for your employer—and yourself? Earn your client's trust.

But in this scenario, just following up appropriately may not be enough, though it certainly is vitally important. Clients actually deserve more than follow-up. They deserve proactive account management. Which means ideas. Energy. Positive energy. When you demonstrate to a client that your team—your team, not only you—is committed to learning more about their business every day, you're on the way to earning their trust. It's a great first step. (About client's deserving more: they are paying the bill, after all) 

Pretty interesting that you need to be true to yourself before you can truly be a valued resource (friend?) to others, don't you think?

We at Positively Writing were struck by another blog posting today that speaks directly to self-respect . . . and doing the right thing. In Erin Schreyer's piece on the Authentic Leadership blog, she emphasizes the need for employees to give their "A" effort because they are getting paid to do so. It made us wonder why this seems to be a concept that's foreign to some workers—especially with economic conditions an ongoing, threatening force.

So bring your "A" game folks. Every day. Every single day. And go beyond. We've half-joked in the past with our agency teams that every day is "Another day, another opportunity for greatness." And although we were met at times with typically cynical New York snickers and sneers, we actually meant it.

Question: Why can't we accomplish something truly great today? Every day is a clean slate. That simple fact is one of the reason we loved, and still love, Nike's thunderous, directive, amazingly positive slogan (which for some reason many ad types seem to think is now "quaint"):

Just Do It.