How do you gain trust from a company you’ve never worked with?
The other day I was talking to a sales manager at a large e-tailer when they said something that stuck with me- how do you trust a company you’ve never worked with, particularly in the online arena?
At first I thought the answer was simple- Google the company, check references, and go by what you’ve heard in the industry. Oh, but how wrong I was.
Let’s say you have a potential company you would like to work with, but want to see how trustworthy they are, so you Google them. What will this tell you? Well during the last election I was trying to figure out who was the most trustworthy, so I Googled the candidates, and WOAH! John Kerry waffles?!? We don’t want that in a President! And George W. I can’t even write what Google came up with for him! The point is that it’s quite possible to manipulate Google’s results, so the answer you’ll find can be what the searched for term wants you to find, or what enemies of the company want- not necessarily the objective information you’re looking for.
As an aside: At some point ‘Google’ became a verb. Even talking about “to Google” has become somewhat cliché. But will Google become a trade name a la Kleenex? When my wife asks me to buy Kleenex, I go to the store and with general confusion hover around Kleenex brand versus Scotties versus Duane Reade. Did she mean the Kleenex brand? Or any tissue, as long as it’s soft? As it turns out she wanted anything, as long as it was in a purple box, to match the bathroom towels. Will Google become a trade name? I Googled myself on Yahoo. Yahooing oneself just sounds ridiculous. MSNing oneself? Awkward at best. Asking oneself? A little too philosophical…. But I’ve digressed. After an attempted Googling, the next step might be to check references.
However, more often than not, many of the references are companies that you’ve never heard of. I’d like to pretend this example happened years ago, but it was actually quite recent: I started working with a company that referenced their own shell companies. Each person our credit manager spoke with, gave a glowing report, not mentioning the obvious conflict of interest. Next thing we know, the company has changed names (again), and our references no longer pick up the phone.
The most effective method I’ve found is to just ask around. Talk to your industry contacts, and say “hey- have you ever heard of _____. Good to work with? Trustworthy?” And hopefully someone can shed some light on the situation.
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