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The 7 Practices You Need To Build Trust With The Most Important People In Your Life

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I remember reading a line from Ernest Hemingway in college that went something like “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” As I’ve gotten older and seen business and personal relationships ruined, however, I’ve learned that establishing trust is less about expecting people to blindly trust you and more about the effort you put into building real relationships.

Here are seven practices that I’ve seen some of the best relationship builders use to cultivate the relationships that matter most to them.

1. Get quid pro quo out of your mind.

The best relationships I have formed don’t have a favor meter. If you take the “he/she owes me” out of the equation and truly help people when they need it or there’s an opportunity to do so, then typically they’ll be able to tell that you aren’t helping them out of self-interest. If someone senses that you actually care about his or her success, it can change the dynamic of the relationship and form a higher level of trust.

2. Be deliberate about scheduling time with them.

This can be as simple as writing down the 20 most important relationships in your life in a Google spreadsheet: 10 business and 10 personal or whatever makes sense. Every quarter make it a goal to have a meaningful touchpoint (dinner, good call, thoughtful gift, etc.) with each of these people. As cheesy as this sounds, think about what their “love language” is. Is it gifts? Is it quality time? Understand what people value and schedule time or effort around that.

3. Value long-term trust over short-term gain.

Recently, an employee of a friend came to me and said he’d received a side job offer and asked whether I thought he should take it or run it through the company. In the end, he talked to his boss about it and volunteered the opportunity even though he really didn’t have to. I know there was probably a 90 percent chance he could have gotten away with his boss never knowing. However, you could tell that long-term trust with his boss was more important than the short-term gain the opportunity presented. This not only made me respect the guy more, but I could also see that my friend appreciated his transparency and that it would pay off in the long run.

4. Remember important life events.

Anytime you get an opportunity to write down an important date and put it in your calendar, always do it. Anniversaries, birthdays, an upcoming surgery, or what have you — pay attention to these things and make sure you send a small gift or even just a thoughtful message. When people can consistently count on you to pay attention to what’s going on in their lives, they naturally gravitate to you to as an important person in their “life bucket.”

5. Stay in constant communication.

Recently, I surveyed 20 people on what is most important to them in terms of having a meaningful relationship. Nineteen out of the 20 said the No. 1 thing was simply staying in touch. Even if it’s a quick “Hey, how are things going?” in an email or text, it can mean a lot that you took the time to check in with them.

6. Get to know the people around them.

My friend and former client John Ruhlin, author of “Giftology,” has it cemented in my brain that if you really want to form a relationship with someone, you need to look at the people around him or her — family members, co-workers, or whoever — and treat those people extremely well. Ruhlin always talks me into sending a gift not just to the person I’m getting to know, but also to his or her spouse or executive assistant. When your contacts see you treating the people they care about well, they begin to trust that you won’t just look out for them, but you will keep an eye out for those they’re close to. For some people, that’s even more important than doing things for them directly.

7. Do your best to make things right … without being taken advantage of.

There are always going to be problems in business where you screw up or outside factors affect a result. If you are stubborn and insist that you are right, it can affect your efforts to help the situation. Sometimes, even if you don’t want to, the best thing to do is expend the extra effort to make sure things get right with the relationship. Now, if someone consistently takes advantage of that response, then you need to call it out and set clear expectations moving forward so it doesn’t turn into a toxic relationship. However, most people will respect the type of person you are if they know you will do what you can make things right.

These days, it can seem as though trust in both business and life is in pretty short supply. By adopting these practices, you can do your part to create more of it — and more valuable business relationships into the bargain.

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