Rick Mayo shares why building trust is essential for any business and more importantly when franchising in the fitness industry.

When it comes to franchising, there are a few ingredients that are essential to success. Trust, however, is one of the largest. Regardless of what kind of franchise operation you’re running, trust is critical to the company’s overall viability and success.

After all, franchises represent a larger company, and it’s critical that the franchisee reflects positively on that company. Likewise, it’s also important that the franchisee trusts the parent company, and that the relationship between the two stays positive.

When those things fall into place, the culture of trust radiates out to the customers and staff, creating a more positive workplace culture and a more stable franchise business model. This, in turn, makes customers want to work with you and helps protect the success of your current business and any business you go on to start next.

Why Building Trust Is Important For Franchise Success And Business Relationships

Trust is a critical ingredient to businesses of all types. According to the 2020 Edelman report, trust is important to:

  • Consumers. Companies that have earned a high level of trust have stronger consumer buyers and advocates. In short – trusted companies earn more customers. 
  • Investors. Trusted companies have a greater license to operate and are more attractive to potential investors. 
  • Resilience. Trusted companies have stronger consumer buyers and advocates and are more resilient against risks. 

In short: companies with low trust levels are less resilient, less attractive to investors, and less attractive to consumers with a high trust metric. 

What is Business Trust?

Trust can be difficult to define. And for good reason – it’s a liquid concept that changes from organization to organization. 

While the way a company earns trust may differ slightly from organization to organization, the foundation of trust is always reliability. Trustworthy organizations do what they say they’re going to do, and offer a consistent persona, stance, and approach to business and their customers. 

Elements of Business Trust

  • Stability. The best way to earn trust is to guarantee stability. By ensuring the business is stable and that you’re focusing on your franchise operation’s profitability, you free up space to focus on your customers and care for the growth of your company. 
  • Great branding and marketing. Branding and marketing are excellent tools for communicating a brand’s trustworthiness. While good branding doesn’t make a brand trustworthy by itself, it is an excellent way to communicate a brand’s efforts to become more trustworthy. When you develop a positive outlook within your company, your branding and marketing can communicate that to your customers, thereby spreading the trustworthiness mission. 
  • Ongoing training. Ongoing training is another essential ingredient to trustworthiness for a company. On the part of the parent franchise, ongoing training promises franchisees that they’ll get the support they need to build a business. On the part of franchisees, ongoing training provides better support and assistance for employees and better service for customers. Both things breed trust and contribute to the longevity of a company. 
  • A strong network. A strong network is a side effect of a practical business model. A-grade locations, for example, communicate stability and longevity and help brands access the networks they need to succeed. 

Tips To Build Trust in A Franchise or Business

  • Showcase that you trust others. Trust begets trust. One of the best ways to build trust in your organization is to show that you trust other people. As a franchisee, this could mean illustrating that you trust your parent company and the people who run it. When you demonstrate goodwill toward other people in your network, you immediately encourage other people to trust you in return.
  • Address issues and challenges directly. There’s no business that’s completely free of problems. With that in mind, the best thing you can do to earn trust in the face of that reality is to address issues and problems head-on–without sugar coating or glossing over them. Not only does this make you a more effective problem-solver, but it also showcases your willingness to be honest, which is important for customers and clients alike.
  • Be flexible. What doesn’t bend breaks; and this is as true in the franchise environment as it is anywhere else. The more flexibility and patience you can bring to your daily operations, the more trustworthy and reliable you’ll seem to your customers and business partners. This means being tolerant of mistakes, and not being an inflexible judge. When you can meet other people in the middle, you’ll be a more effective leader and business person, and a more well-rounded person in general.

Why Trust is the Most Valuable Commodity in Business

When it comes to building your business, the best thing you can do is to generate and build trust – both within your company and outside of it. While building trust takes time, it’s an essential and important pursuit that can truly impact the future and trajectory of your company. 

This is especially true in the franchise world. Because franchises reflect a larger business, focusing on trust is an excellent way to not only build a relationship with the parent company, but also to develop a reputation for excellence and reliability in your community. Here at Alloy, we pride ourselves on being a trusted franchise operation that truly cares about its customers, franchise owners, and partners. Learn more by contacting us today!  

Contact Us Now

Check Out The Alloy Podcast – Building Trust

 Matt and Rick discuss the value of trust and how to build and maintain it in your business.

Why should anyone trust your business?

One of the biggest indicators of the success of a business is the levels of trust customers have in it. Trust is the cornerstone upon which all other customer experiences are built on.

In a worldwide study by a company called the Edelman Trust Barometer, each year they do massive statistics on general trust in different categories like media, government, non-government and private business.  They are examined for both trust and competency and shown in one of their basic graphs. In results show in general the public thinks that business is competent, but not ethical.

You could argue that right now, in business, you might be seen as competent, but are you trustworthy? And if you are not, then you need to try to establish that as best as possible. If you do, that’s a true currency and very valuable In this day and age. So as a business, how do you build trust? How do you get folks to trust that you are, you know, doing the right thing  and that you do good. 

Historically, gyms have not been very trustworthy. Clients are skeptical of our marketing and promises due to what they may have experienced in the past. It is our work as gym owners to correct this by building trust in our businesses.

One of the things you can do to build trust is embracing full transparency in all that you do. All your marketing, messaging, and processes should be geared towards nurturing trust.

Tune in to the podcast to learn how Alloy entrepreneurs in the fitness industry, can build and maintain trust in their business and attain success.

Key Podcast Takeaways

  • Edelman Trust Barometer (02:42)
  • How to build trust as a business (06:56)
  • Avoid trickery and bait and switch in your marketing (07:52)
  • How the fitness industry lost trust (09:00)
  • Full transparency in your messaging (11:29)
  • Doing good is good for your business (12:30)
  • The idea is not to be popular but trustworthy (15:53)

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Mentioned in this episode

Rick Mayo 

Alloy Personal Training Franchise

 

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