Trust is more important than ever before if you want to be successful in business. Ahead of cash, credit and stock, it's perhaps the most valuable commodity of them all.
Whether it’s between a business owner and their shareholders, a manager and their team, or a company and their suppliers and customers, being able to share a common purpose is the foundation for any fruitful relationship.
Of course that’s not to say purely commercial agreements don’t work, but people are drawn repeatedly to those they consider trustworthy and without this a relationship will quickly become transactional.
By building trust you can increase the value of your partnerships. All you need to do is find mutual ground and make sure each party has confidence in the other’s ability to deliver on their part of the vision; but that’s easier said than done.
In today’s virtual world, people and businesses have the flexibility to adapt the way they work quickly and continually, meaning that instead of being able to trust in the power of a company to create relationships, the playing field is much more open and complex.
Today companies have to rely on trust to convince those over which they have no real power to collaborate, and to do this they need a common goal or reason why.
An introduction by a respected third party might speed up the growth of confidence – whether this is a reference for a new employee or an introduction to a supplier from a friend – but ultimately there must be trust and alignment with an organisation’s brand and values if the relationship is to be a success.
Here at the Entrepreneurs’ Forum we work with a number of different partners in what we see as mutually beneficial relationships. Each association begins with the common belief that by helping North East entrepreneurs and SMEs to grow their businesses, we can make the region a stronger and better place.
Our entrepreneurial members are those people leading ambitious SMEs who are willing to join us because we have a proven track record of altruistically supporting some of the most successful business owners our region has ever seen.
We share a common drive, as we believe if SMEs can grow bigger and quicker, this will boost our region’s economy and create more quality jobs. Something the North East needs if we want to keep graduates in the region and bring unemployment levels down further.
To achieve this goal, we need help from a number of other partners.
Inspirational and successful people regularly give up their time to travel to the North East and share their experience at our events because they believe in our cause.
Our Corporate Partners, who are experts in their own field, each share our faith that entrepreneurs are critical to driving the region’s economic prosperity.
While there are obvious other reasons why a corporate company would want to support the region’s most ambitious entrepreneurs, all of our partners genuinely believe they can help business owners grow more successfully and they match our passion for the prosperity of the area.
By being honest, open and transparent about what we do and hope to achieve, we try to demonstrate that we are not only good at what we do, but we’re committed to helping entrepreneurs thrive.
The Entrepreneurs’ Forum is living proof that if you focus on saying, doing and sharing the things you truly believe in, then people who hold the same values as you will gravitate towards you and want to support and work with you.
If you want to build a great business, partnerships based on trust will give you more success than those based purely on revenue growth. Collaborations built on similar ambitions and strategic outlooks can have the same effect, so when the two are combined, the sky really is the limit!
