Have you ever faced a situation where you got no business at all or got only few businesses despite the fact that you had excellent rapport with your negotiation or business counterparts?

Have you ever been in a situation where your business counterpart stopped buying from you and turned to competition simply because their new price was just few cents below yours and you still wonder how come they change the supplier for a few cents?

Well, people wish to do business or like to negotiate with the people whom they could TRUST.
Trust is a catalyst for Negotiation process. It is a lubricant to reach an agreement and maintain sustainable business relationship.

Negotiations is about understanding shared interests and working together with your negotiating counterparts to create and distribute values. Thus; in order to understand shared interest, first one should share information with the other. When you share information you are vulnerable. Hence, you need TRUST to share information and ideas. Trust leads to openness that helps to create condition for collaboration which is an integral condition for good negotiation outcome.

Trust is willingness to be vulnerable, says James Davis in his 2014 TEDxUSU speech.

In negotiation ecosystem there are two types of trust. Personal Trust (PeT) and Professional Trust (PrT). One has to develop both to establish, maintain and prosper lasting business model that create and distribute value for parties involved.

Often we start with Low PeT and Low PrT level in our career or any new business interactions. It is OK to be Low on both at the inception, provided you know how to develop them gradually. One trust factor compliments the other. Our aim should be to work towards developing conditions to reach High PeT and High PrT. Developing trust is a long process and it takes time.

“You need to be likable and be respected in order to develop Trust” says Jeff Bloomfield, the author of Brain-trust.

When I was working for the largest shipping company in the world, I often visited corporate customers with my team-mate Dhammika. I tend to believe that I had better industry knowledge and therefore, customers will love to do biz with me in the first place, but I was wrong. I was amazed with Dhammika’s ability to connect with people and how quickly he managed to secure business at initial stage. It took me many years to realize his ability to develop Personal Trust (PeT) with his excellent personal rapport and people connection skills. Have you worked with someone like him?

Thus, based on PeT and PrT levels, I have developed 4 characters where one could identify once position at any given point in a negotiation process.

Once you identify where you are in TRUST Quadrant, below table will help to understand symptoms and condition leading to such point and what you need to do move forward to improve both PeT and PrT.

When you are a LOVER with High PeT and Low PrT, it is all about maintaining commitment and consistency.

“Earn the Trust by walking the talking” says Ken Blanchard in his book Trust Works.

The RUNNER who has Low PeT and High PrT is restless trying to protect his business from the competition. Have you ever being in a such situation? Name of the game is engagement with shared values with your counter parts.

I advise entrepreneurs and starts ups on Negotiation and Business challenges. The most important question that often they ask was how to build trust when they meet someone to negotiate first time.

When you meet your counterparts first time, you are a TODDLER and both PeT and PrT will be at low at this point. Where do you start? What steps can you take?

Although there are dozens of options to improve TRUST at this point, I wish to select few, in my opinion that are easy to remember and simple to put in to practice. (Click links below to read my previous articles that discuss each topic deeper)

1. Smile (This is the cheapest concession you could offer at the beginning)

2. Maintain proper eye-contacts (Not maintaining eye contact is distrustful)

3. Deep listening (It is listening and NOT talking that help you to earn more trust)

4. Engagement with friendly body language

5. Clarity of your communication (Muddling and confused language will not help)

6. Sharing simple info (You should not share power-info, but sharing harmless but important simple info will help to develop the trust)

There are many other actions you could take at the negotiation table to establish and improve trust e.g. Empathy. Competency, Skills etc. However, above 6 will help to start developing trust when you meet them first time.

When you become a REAPER with High PeT and High PrT condition, TRUST goes before you. This where you are known in the industry as a trustworthy business partner or as Master Negotiator. However, challenge is; how to stay there. It would be equally difficult to stay at REAPER level because single wrong move could destroy the TRUST built over a long period of time.

Therefore, it is important to beware of TRUST Busters such as giving misinformation, not maintaining your commitments, letting Ego to take over, threatening attitude, trying rip off short term tactics etc.

Remember TRUST is about what you do and not what you say!