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Seven rules to save your BUTT
when **IT hits the fan

People Don’t Trust You

Let’s face it

You know what? People don’t trust you. That hurts.

After all, you’re a good person, and you work for a good company.

You have the best interests of your customers at heart. You’re not trying to hurt the environment, or cause bacterial contamination. So it hurts when you get blamed for causing cancer. Or polluting the air. Or poisoning a food supply with bacteria.

It really hurts you’re the one at your organization who’s been assigned the job of “fixing it.”

Great. You didn’t start it, but somehow, your boss and the Board of Directors assume you’re going to be able to magically wave a wand and fix the problem. (After all, it’s not like you don’t have other things you should be doing. That website won’t magically update itself, your employees will continue to re- quire managing this week, and your superiors haven’t handed off any of your other responsibilities to other people.)

It really hurts when you start to get phone calls

from angry customers, blaming you for the issue. As if you, personally, were responsible for whatever happened.

And it REALLY hurts when those phone calls start coming from the media.

They’re all landing at your desk, and you’re pretty sure that no matter what you say, it’s going to be misquoted to make your company look bad. Great – as if you weren’t in enough hot water with your boss.

So what did you do to deserve any of this?

Nothing.
Now – Are you ready for the really sad part? This happens every day, in offices of all shapes and sizes across the country. Whether you’re a trade association, a manufacturer, a service provider or a government operation, chances are good you deal with mistrust and a lack of credibility… every single day.
Every day, you deal with more regulatory paperwork than you need to. Every day, you’re spending time in a marketing meeting, trying to convince people to believe you. Perhaps you’re on the phone with yet another upset resident who’s upset about what your facility in a nearby state is doing with it’s emissions.
Whether you realize it or not, you spend more time than you should treading in ‘hot water.’ And there’s only one thing that can happen in hot water – you get burned.
What Does it Cost You?

Misplaced trust and credibility are costing you money.

Lots and lots of money.
Maybe it’s a government regulator who insists on more paperwork. You’ve had to hire a dedicated person just to deal with governmental concerns. Maybe you know your sales are being hurt because consumers are choosing your competitors product. Your marketing team of twelve people spend half their time looking at how to convince people your product is superior. For some organizations, the tab can easily run into the millions of dollars. But even if you’re a tiny, two person mechanic’s shop, misplaced trust and credibility probably cost you thousands of dollars a year.

Ask yourself –
Could you use a few extra thousand dollars in your pocket each year?

In extreme cases, some companies build dedicated legal teams to combat ‘junk science.’

Even though they know they’re doing the right thing, they spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars a year in an effort to do what they know good science will support. I learned of one CEO who spends 50% of his time dealing with nuisance lawsuits. People believe his product may be harmful. He knows his product doesn’t cause cancer, or birth defects. In fact, hazardous materials haven’t been used in any of his products since the 1930’s. His company has won every single lawsuit… but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have to defend his product or his company. And rightly or wrongly, it costs him.

Whether it’s lost time, lost market share or increased costs, not having trust and credibility costs you dearly.

What’s the Solution?

Fixing the problem is never as simple as identifying the problem.

Companies spend millions of dollars every year in a rather futile effort to fix the problem. Think about the messages you see in any magazine, billboard or television commercial. A furniture store offers “integrity pricing.” A car dealership offers “peace of mind.” A cleaning product broadcasts how it’s ‘toxin free.

Have you ever wondered how many millions of dollars are spent each year by companies in an effort to prove they’re “non-something?”

That they’re non-toxic, or non-harmful to the environment? Have you ever stopped to think about whether or not that actually works? I suppose, in some cases, spending mega-bucks on advertising might have an impact. After all, companies continue to do it year after year, so I suppose that much like an ant moving a boulder, tiny progress must be being made. Somewhere. I just haven’t seen it. Here’s the fundamental disconnect that people tend to forget when it comes to trust and credibility – no one believes you.

Telling the world
“we’re not as bad as you think we are”
 Simply does not work.
There is a better way.

There are seven, fundamental steps that any company can take in order to rebuild trust and credibility.

Follow these steps, and government regulators will believe you. Customers will choose you. Sales will increase. Complaints will decrease.
Life just plain gets simpler when everyone trusts each other. I like to call it the oil that lubricates the engine of commerce.

Here’s how to get it.

It’s Not About the Facts

Fun fact:
 Detective Joe Friday never actually said
“Just the facts ma’am”.

Detective Joe Friday never actually said “Just the facts ma’am”.

Your science is irrelevant.

If you’re looking to build trust and credibility, the very first thing you need to do before you start returning phone calls or shaping key messages is understand a basic fact.

Science doesn’t matter now.

Science is empirical… perceptions are illusive. Perceptions deal with past history, fears, misunderstandings, and context. But without understanding that context, the science is completely irrelevant.

Don’t believe me?

Say gasoline is selling for $3 per gallon around the corner, but $2 everywhere else. Are you excited to buy gasoline there? Of course not. Now, what if gas everywhere else was $4 per gallon – $3 looks like a great deal.
$3 gasoline is still $3 gasoline. The price hasn’t moved, the science hasn’t changed, the empirical numbers are static – but your context is different.

Forget about the numbers.
Forget about the facts.

Concentrate on perceptions.

If you’re getting phone calls from people who are convinced that they’re going to die because they’ve eaten spinach, you can’t simply ignore that perception and talk about the relatively low risk of e-coli contamination!

Facts don’t matter. Science is irrelevant.

The first step in building trust is to understand people’s perceptions. You need to respond to the emotional, the social, or the historic issues which have gotten you here

You don’t need to respond to the facts.

Fair enough

So What Do You Need to Respond to?

What do people look for when it comes to assigning Trust?

There is a very smart man named Dr. Vince Covello. He got his doctorate at Columbia University. He did some great work on what I call the corner-stones of trust.

Imagine a pie chart.

This pie is “Trust.” All of the factors that determine whether or not someone is going to trust you in a high risk communications scenario are built into this pie.

OK – so take about 20% of that pie. Less than ¼. This piece is the truth.

Believe it or not – you can be a total liar, and people will still trust you. Don’t believe me? Look at Bill Clinton. Hey – I’m not picking sides here. Love him or hate him – he was a proven liar, and a good percentage of the population still trusted him to be their leader.
Take a piece even smaller… about 15 percent. This piece is Expertise.

If you are great at what you do, and are an expert in your field, you will have earned about 15% of peoples trust.

What? So – you’re the world’s leading expert on e-coli and spinach. Everyone knows you’re the best. And everyone knows you’ve never told a lie in your life… yet, still only about 1/3 of the people out there are actually going to trust you!
Wow! What else do you have to do? Well – let’s take another piece the same size – 15%. This is dedication and commitment. People want to know you’re dedicated to this particular issue, that you’re working hard, and you’re committed to a solution. But even so, that’s still only 15% of the equation.

Well – 20 plus 15 plus 15. We have honesty, dedication, commitment, expertise… So now, you could be the world’s leading expert.

You could have won a medal for having never told anything but the entire truth. You have promised to sleep on your floor in your office until you can solve this problem for people. What on earth could we have left over that makes up one giant piece of the pie?

There’s an entire other half of the pie.

Guess what folks – ignore this simple trait, and you’re ignoring half of what people consider when they choose whether or not to trust you.

This one trait is so important

in fact, that if you remember nothing else from this report, I want you to remember just this one word. If I bump into you on the street 5 years from now, and you say “Mr Chatterton, I read your report on trust and credibility,” I want to be able to say “And what do you remember.”

And I only want to hear one word. It’s that important.

Ready? That one word… is empathy.

Empathy. If people don’t think you care about them, they won’t trust you. It’s that simple.

It’s all about empathy. Again – take a look at Bill Clinton. Again, love him or hate him, he was a liar. He was a small state Governor with a horrible education record. I’m sure some people would argue he was more interested in picking up ladies than governing the nation. Yet he was highly trusted. And why? Because he was the world’s best at making you believe he cared about you.

Empathy just oozed out of his every pore. And to this day, people trust him.

Empathy.

(By the way – this isn’t politically correct – it’s just correct. But women are far better at instinctively recognizing this than men. Men, as a rule, tend to rely on numbers and facts. But hey – it’s risk communications. It’s not about the facts. Women do a far superior job at recognizing and reacting to the emotional, social and historic factors that cause people to be upset in the first place.)

So… now you know. The single most powerful trait that drives trust. That’s one. But I promised you seven, right? So – 7 rules to remember if you want to build trust in a high risk communications situation.

Seven Cardinal Rules of
Trust and Credibility

Seek understanding, not a challenge.

Repeat after me: Everyone has a valid view point. You may not agree with their viewpoint, but if you’re being questioned by someone, it’s absolutely critical that you understand what it is.
If you’re being grilled by an upset employee who’s harassing you about spinach and bacteria, it would be a mistake to start giving an answer about workplace health and safety if you didn’t also know that this person is a parent with a sick child. Obviously, the approach you take will be very different.

Bring up the hot buttons before they do.

It’s real simple: If employee Rosa asks “Is it safe to work here” – you can answer her with “Sure. No one has ever gotten sick.”
Or you can say “Rosa – don’t forget, I work here myself. No one wants to be sick. I know that we’ve had some contaminated spinach in the past. But rather than risk the health and safety of our people, we made sure the spinach was destroyed, and we changed our handling practices to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
You tell me what one’s more effective.

Don’t take it personally.

It will happen. People are going to blame you for something that is totally not your fault.Worst thing to do is worry about that.
If you hear “You’re making my children sick,” you’re not going to help your message if you respond with “I’m not trying to make your children sick, how ridiculous.”

Conclusions before facts.

This is tough. It is human nature to lay out supporting facts and wrap it up with a conclusion. “No one has gotten sick. We’re doing everything we can to prevent similar contamination from occurring. Therefore, this facility is safe.”
Sure, that works. You know what’s even better? Lay out your facts first, back it up with conclusions. “This facility is safe. Let me tell you why.”

Conclusions before facts.

This is tough. It is human nature to lay out supporting facts and wrap it up with a conclusion. “No one has gotten sick. We’re doing everything we can to prevent similar contamination from occurring. Therefore, this facility is safe.”
Sure, that works. You know what’s even better? Lay out your facts first, back it up with conclusions. “This facility is safe. Let me tell you why.”

Continue the dialogue.

Show some commitment here. If people get the impression that you’re here to spew out a company line and then leave, guess what – they’ll leave before you even get the chance. Make a commitment to two way dialogue.
If people feel confident that they can come to you when their concerns change, that puts you in a position of being a trusted information source.

Understand perceptions.

Wow. Can’t stress this one enough. Perception is reality. If people think you’re dirty, guess what – you are. If people think you’re hiding the truth, then it doesn’t matter if you are or you’re not. You need to be able to prove that you’re not hiding anything before moving on.
Ignore perception at your peril, folks. Don’t assume you know what it is either.
Want More Help?

I know – it’s confusing.
 There are no easy solutions.

It’s one thing for me to say “Here are seven rules.” But you know as well as I do that that’s only part of the solution. For example, there are over 77 NON-verbal ways to communicate trust and credibility.
There are fourteen easy-to-fall-into message traps that will absolutely torpedo your message if you’re not careful.
In fact – one message trap is so easy to slip into that it can be directly tied to damaging two Presidencies, and costing a Canadian Prime Minister his job. And sadly, I see companies make that same mistake every single day.

Do you want to be better? It’s a simple cost-benefit equation to make.

Spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in down-the-drain advertising, or you can do better. Hire lawyers and government relations consultants, or do better. Spend all your time dealing with upset stakeholders, and explain to your investors why your share price is artificially low, or do better.

I work with companies every day to fix situations just like yours.

Helping companies tell the truth is what I’m passionate about. I’m skilled, and I know I can help.

If you’re interested in learning the skills and methods to speak the truth, stop complaining. Start fixing.

Give me a call right now to discuss your unique situation.

Let’s just talk about it. Maybe I can fix it right then and there. Maybe I can recommend a more appropriate firm. But let’s have the conversation.

The call to 1-888-662-4550 is free.

The decision to stop being a victim of misconceptions is priceless. I look forward to hearing from you.

Checkmate Public Affairs helps calm fears, create trust and make scary headlines disappear.

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Jeff Chatterton talks managing crises in tourism & hospitality on BV-TV

https://www.bizvision.co.uk/series/bvtv-business-of-hospitality/ BV-TV Business of Hospitality Channel host Malcolm Gallagher says; Of the sectors hurt the most from the pandemic, Travel Tourism & Hospitality has certainly born the brunt of the impact and is likely to continue to do so for many years to come. As someone who has worked in those businesses for 50 years, I know how they are reeling, working hard to recover, and under pressure. But they are also emotional businesses where the media loves a negative story. So I have asked back my guest for today, a true cross communications management expert in those great sectors. He knows about crisis pressure, he’s written the book about it Leaders Under Fire: The CEO’s Survival Guide to Navigating Corporate Crisis.” From CheckMate Public Affairs lets go say hello again to Jeff Chatterton. My Business of Travel, Tourism & Hospitality talk with Jeff will be in 3 parts –First I’ll ask him his advice on avoiding creating crisis during recovery. In part 2 I’ll ask him about emerging crisis trends and in part 3 we’ll focus on hotels and talk about reputation management at a time of crisis.