7 Ways To Naturally Earn People's Trust Without Compromising Your Values
Trust is incredibly valuable.
George Milton | Canva Elections will be taking place in at least 64 countries across the globe in 2024. Campaigns have already started to get citizens to the polls, voting for who they’ll trust to lead their nation. Many leaders like to use slimy tactics to win over the population during these periods. For example, the vice president of Ghana has vowed to remove several taxes imposed by the existing government. Since he was part of the government that introduced these taxes, several Ghanaians have interpreted his actions as fake because it seems like he’s trying to buy votes with appealing offers. In other words, they don’t trust him — well, that’s how it seems; we’ll see how things turn out at the elections.
After freelancing for the past four-plus years in a domain I had to learn by myself (Artificial Intelligence), I’ve picked up a few techniques that help me win over prospective clients despite not having any background in mathematics or programming. Other factors come into play too: leading a church taught me how to get people to a place where they’re comfortable being vulnerable with me. Here are the seven techniques I use to earn people’s trust without compromising my values.
Here are 7 ways to naturally earn people's trust without compromising your values:
1. Do what you say you’ll do
The key to doing what you’ll say you’ll do is to underpromise. For example, if you think a task will take three days to complete, say you’ll need a week. This gives you leeway if life gets in the way for a few days. To take doing what you’ll say to the next level, aim to over-deliver. If you’ve told your recipients you need a week, but you know you can do it in three, just do it in three. They’ll be amazed by how fast you move and appreciate you dearly.
TLDR: Over-delivering makes the person on the receiving end feel highly valuable. This makes them seek to reciprocate the emotions you gave them, back to you. What you wanna stay well clear of is telling people one thing and doing another.
I recently stripped a bunch of responsibilities away from my old housekeeper and hired a new one because he would say things, but fail to follow through — I lost trust in his word. Don’t propose to do more than you’re capable of. Always underpromise and over-deliver.
2. Always be honest — even if it may offend
I recently onboarded a new freelance client. The first thing I told them in our call was, “I’ve got a lot of work in the pipeline and can only start what you need from me in two weeks.” To my surprise, they said, “Sure,” and sent over the contract. Transparency opens the door for honest conversation, collaboration, and respect. When you’re honest about your commitments and values, people are usually more understanding, which reduces feelings of mistrust.
In those two weeks, the client didn’t message me once about whether I was still interested in taking on the contract — they knew I was busy. It also helps that I went out of my way to communicate with them. A week before the start date, I sent this email: “I’m going to start on the project you sent me sometime next week. I’ll give you a heads up to let you know when that happens.” On the week I said I’d start, I sent this email: "Hey [name], just a heads up: I’ll be getting started with the project on Thursday. Speak soon." He didn’t respond to the first email, but here’s what he replied to the second: “Hey! Thanks so much for the update! I’m super interested in how it’s going to look.”
Honest and consistent communication is essential for building trust — especially when it’s timely. We often imagine false scenarios about situations in our minds. This is why it’s nice to reassure people from time to time and to be honest, even if it may offend, to ensure you’re not misleading anyone. People will see you as a more genuine person as a result.
3. Don’t shy away from being vulnerable
Back when I was leading a church, I was working as a postman. The church was around an hour and 15 minutes from my house, so I never had time to go home from work, get changed, and arrive on time to deliver a sermon. This meant I often preached in a pair of joggers and an old t-shirt that I’d try my best to make somewhat presentable. One day, a member of my church came up to me and said, “Pastor Kurtis, I love the way you’re just yourself,” before sliding some money into my hand. I thanked him but still asked, “Why?” His response still rings in my mind to this day.
He said, “You may not be where you wanna be, but you don’t pretend like you are. You’re in the trenches with us, doing the things you’re preaching about. I don’t wanna speak about others in this church, but you and I are both aware many people are living well above their means to portray an image. You’re not like that. For that reason, I know that with the right resources in your hand, you’ll do good things.” I didn’t know how to respond, so I hugged him for about a minute — none of us said a word as we embraced.
What he didn’t know is I was extremely conscious of how I looked behind the pulpit. I was vulnerable. Sometimes, I considered packing an extra bag of nice clothes I could change into when I arrived at the venue, but I never went through with it because I didn’t have a locker at work since I was just an agency worker. This event seriously touched me and taught me a major lesson about vulnerability. Being vulnerable makes people feel safe. When people feel safe, their guard goes down. Their guard going down is a sign of trust. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable.
4. Don’t speak ill of people — especially when they’re not there
“You can tell a lot about a person and how they may approach a relationship with you by how they speak of their ex.” I can’t remember who said it, but it’s in my notes, and it’s popular dating knowledge — I’ve been consuming a lot of this kind of material lately in preparation for the inevitable. The logic was simple:
- If someone only has negative things to say about their ex, expect them to be unable to take accountability when they’re with you.
- If they say disrespectful things about their ex, expect them to be disrespectful toward you.
- If they dial in on the positives, take accountability, and portray their reasons for moving on in a positive light, you can expect them to be extremely reasonable and down to earth.
It’s the same when you’re in a job interview. You don’t speak ill of the company you’re leaving to your potential new employer, even if they were jerks, because it looks bad on you. Talking bad about people, especially when they’re not there, is the fastest way to lose trust. They instantly think, “Wow, if that’s what she says about [insert name] when she’s not there, imagine what she says about me.” Always try to speak well of others. As the adage goes, “If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.”
5. Listen with the intent to understand
Most people listen to respond. People who are trusted listen with the intent to understand. This is one of the concepts from Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He argues that listening with the intent to respond doesn’t allow one to fully absorb what the other party is saying. You filter information that supports your perspectives and ignore everything else. This causes you to draw false conclusions. When you draw false conclusions, the other person doesn’t feel heard, which causes tension. They feel this way because they often have strong emotions about what they’re saying. Your false conclusion tells them you don’t understand how they feel, and because of this, they can’t trust you.
Don’t listen with intent to respond. Try to understand the other person by asking genuine questions that allow them to expand on what they’re saying.
6. Make others feel accepted
It’s no secret I was in a cult. One of the skills we were told to learn if we wanted to make people feel comfortable was to remember their names. The main leader said, “Using someone’s name is the easiest and most effective way to make them feel important.” You’re showing them you care by paying attention to their name. When you make people feel important, their attitude toward you softens, and their guard goes down. Slowly but surely, they’ll open up to you because you’ve made them feel accepted. It’s just a shame the cult leader is teaching people this as a way to gain control and manipulate people.
7. Take accountability
My car broke down a day before Valentine's Day. This meant I had to take a Bolt with my date to celebrate the day. On our way to the location, there was heavy traffic on the motorway, and every driver was looking for openings to cut in front of another car to get closer to their destination. To prevent cars from getting ahead of us, our driver moved slightly closer to the car ahead of him. A path had opened up, and everyone started moving. That’s when I heard a loud “THUD!” The car in front had reversed into us. My driver freaked out.
The guy in the other car instantly got out and said, “Sorry, it’s a manual car. I didn’t mean to go back. I put the hand brake down so I could move forward; we’re on a slight hill. It rolled back. Let me move forward to see if the car is damaged.” I understood but was skeptical — “What if he drives off and the car is damaged?” I thought to myself. I instantly got out my phone to record the number plate, but the guy shocked me. He moved forward, got out, checked it, and said, “It’s all good, come and see.” My driver didn’t even get out of the car. He just rolled down his window and replied, “Don’t worry, bro. I’ll take your word.” Everyone got in their car and went their separate ways.
Taking accountability is another easy way to win someone’s trust. When you own your mistakes, you display a high level of self-awareness, which implicitly communicates to others that you have a conscience. Like I said, my driver didn’t even get out of the car — he trusted the words of a stranger. People are more likely to respect and trust you when you take ownership of your screw-ups. I’m pretty sure if the driver tried to deflect blame, it would’ve been a completely different outcome.
Our existence as a species is deeply baked in our ability to trust one another. Without it, we don’t form connections that allow us to build and improve humanity. Thus, it’s extremely important you know how to earn people’s trust without having to compromise your values, like what a lot of these politicians do. The seven techniques I’ve learned to achieve this are:
- Do what you say you’ll do
- Be clear about other commitments
- Don’t shy away from being vulnerable
- Don’t speak ill of anybody
- Listen with the intent to understand
- Be of service to people
- Take accountability
But remember: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Don’t try to gain people’s trust to take advantage of them.
Kurtis Pykes is a professional writer and author of the free e-book Don’t Just Set Goals, Build Systems. He's had articles featured on Medium, Nvidia blog, DataCamp, and neptune.ai, among many others.