Everything I do is 100% confidential and top secret, so I never reveal the names of my clients. Even case studies are only guidance, for it takes highly committed clients with clear intentions to produce great results.
I look at business as a kind of warfare, and my idea is that the fewer people know about what we're doing together, the less chance you have that someone uses your strategies and tactics against you.
The other bit is the trust bit. When people say, "I want to see some references and testimonials", they essentially say, "I don't believe a word you say". And that's fine. But then how can these two people work together in close collaboration of mutual trust and respect?
If I'm not trusted today, I won't be trusted tomorrow either. Or ever. It's hard to work in such environment and produce outstanding results. Maybe it's the military on my part, but I tend to take people on their words. I watch their actions, but I give them that in initial trust from the beginning.
Some people say you build trust over time. Maybe. What I've learnt in the army and over two decades of skydiving is that when you trust people, most of them live up to that trust and do their best to keep it.
So, I give people 100% of my trust from day one, and it's up to them whether they keep it or lose it.
Of course, people may say that I can abuse their trust, so they'd better check me out through references and testimonials. Fair concern. But let's remember that historical figures like Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, all had shining references when they were elected into office.
When you pack your family into your car and drive off for a vacation, do you check the references on all the drivers who are on the road the same time you are to make certain they don't crash into you killing your family? Have you ever checked the references on the pilot who fly the plane you and your family travel?
In one of his books, advertising expert, Roy H. Williams, a.k.a. The Wizard of Ads, informs us that in America more people get killed by pigs than by sharks. Yet, people worry themselves sick about shark attacks... Even in the middle of Montana.
Similarly, business owners worry about consultants, while hiring incompetent managers on a whim or enrolling their children to schools where the principles are convicted sex offenders operating under assumed identities.
But the biggest thing is psychological. What we perceive in other people is really just a reflection of who we are. The other people are merely the mirrors.
In the French author, Anaïs Nin's words...
"We don't see things as they are we see things as we are. You assume of others what you practise yourself.
A serial rapist wears a chastity belt because he believes everyone tries to rape him. A serial killer sleeps with his knife and pistol under his pillow because he believes everyone tries to kills him. A bank robber sleeps with his loot under his pillow because he believes everyone tries to rob him.
Carl Rogers, a pioneer in Social Psychology (inventor of the highly respected and widely practised Rogerian therapy model) was once asked about the most important aspect of human interaction when there is a strong difference of opinions. He said...
"Unconditional positive regard for the other person. It's about holding the other person in a positive light and assuming that his/her interest is for the best interest of the discussion and the idea they are discussing regardless of what the person actually believes at that moment."
So my policy is to trust and observe. I keep my mind flexible but my default setting is that the person has my best interest at heart.
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