I was extremely excited. Our phone rang and I saw it was the client we were trying to convince to work with us. Back in the year 2009 we just recently founded our Digital Consultancy and every new client was crucial. „Hi Mr. Hofer, we finished our internal discussions and decided to work with you on the project“ – my heart beated faster and a smile rose up my face – „but …“ – „yeah we can review the budget maybe there is a way to reduce our costs“ I interrupted him eager to get the project – „no, actually we would like you to double check if you considered all aspects of the work. Your proposed process is perfect, but way too underpriced. To do the job you need at least double the proposed budget“.
Why did they act like that? Isn’t it a company’s goal to get what is needed in a suitable quality for the lowest price? I was puzzled by their reaction. Looking back now ten years later, this client is still the biggest asset in our company. We developed a strong relationship and made them the benchmark in the German digital banking industry. And they helped us grow from 5 Digital enthusiasts into a 50 people company.
What happened back then was a trigger to set up a strong relationship based on mutual trust. You can imagine that we tried when ever we could to overperform, to show them that the trust they invested in us was worth it. And amazingly, that relationship scaled from me and the responsible person at the bank to a relationship within a growing team on both sides. A valuable culture evolved bringing longterm success for both parties.
In this blog we Deep dive into all aspects of this beautiful kind of relationship and discuss the underlying patterns to nourish them.
We call these patterns Trust Patterns.
Trust Patterns can be found and applied in any relationship – private, business, tribes or nations. Trust patterns have the power to evolve, to spread into broader groups of people. Trust patterns have the power to make this world a better place, to allow humans to let go of a „me first“ thinking without just being a naive altruist. There is business logic behind trust patterns and of course there are conditions necessary to nourish that kind of Trust Pattern relationship.
Let us take you onto a journey to identify amazing examples of Trust Patterns found all around us – in behavioral science, in nature, in politics, in professional negotiation, in religions, in business and learn how we could implement a trust pattern based culture into our relationships.
Relationships like the one between the pilot fish and the shark. Sharks love to eat fish, yet they let the pilot fish swim inside and outside of his mouth and even defend those little pilot fishes. Why don’t they just let the pilot fish do his job and finish the tooth manicure by a yummy desert? Why didn’t our client let us do the job for the extremely underestimated budget and switch to the next consultancy afterwards?
Trust Patterns create extremely valuable relationships, a competitive advantage which cannot be beaten easily.
And Trust Patterns have the power to foster success in a friendly respectful environment, an environment worth living in for the long run
Also published on Medium.