The Language of Trust
Michael Maslansky, 2010
You tell the plain truth, and people still do not believe you. For years Michael Maslansky tested on real people which words from companies build trust and which push it away, and concluded that we live in an era after trust. The book sets out four principles of speech that sceptics believe, names the words you should drop, and explains the order in which to hold a difficult conversation.
Who it is for
For people who need to be heard: salespeople, managers, marketers, and anyone who explains an idea to people who are set against believing it.
If people cannot understand you, the fault is yours.
Why people no longer take your word for it
Picture a company that for years has been cutting its emissions, carefully checking the safety of its products and paying people fairly. Still, buyers see it as a villain, and one article about a dubious study wipes out all its work. With this question clients came to Michael Maslansky: we do the right things, so why does no one believe us?
For years Maslansky and his company have tested on real people how they hear the words of companies, politicians and salespeople. The answer of his book is blunt: we live in an era after trust. Yesterday's trust has turned into today's scepticism. The authors name four causes. People now have far more information. They have looked behind the scenes of advertising and selling. They do not want to be told what to think. And holding their attention has become harder.
But a sceptic is not an enemy. In the authors' model, listeners stand on a scale. At one end are the optimists, who are becoming fewer. At the other are the pessimists, who are almost impossible to persuade. In the middle is the majority: sceptics. They do not reject everything in a row; they postpone a decision until they know more. It is with them that you should talk.
In Maslansky's experience, doubt is overcome by feelings more than by arguments: a person must first want to believe you, and only then will they believe you. In this book you will learn why the truth has stopped protecting you, which four rules make speech worthy of trust, and the order in which to talk to a sceptic. It will be useful to a salesperson, a manager, and anyone who needs to be heard.
The truth no longer saves you
In March 2009 the insurance giant AIG, rescued by the government, found itself at the centre of a scandal over bonuses for its executives. The company defended itself with facts: the payments were written into contracts, and there were sound business reasons for them. This may well have been true, but such explanations only angered people. Two years earlier the airline JetBlue had also let people down: after an ice storm its passengers sat for hours on planes on the ground. It acted differently. The company admitted its fault and announced a passengers' bill of rights with concrete promises for the future. The authors compare these stories not for their well-chosen words: JetBlue backed its apology with action.
Hence the first lesson of the era after trust: the truth no longer sets you free. The authors compare the truth to a lifeboat that once pulled people out of any dispute and now has taken on too much water. That what you say is correct does not mean you will be believed, bought from or forgiven. Other lessons follow from this one.
• Your truth matters to few people. Every organisation lives inside its own point of view, backed by its own data and its own jargon. The authors call this “your truth”. Customers and critics almost always have a truth of their own, with their own facts and experience.
• Silence is taken as an admission of guilt. While you stay silent, critics tell your story for you.
• There is only one story. Once, a company could explain a layoff one way to customers, another to employees and a third to shareholders. Now what one audience hears, everyone hears.
• You are your own least reliable source. Even true information from your website or your press release looks like advertising to people.
• Show more than you tell. Words without actions, in Maslansky's experience, fall flat.
What does this mean in practice? When a mistake has already happened, do not begin with explanations of why it was more convenient for you. People want to hear something simple: we got it wrong, and this is how we will put it right. And then you must actually put it right.
About the author
Michael Maslansky runs maslansky + partners, a New York company that studies how people hear the words of companies, politicians and salespeople. He wrote the book together with Scott West, Gary DeMoss and David Sayler.
All books by this author: Michael Maslansky
Terms from the book
- AIG
- jargon
- sceptic: In the book, a person who does not reject everything in a row but postpones a decision until they know more. In the authors' model, such people are the majority.
- JetBlue: American airline. In February 2007, after an ice storm in New York, its passengers sat for hours on planes on the ground. The company then apologised and adopted a passengers' bill of rights.
- Conservation International: An international environmental organisation from the United States. From the late 2000s its main motto has been: people need nature to thrive.
- biodiversity: The whole variety of living things on Earth: the species of plants and animals and the communities in which they live.
- longevity risk: A financial term: the danger that a person will live longer than their pension savings were calculated to last.
- Crazy Eddie: An American chain of electronics shops known in the 1980s for loud television advertising about “insane” prices. The chain closed long ago.
- State Farm: A large American insurance company. Its long-running advertising slogan promises that State Farm is there, like a good neighbour.
- Marmite: A British spread made from yeast extract with a strong, salty taste. Its advertising is built on the idea that people either love Marmite or hate it.
- personas: A marketing method the author uses: detailed invented portraits of typical listeners, with a name, age, job and habits.
All terms
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