How Mission-Driven For-Profit Companies Can Build Trust
Mission-driven, for-profit companies must build trust to sustain their higher-purpose goals. Here’s how to foster authenticity, transparency, and a trusted community.
Mission-driven companies are focused on more than profit — but that doesn’t mean they have to be non-profits. For-profit companies can also adhere to convictions and values as they invest in improving their bottom line.
One of the key factors that can help a mission-driven for-profit company maintain a consistent business model is building trust with its target audience. Let’s dig into why this is such an integral part of the mission-driven business process and what you can do to improve your audience’s faith in your brand moving forward.
What Is “Trust” in Business
Before we look at practical ways to build trust in a mission-driven organization, let’s consider what “trust” means. In a business context, trust translates as the degree of confidence a consumer has in your company. It reflects their faith in your brand and a belief that you will come through on your commitments.
Zendesk reports that 83% of consumers won’t do business with a brand they don’t trust. The question is, how do you improve trust, especially in a mission-driven setting where there’s more at stake than meeting customer pain points and making a profit?
It’s easy for a leader to see a path toward things like building brand awareness and improving engagement. But how do you develop something like trust?
If you’re a leader, don’t fall into unfounded complacency by assuming that people trust your brand. PwC found that 87% of business leaders believed consumers highly trusted their companies. Yet, when asked, just 30% of consumers agreed (for those of you counting at home, that’s a 57% trust gap!)
As with most things in the mission-driven landscape, you need to have a plan in place. It doesn’t matter if you’re a church, a non-profit organization, or a passionate for-profit enterprise out to change the world. You have to think ahead if you want to build genuine trust and a solid rapport with the people you serve.
Building Trust in Your For-Profit Mission-Driven Brand
Strategy is everything when it comes to trust. Good intentions are a great starting point, but you can’t just expect that to translate to customer perception. You want to be up-front, honest, and deliberate in how you build trust. Here are a few tips to help you get started with that process.
Invest in Your Audience
Long-term trust comes from confidence that you can deliver consistent, high-quality results. This can be something high-minded, like a consistent message (more on that in a minute). It can also be practical, like investing in rock-solid offerings, effective customer service, or the right setups to produce educational or community-building content at a high level.
Be Authentic as a Brand
Authenticity is important for any business, especially when they are interacting with educated consumers in an information-driven age. If you’re going to operate as a mission-driven brand, the need for authenticity in everything that you do increases. Once you’ve established your company’s voice, mission, and goals, make sure to let them influence every customer-facing interaction.
Communicate and Be Transparent
Effective communication is key to building customer trust. You want your audience to be aware of your bigger values and business philosophies. Over time, you also want to be transparent. That means sharing when you achieve a goal and providing honest updates when you come up short.
Build Community
Trust doesn’t come from one-off moments. Even a great feeling from a good experience will wear off. However, consistent positive engagement with your target audience, customers, employees, and stakeholders creates a community mindset that fosters a sense of understanding and trust. From local events to online webinars, look for ways to unite your audience in the spirit of your higher mission.
Building Trust and Buy-In to Your Mission
A mission-driven brand exists for more than money. Even if you do generate a profit, if you have infused a sense of greater purpose into your company, it’s important that you invest in building a core customer base that believes in your brand.
That sense of trust doesn’t come easy — and you can lose it in an instant. Be thoughtful and strategic as you build a rapport with your audience.
If you need help putting on community-building events or providing high-quality communication, our team can help. Mission-driven organizations use the Sardius Media platform to provide consistent, multi-dimensional visual and audio communication at scale and at a high quality — all while keeping things streamlined and simple on the back end. If that sounds like it could help you improve trust with your audience, we’d love to connect!