Earn respect from people

Earning respect from people nowadays is not the easiest thing to do. There is a lot of personalities, a lot of instantaneous information and a lot of variables that prevent people from trusting.  Nothing good in life is easy but I believe trust building is an absolute necessity in anyone's professional career weather in sales or a doctor or a lawyer etc.  If people do not trust you, no one is going to invest in whatever it is your offering.  Most of a person's decision is based on managing risk.  If you are a trusted person, than that is one portion of risk that is removed.  If your a doctor and you come off as shady or not knowledgeable patients will immediately find another doctor.  Or even if you are a lawyer and your demeanor in the courtroom or with defendants or plaintiff's isn't right on par, they will find another lawyer.  You also need to be cognizant of the people that you work for, the people that you meet and the people that you sell too might become people you work with down the road or even report to and could evidently map how successful you can become.  Take a look at your coworkers.  If you had to go through each day and rely on people that did not trust you, you will lose your mind.  If they don't trust you they could care less about what product needs to ship, or what customer needs support or what software code needs to be released.  This is the most overlooked place of earning respect; your own company. Your colleagues rely on you as well and they should too want to earn your respect.  So what to do.........go out of your way to help people.  Go out of your way to learn the product and services that you provide inside and out.  Help the new people with things that you know are issues you dealt with when just starting out.  Participate in helping your colleagues with publications you come across that could help them better the solutions they represent.  Acknowledge some of the managers, directors and VP's when a job is well done.  Don't be afraid to email, call and or meet with the people at the top and ask them questions.  Remember the post, we all put our underwear on the same way.  The are people and they are people who respect and want to earn respect as well.  Keep in your mind the concept of earning respect in your everyday life.  It will help you.  I guarantee it.  Maybe not right away but when you are trying to land that new job years from now and all of the people connected to you on LinkedIn TRUST you and look at you as a trusted Person it will shine in the hiring person's eyes.  Believe me.  Go out their and HELP people and earn people's trust.

 Shawn

sr@shawncreilly.com