Copyright [C] 2003 Shahnaz Rauf www.snzeport.com

Trust is that one single factor that in itself can propel your business empire beyond limits. Just like you trust your lawyer, your accountant, your doctor or even your hair dresser, you also unequivocally trust all other shops from which you do your regular business: your grocer, your butcher, your clothes shop etc. Similarly online, Trust has always been a major player in unlocking gates to your business kingdom. With emerging trends towards believability and honesty, it is even more critical.

So What is trust? It is basically a projection of yourself or your image. The way your clients view you. They respect your opinions, your expertise, your integrity, your reliability and view you as an authority. They totally believe that you will work in their best interest. So how do you project that image? Yes "How To Build Trust Online" can be a major concern. Here are 14 do-able ways to build trust and keep it:

1. Provide complete contact information - name, email, snail mail, and phone number.

2. Answer all communications promptly.

3. Create an `about-us` page... where besides professional background you also put in some personal information.

4. Write a personal letter addressed to your client emphasizing your credibility, your achievements, issue at hand etc. and place it on your website.

Meetings can be like mythical vampires – sucking life out of intelligent and creative people. And sucking funds out of businesses. Unfortunately, there are too many of these meetings in business today.

A UCLA study said “typical” meeting includes nine people. What are dollars associated with this? Suppose average salary of meeting attendees is $40,000. Their hourly pay is about $20.00. Nine people for one hour costs $180.00. Not bad, right?

But consider implications. People don’t spend just one hour a year in meetings. A 3-M survey in 1998 reported people spend between one and 1.5 days per week in meetings. They also said 25% to 50% of those meetings was wasted. Conservatively, say 25% or two hours per week is wasted in meetings...times nine people. 18 hours a week. Times $20.00 an hour. 18 times 20 times 48 weeks = $17,280.00.

This is a conservative number. For only nine people. How many people are in your company? And how much time do they spend in meetings each week? These figures do not include preparation time, fringe benefits, meeting and travel expense or, worst of all, opportunity cost. Really, what could these people have been doing for your business if they weren’t tied up in ineffective meetings week after week?

So, what can we do about these vampire meetings?

First, look at your regularly scheduled meetings. What is objective? Are they really necessary? Can agenda be covered via paper or email? Does everyone have to be there for every meeting?

Once you know this meeting must be held with these people, set a meeting objective. Share it with people before and at start of meeting. Post it on a flipchart. Typical meeting objectives might be: Generate ideas to overcome our funding problem, Gain understanding of our new retirement plan, Get updates on three key projects, etc. The advantage of having a clear objective for your meeting is that people will police themselves and stay on-topic. And if they don’t, you can point to objective and say, “We have 30 minutes left and still have to achieve this goal for this meeting.” Knowing and sharing objective is a wonderful way to manage group’s energy and focus.