“Credibility is not built in a day.” -William Addo
Building trust is a critical part of any business. Often customers will assume you’re a crook only because you’re a local business.
Overcoming that skepticism and turning it into trust is how you convert skeptics into ambassadors for your company.
#Building Trust with Businesses and Investors
Teddy Ruge, founder of several businesses including Hive in Kampala, Raintree Farms, and Remit.ug, entered the East African business world with an audience he developed over 5 years of blogging from the US. But he still had to build his credibility in Uganda apart from what he’d build in the U.S. before he could get his businesses there off the ground.
As he put it, Silicon Valley guys get funded all the time based on established relationships there, and it works the same in local markets in Africa. “Money follows money” in either case. For Ruge it was developing a reputation through his blog first. He became known for being straightforward, seeing through BS, and doing development correctly. Once he was there, doors started to open and people started to listen.
For Femi Akinde, even something as simple as knowing how to dress made a measurable impact. The tech world may have long since accepted the t-shirt and flip flops as acceptable dress, but things worked quite differently in Ghana. No matter your business, semi-formal dress was essential to build even a basic level of trust there.
William Addo, CEO of J.M. Addo & Sons in Accra, Ghana took the position that trust must be established before it can be used to build your business. The reputation of his firm allows gives it significant leeway when introducing new products. Customers are more willing to try something new because they trust that his firm will only introduce quality products onto the Ghananian market.
" At the end of the day the suppliers and the custoomers need to believe you’re credible" - William Addo
Once you’ve built the necessary level of trust with other businesses and investors, you’ve still got to face your customers. Often, that’s where things really get tricky.
Africans Building Trust with Other Africans
“We don’t trust our own brands.” - Teddy Ruge
When Teddy Rouge was trying to establish his remittance business, remit.ug, in Uganda, many of his customers assumed he was a crook right away. They were willing to trust Western Union, which charged as much as double, simply because it was an established western brand.
“Looking at funding alone, you realize it’s difficult as an African. Mzungus can come into my community and immediately get funding. because money follows money. Who’s writing the checks? Mzungus. Who’s doing the projects? Mzungus. So, getting an African entity funded is really difficult.” -Teddy Ruge
This meant Ruge had to think long-term about how he could change that deeply ingrained mindset. To do that, he began with a focus on delivering quality service every time. By encouraging people to try out his service by just transferring a single dollar to prove that it worked and overcompensating on customer service anytime anything went wrong, he was able to slowly turn skeptics into ambassadors.
Another part of that strategy was focusing on 1 on 1s with customers. Teddy and his team had to stay patient, work on winning over every single person no matter how difficult, and never slip up on that quality. Mr. Addo has followed the same principle, spending decades proving to individual customers that his brand is one worthy of trust.
The result for Ruge was turning a business everyone more or less assumed was a scam into one trusted by investors and customers alike. That took time, focus, and very hard work, but Ruge showed that there simply aren’t any shortcuts when it comes to building that level of trust. A loud customer is loud whether they’re for you or against you. It’s a good investment to convert them, but it’s done one customer at a time.
Discussion: how does trust affect your progress in business?
Share a time where trust played a role in helping or hindering you towards a particular goal.
Can you relate to the stories we told here? How is your experience different? We’d love to hear from you. Your questions and comments are what will help us make better lessons in the future.