(Photo Credit: Pierre Beteille) Mark Drager is a Toronto based entrepreneur who created a new business in 2006 called Phanta Media. He was a startup entrepreneur who was trying to stand out in a very competitive market.

Fast forward to today and Mark is doing business with clients like Royal Bank (the 55th largest company in the world!) and Audi.

I asked Mark how he was able to build up a company out of nothing and he said “It’s all about building trust” – in a sales cycle where you may not have much personal contact you need to build trust with your prospects to get them to believe what you’re saying and sign on to do business with you.

Mark decided to write a white paper on how you can quickly build trust with your prospects that I thought was worth sharing. You can view the white paper at Mark’s website.

Here is the executive summary:

“The truth about trust is nobody – but nobody just gives it away. Sure, trusting is an easy thing when you’re talking friends and family. You might even trust the electrician or mechanic that a neighbour recommends, but in the absence of face-to-face contact – out there in the ether – how easy is trust to come by? Let’s take a closer look at that moment when a customer or client enters into your sales cycle.”

Here are some of the key points:

• Attempts to break through the marketing-noise has taken a “tricky, even risky direction”
• Trustworthiness is built on operating principles that need to be demonstrated
• Focus on others (clients, consumers, co-workers, partners) for the other’s sake, not for economic benefits
• There’s something very appealing about working with a company that lays all its cards on the table and operates with full transparency
• Resist the urge to over-promise and stay true to your original, authentic values

The entire white paper is only four pages long but it’s worth a read – again, you can view the white paper at Mark’s website.

And as always, let me know what you think by commenting below!

I’ve always been a big fan of modeling success. The concept is quite simple – if you have a goal that you want to accomplish, and you want to accomplish it quickly, find someone who has already achieved it and learn from their success.

You can take what took them years to figure out and put it to work in your business immediately.

My first real business was a biotechnology software company I became an owner in when I was 19 years old. I didn’t know anything about biotechnology or software at the time but our plan was to model the successful strategies of other software companies to build our business. We copied what Microsoft, Intuit, and Quicken did to grow and we soon had over 450 customers in over 30 countries.

Modeling The Masters Quotes:

“We worked every day, Sunday included, until at least ten o’clock at night. I remember it was an event when we quit work on Christmas night at eight o’clock to attend a family reunion.” – Walter Davidson (Harley-Davidson Motor Co.)

“Give them quality. That’s the best kind of advertising in the world.” – Milton Hershey

“Somehow I can’t believe there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C’s. They are Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, and Constancy and the greatest of these is Confidence. When you believe a thing, believe it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably.” – Walt Disney

One of the most popular sections of my main website is to profile famous entrepreneurs. I’ve also started a video series called Modeling The Masters in partnership with Phanta Media which I will be featuring in this blog.

Here are the first three videos that we’ve put together – so far they  have been viewed over 16,500 times. We examine the business success of Harley-Davidson, Milton Hershey, and Walt Disney. I’ve yet to decide on the best format for the videos and you can see that each one takes a slightly different approach.

I look forward to your feedback on which you like the best and how I can make them better and more valuable for you!