The world of solopreneurs and small business owners has changed profoundly in the past few years. The internet and social networking allows us access to connect quickly with suppliers, joint venture partners, potential clients and a wide variety of services for every aspect of our business and regular lives.
Business is being done on the strength of a tweet, so whom do you trust? At last week’s F5 Expo in Vancouver, Malcolm Gladwell provocatively introduced this question in his keynote address, discussing the concept of ‘weak ties’ at which the Internet excells, and ‘strong ties’ which take work and consistency over time to achieve.
Mr. Gladwell is not alone in raising this issue. It crossed my screen again this week when @JaniceTomich posted a tweet about @hrbartender’s blog post Trust is not Blind Faith.
Take the time to consider this yourself. Have you ever ordered a product because of a slick sales page?…a Facebook event?…a webinar?…someone you connect with at a Meetup?
Malcolm Gladwell offered these 3 criteria for committed long-term relationships: strong ties, trust, and an institution in which to have faith. On the internet, the tools you use to start a relationship can also be used to establish trust.
Those very tools that we use to connect so quickly have solid applications when gathering business intelligence. Use them wisely. You can verify your sources and resources like this:
- Set Google Alerts for the company and the management team
- Check the About page on their blog and website
- follow them on twitter then look at who they’re following. Follow ten or fifteen of these people at random
- friend them on Facebook. What groups do they belong to? Who are their friends?
- connect with them on Linkedin. Who do you have in common? Check out their resume.
For the little amount of time it takes to set up these channels, you can do some due diligence. Please remember one thing: these are companies/programs/tools. Are they also institutions in which to place your faith? Only time will tell.