TrustBuild Member Seal
For Individuals
The TrustBuild Member Seal is awarded to professional sellers that qualify for the TrustBuild Seal Program by agreeing to make a public commitment to sell with honesty and integrity to build trust. The Member Seal is comprised of three elements:
- The distinctive TrustBuild logo.
- The Member Seal tag line which is "Honesty and Integrity Build Trust."
- The professional’s Member ID which is any combination of seven letters or numbers displayed in all caps.
The TrustBuild Member Seal represents three things:
- A professional’s active membership in the TrustBuild Seal Program.
- A professional’s public commitment to the Program's philosophy, which is to sell with honesty and integrity to build trust.
- A professional’s public commitment to the Program's Five Principles found in the TrustBuild Commitment Statement.
Sealholders are licensed to use their personalized Member Seals on their business cards, letterhead, email signatures, websites, and other marketing collateral to show their commitment to a different way of selling and create their own trusted personal brand.
The TrustBuild Seal Program is designed to provide trustworthy sellers an innovative way to communicate their commitment to selling in an honest, straightforward manner to breakthrough the negative perception of selling and build higher levels of trust with potential customers.
The TrustBuild Seal Program consists of four elements:
- The TrustBuild Member Seal gives sales professionals a marketable, recognizable sign of their commitment to sell with honesty and integrity to build greater levels of trust with potential buyers.
- The Resource Center, a compilation of articles, white papers, book reviews, and tips is the result of extensive study of over 20,000 pages of research, surveys, sales methodologies, tools and techniques. The Center gives busy professionals quick insights to those behaviors and sales methods that build trust – and those that diminish trust.
- Just as corporate “brands” help buyers identify and evaluate products or services, a professional’s “personal brand” can play a critical role in determining which company wins the business. Our personal branding tools include a personalized web page address, professional profile and personalized TrustBuild Member Seal.
- The online TrustBuild Member Lookup provides potential buyers an easy way to find professionals who are committed to selling with honesty and integrity – the type of seller from whom most buyers would like to buy.
Seal Program Individual Membership
An individual, six-month membership is $99 and a twelve-month membership is $189.
For twelve-month memberships, discount pricing is available for groups of fifteen or more professionals as follows:
- 15 - 29.....$170 each
- 30 - 69.....$165 each
- 70 - 139.....$160 each
- 140 - 209.....$155 each
- > 210.....$150 each
Seal Program Requirements
Overview
The following requirements pertain only to those professionals who choose to participate in the TrustBuild Seal Program. Applicants must be willing to:
- Publicly commit to adhere to five principles found in the TrustBuild Commitment Statement.
- Adhere to the policies and procedures of the TrustBuild Assurance Plan.
TrustBuild Commitment Statement
TrustBuild Sealholders must be willing to attach their signature, through their online profiles and other written means, to the TrustBuild Commitment Statement that includes five principles. The Commitment Statement is addressed to potential customers as shown below:
As a TrustBuild Member, I commit to the following principles when discussing my company’s product or service with you. I will:
- Always conduct myself with honesty, integrity and professionalism.
- Disclose all information pertinent to your decision-making process.
- Tell you when my company’s product or service will not meet your needs, if it will not.
- Be candid and forthcoming about compensation arrangements that may affect my recommendations to you.
- Tell you when I’m not confident in an answer to your question and promptly find out the correct answer.
TrustBuild Assurance Plan
The TrustBuild Assurance Plan has been designed to maintain the integrity of the TrustBuild Seal Program and ensure that Sealholders risk dismissal from the Program when, in the minds of potential customers , they do not adhere to their signed TrustBuild Commitment Statement. The Assurance Plan will be phased into our Program beginning in 2006.
Highlights of the plan:
- A customer or potential customer complaint must be filed by using an online complaint form.
- The Sealholder will be contacted via email that a complaint has been filed and that he/she has the opportunity to make good on the situation concerned by contacting the complaint filer directly to resolve the complaint.
- If the Sealholder is not able to resolve the complaint within three weeks, the Sealholder will be assessed two points; assessed points may be adjusted up or down based on severity.
- Sealholder points are not made public.
- A Seaholder, who accumulates six points in a period of 12 months or ten points over 36 months, will be subject to membership cancellation.
In general, complaints must be directed at the selling behavior of Sealholders rather than issues related to a specific product or service. The TrustBuild Assurance Plan deals primarily with a Sealholder who, in the mind of a customer or potential customer, has violated one of the five principles found in the TrustBuild Commitment Statement.
To avoid misunderstandings, we strongly encourage Sealholders and potential buyers to document all important matters relating to features, functionality, payment terms, delivery, implementation, etc. of a product or service. Generally, we cannot accept complaints that could have been avoided if one or both parties had created the proper documentation during the buy/sell process.
TrustBuild Seal Program FAQ
You should only join if you feel comfortable selling in an honorable and trust-based manner. If you believe that you must use manipulation, deception, and dishonesty to be successful, then our Program is not for you.
For professional and honest sellers, though, we provide the TrustBuild Symbol, simple tools, and unique resources to help you gain a competitive edge by developing greater levels of trust with buyers.
Absolutely. The TrustBuild Program is designed for individuals and organizations. For entire sales organizations or business units that qualify, we offer an organizational TrustBuild Symbol that can be used as a marketing tool to communicate your organization's commitment to selling withh honesty and integrity. Please click here for special member enrollment procedures for groups or entire sales organizations.
Our focus is sales professionals and professionals who sell in both the business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketplaces. Additionally, those who sell in more complex environments (intangible services or high-ticket products) will benefit most from our Program.
We use the word "symbol" rather than "seal" or "trustmark" because the TrustBuild Symbol represents a public commitment to selling with honesty and integrity to build trust. It does not mean that buyers should blindly trust those using the Symbol. Based on the psychological principles our Program leverages, however, there is a higher likelihood that our Members will be consistent with the meaning of the Symbol. The TrustBuild Symbol is intended to differentiate our members from other sellers based on how they sell, not what or for whom they sell.
There is little to prevent a “dishonest” individual from joining the TrustBuild Program, just as there is little to prevent a dishonest individual from joining your organization or any other company. It is important to note, however, research shows that when individuals publicly make commitments to honesty as they will with our selling tools, many will remain consistent with their commitments even if they may go against their “normal” behavior.
Also, through our TrustBuild Assurance Plan, we provide a process for buyers to file formal complaints if they feel a member's behavior has not been consistent with our selling standards. We reserve the right, at any time, to place Selling Members on probation and/or cancel memberships.
Your trust factor is the degree to which buyers perceive that you are telling the truth about the products, services, and company you represent. Notice that we say perception rather than reality. You could be the most honest, trustworthy person in your company and still be perceived by buyers as dishonest and not trustworthy. Part of what we want to accomplish with the TrustBuild Program is to help our trustworthy members be perceived as honest and trustworthy by buyers thereby increasing their trust factors.
We agree, your actions do speak louder than words. We're not suggesting that you sit down with your prospects and say, "you should buy from me because I joined this Program and I'm an honest person." Instead, we're suggesting that you commit to each potential buyer to sell with specific behaviors that align with:
- The values of honesty and integrity.
- What your potential buyer says is important to them.
- What buyers, in general, say makes sellers more trustworthy.
- What research has shown will develop trusting relationships.
By making these written commitments to your buyers to sell with these standards, it is more likely your actions will “live up” to your commitments. And because of the approach, they will be the correct actions. Over time, you will no longer be “just another manipulative salesperson” in the eyes of your customers, but you will develop a solid reputation as an honorable and trusted seller.
You might consider joining because most top-level sellers constantly seek ways in which to become better. They are not satisfied with the status quo and continually strive to improve themselves. One interesting thing about most top sellers is that oftentimes they cannot accurately say why they're successful. They may already be exceptional at targeting and developing trust, but not know how or why. By understanding why, they can further hone the things they’re doing to develop trust and generate more business.
We feel it would be difficult at best to promise specific or quantifiable results from joining our Program. We would like you to join our Program because you share similar values and you'd like to be even more successful in selling by leveraging those values to differentiate yourself in the minds of your current and potential customers.
We do not require Members to pass a certification process or agree to specific ethical codes of conduct. From our research, we found no evidence where the existence of a code of ethics resulted in more ethical selling by individuals. In fact, studies suggest that having a code of ethics has little, if any, impact on ethical selling behaviors and does not impact how unethical sellers are dealt with by their managers.
As a result, we developed the TrustBuild Commitment Statement process where Members make voluntary, active and public statements to potential customers. These Statements replace the more traditional approaches of certification and codes of ethics. Contrary to the traditional approaches, there is extensive research that says behavior will be impacted when specific psychological principles are leveraged. We have designed our simple process to leverage the power of these principles.
Click here to apply to the TrustBuild Seal Program.
