Marion's Blog

Integrity and Trustworthiness

This week we are doing a major presentation. I have been working very hard on getting the message to be exactly right so have spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to say, what the image and impression is I want to convey.
Over the past years, I have thought often about what it is that makes E.Factor unique, what it is that we offer that will really help entrepreneurs around the world in their business – and I have come to the conclusion that it is Trust and Integrity. Trust is something that is often misunderstood, cared for casually and taken for granted – instead of being viewed as the precious gem it really is.

In business, trust and integrity are invaluable. If you want to do well, you need trusted relationships that you can fall back on in good times but also to help you through the bad times. You will not survive as an entrepreneur without those people that you can trust and they in terun trust you inherently.
Often however, you find that you will help others achieve their goal, only to have them go behind your back or forget their promises when it comes to the crunch. I have found, ever since I started my own company, that people tread on Trust like it is a doormat. It says Welcome when you commence, but they wipe their feet on it whenever they feel like it and leave you to clear up the mess. I have to admit that it is hard to continue to trust people and to keep my own faith that it can be reciprocal when time and time again you get shown that it means so little to others. The biggest corruptor of trust is money. All seems great when you make a deal, on a handshake, with someone. But then, when the money comes in – they suddenly find reasons to not pay you the agreed share. Usually the excuse is that your input “was so easy, only a single call” when without that call the whole deal would not have happened. What everyone seems to forget is that the ability for me to make that call has been cultivated on over many years, that the relationship that took the call took effort, investment and TRUST between two people which is not something that can ever be called “easy”. Integrity is the biggest highest value you have to strive for in all your business dealings.

My message is simple – learn to value trust and integrity. They should be the core foundations of everything you do in life. Not just as an entrepreneur but as a human being.
 

Marion Freijsen