Event: Building Trust With Your Customers

This week was our first event of the Autumn term and was attended by a diverse range of London's business people from a multitude of different industries. We would like to thank Geri McAndrew and ButtleUK for hosting the event at their offices in Victoria.

This week's hotseat topic was building trust between a business and its customers in a unique way. For our hotseater, who runs his own, one-man financial consultancy, the core issue was whether there were different and more innovative ways with which to build trust with his customers.

Questions

In the exploratory section of the event (where the group asks questions in order to clarify the question and explore the issue) the questions included;

• How do you know when you have won a client’s trust?
• What is the profile of a typical client?
• What do you understand by the term 'trust'?
• Why do you do what you do?
• What separates you out from other financial advisers?

Ideas

Our attendees then discussed the issue and offered advice. Some of the highlights were:

• Identify your unique selling point – if you don't know what it is, then your clients won't be able to see it either.
• Your clients need to know that you care about them, that you understand their situation and that they come first.
• Genuinely listening to your clients is an essential tool to create trust.
• Get some really good feedback – what do clients think of you?
• Aim to show, not tell – this is what will ultimately drive trust between yourself and your customers.
• People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

Conclusions

Our hotseater then reflected back to the group. His main conclusions were that he needed to focus on learning how to listen well and tell great stories in order to relate better to his clients.

The main takeaway from the event was that business is always about putting people first, no matter what industry you're in and that it is too easy to lose sight of that fact. When trying to build trust, it's important to be able to engage with your customers on a human level, to demonstrate that you can relate to and are interested in their unique circumstances.

An interesting outcome was that, in a discussion which looked like being about the ‘hard sell’ the group settled on the importance of selling the person, rather than the product. As one participant remarked “we succeed when we show who we are”.

Click here to see our membership packages or leave a comment below.

Our next event will be at TateHindle on 12th October. We hope to see you there!

Company Spotlight: Buttle UK

In their own words, Buttle UK focuses on 'maintenance, education and advancement
 in life of children and young people who through poverty and family circumstances are in need of, and will benefit significantly from, Buttle UK’s support'.

Buttle UK was founded on the vision of an East End clergyman who endeavoured to raise £1m to 'launch 1,000 children a year out of poverty'. His name was Rev Frank Buttle and he died on February 1953 when he was just £80,000 away from his original target. This money was used as an endowment to fund the charity as it exists today and is now worth almost £50m.

The endowment was set up to be permanent, meaning that the Trustees are required to balance the potential needs of future beneficiaries of the fund with current ones. The fund therefore can never be fully spent but has been re-invested and multiplied countless times since its inception, creating an income which the Trust then spends on an annual basis. As they have grown, Buttle UK have expanded Frank Buttle's original vision to include research and project work, but the core of their work remains providing support and relief through grant aid.

In their 2014/15 review, they note that in the previous year, they 'gave out more than 11,000 grants worth a total of £3.7 million' but that in the future they plan to do even more. Recent projects include ground-breaking research on 'kinship carers' and a study into the effects of boarding school places for vulnerable children.

Key Areas of Focus

Their key areas of focus include:

• boarding places,
• domestic abuse,
• emergency essentials,
• estranged young people,
• and kinship care.

In 2015, Buttle UK launched 'Boarding Chances for Children', funded by the Education Endowment Foundation. This is a research project looking into the ways in which boarding schools can 'offer a transformative experience for certain groups of vulnerable children'. The charity is currently working with local authorities to place children at boarding schools starting from year 7 in September 20-17. In comparison with the majority of children in care, only 15% of which achieve 5 good GCSEs, 60-70% of children supported by Buttle UK to attend boarding school achieve at least 5 good GCSEs.

Buttle UK also runs the BBC Children in Need Emergency Essentials Programme, providing quick and direct financial support, in collaboration with their Small Grants scheme. The programme provides up to £300 for families or young people who are 'living in crisis', helping to alleviate stress caused by financial pressure and help families buy essentials such as white goods or even beds. Buttle UK's extensive network of 5,000 frontline partner agencies allows them to target funds to reach the most vulnerable children and young people in the UK; 28,057 children were helped by the charity within the last year alone.

Kinship carers refer to those who are taking care of the children of relatives because their parents can no longer look after them. A study commissioned by Buttle UK, conducted by the University of Bristol and funded by the Big Lottery Fund revealed in 2001 that approximately 173,200 children were living in this kind of situation. Changes in policy and demographics mean that this number has increased over time and with no statutory provision for local authorities to make provision for them, many kinship carers receive no formal support.

Buttle UK are developing projects to help carers meet the specific needs of children in these arrangements and are currently able to provide extra support to kinship carers in Northern Ireland as well as some parts of Scotland and Wales.

Click here to see our membership packages or leave a comment below.

Our next event will be at Buttle UK on 14th September. We hope to see you there!

Welcome to the Brain Exchange!

About Us

Founded in October 2013, the Brain Exchange is an exclusive, diverse and high quality network for experienced business professionals. We are focused on solving problems and developing ideas through real, face-to-face connections and a passion for collaboration, learning and knowledge exchange. Busy, experienced business people come to our events to relax, reflect and review their situation honestly.

Join the Circle

No two meetings are the same – the participants, venue and topic change every time. Each group is comprised of a small, diverse group of people with a range of business skills and experiences to bring to the debate. With the benefit of professional moderation in a confidential, relaxing environment, the group focuses on a work-based issue presented by a member and as a team, participants analyse the issue and work towards a practicable solution.

By becoming a member, you gain access to a wealth of ideas and different perspectives on a range of business topics. Our events provide members with experiential learning about effective problem-solving and teamwork, as well as a new ideas for their business and their own professional development. We also offer regular interaction with the wider Brain Exchange community via an exclusive online forum and regular e-newsletters.

Our Blog

Every week we will be posting a variety of articles on our new blog from news round-ups to tips to interviews of high profile business people with something to say.

Mondays will be a profile of a business or person, Wednesdays will feature tips and advice for a successful business, and Fridays will be our weekly news round-up day. And look out for special Thursday posts after a meeting, where we offer a summary of what was discussed and any useful conclusions that the group reached.


Click here to see our membership packages or leave a comment below with any questions.

Our next event will be at Buttle UK on 14^th September. We hope to see you there!