5 ways to increase your business and personal credibility

We previously mentioned that building a solid reputation and good credibility takes some time and effort. There are ways you can make sure you are on the right track to building yours and directing your energy toward the right effort.

1. Evidence

No, this isn’t only a term used in a crime scene. Evidence is a term describing the way an existence of a fact is shown. It is useful in an argument and is a rational and logical means to make a point. If you or your business have little credibility, any evidence you present is better than no evidence and can increase others’ willingness to believe you.

Examples of evidence can include customer testimonials, statistics or word of mouth.

By providing people with evidence, you appeal to their logical reasoning and increase your credibility.

2. Consistency

We all know that people feel most comfortable when they can predict the outcomes of events, processes and behaviour – of businesses and individuals. Consistency increases your credibility because people know what they can expect from you – making you credible.

You can display consistency through maintaining the values you choose to uphold, the customer service your business displays, the quality of workmanship and messages you send out to the public. Sending inconsistent messages confuses people as they don’t know which messages to believe or whether to believe you at all.

3. Knowledge

Bearing in mind that expertness is a pillar of credibility, becoming more knowledgeable of a topic and showing that you know what you are talking about increases your credibility because people realise they can trust in you and your capabilities.

Your work and advice will become more credible backed by skill and expertise.

4. Ethics

Ethics refer to a business or person’s judgement on what’s right or wrong, good or bad. People and businesses that have good ethics are credible because people trust them to do the right thing, consistently. Consistency is a part of ethics because ethics are what drives a person or business to act in a certain way and deliver a certain standard of work that can be anticipated. If a business or person isn’t true to these

ethics or they are just ‘smoke and mirrors’ it will show very quickly through various inconsistencies.

By staying true to your ethics and knowing what you stand for, you can automatically increase your credibility by being truly authentic.

5. Verbal and non-verbal communication

Consider the following scenario: You are talking to a potential consultant for your company who sent through a wonderful proposal. While they are explaining how much they are going to transform your company, they are jittery and not making eye-contact with you. You probably wouldn’t hire them since their verbal and non-verbal communication contradict each other. If these communication factors were to complement each other then the consultant would seem sincere and their credibility would increase.

By paying attention to how your verbal and non-verbal messages compliment or contradict each other, you can come across as sincere and increase your credibility.

Of course, you can only fix this if you understand the types of non-verbal messages you may be sending out.

Types of non-verbal messages

1. Kinesics: These include messages we send using our bodies – body language. Kinesics include physical appearance, posture, facial expressions, eye movements, head movements and hand gestures.

2. Proxemics: The physical space you choose to keep between you and other people communicates how comfortable you feel around them and what sort of relationship you have with them.

People also use space to communicate ownership of a certain area – you can’t tell the new guy at work not to sit at a certain desk because it is yours if you have nothing on there marking your ownership of that area.

3. Chronemics: This refers to messages sent out through your respect for others’ time, time you want to spend with others and what sort of time you are operating on (formal or informal time). Someone operating on informal time can’t be held credible to attend meetings on time and their commitment to an important event may be questioned because of how they treat time.

4. Haptics: The way we interact with people and even items through touch sends out non-verbal messages.

5. Paralanguage: When watching a presentation by someone with a loud voice that carries over a crowd versus someone soft spoken, you will be more inclined to pay attention to the louder person based on their vocal cues. They will come across as confident and more knowledgeable compared to the other softer

spoken individual. This is known as paralanguage – these vocal cues have no structure in the human language and consist of your tone, pace, volume and pitch.

By improving on these 5 areas in your business or personal capacity, you may be able to build a credible reputation far quicker than you think and maintain that reputation by always paying attention to these elements during your interactions with others.

The link between credibility and reputation

Intangible concepts such as credibility and reputation can have an enormous influence on the way you are perceived and your success. Credibility and reputation take blood, sweat and tears to build up but can also be destroyed in no time at all. Understanding what makes one credible, the types of credibility that exist and the link between credibility and reputation is key to safeguarding yours.

What is credibility?

Credibility is a very complicated quality that influences your willingness to believe in what a person says or does. It is a term that applies to businesses and individuals.

The concept of credibility can be dated back to the days of Aristotle and his artistic proofs. He spoke of a proof (a form of persuasion) – ethos, which consisted of a person’s credibility.

The 3 pillars of credibility

As we mentioned earlier on, credibility is a complicated quality and the best way to break it down into a digestible concept is to look at 3 basic elements from which credibility is derived.

  1. Expertness:
     
    When a person or company shows a deep understanding and knowledge of a subject, product, process or even customer needs and wants they convey expertness.
  2.  

  3. Trustworthiness:
     
    Honesty and truthfulness make a person or company trustworthy and give people reason to rely on them. This pillar concerns having respect for others and their values.
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  5. Goodwill:
     
    Displaying an effort to truly have the best interests of others in mind is how one achieves goodwill. People feel a sense of undeveloped friendship towards those with goodwill and are more willing to trust them and perceive goodness and ethics in them.

 
As much as this may sound like a pre-school lesson on good manners and morals, displaying these 3 qualities strategically and consistently enhances one’s credibility.

Types of credibility

Without realising it, we go through various stages of attributing credibility to a person or company. Understanding how people evaluate credibility can truly help when trying to make a good first and long-lasting impression.

  1. Initial credibility:
     
    Before interacting with a person or company, you may have an idea in your head about how credible they are based on what you’ve heard, first impressions and their seeming trustworthiness, goodwill and expertness.
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  3. Transactional credibility:
     
    During your interaction, you form a perception about the party that may differ significantly to your first impression. As you learn more about them and enhance your understanding, their credibility may change and you may be more (or less) willing to believe what they say and do.
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  5. End credibility:
     
    Once you have finished interacting with someone you walk away with a certain perception of that person’s credibility that you will associate with them in the future. The recency effect is very important in establishing a positive end credibility as it is the last few interactions with a party that leave the longest lasting impression and has the strongest effect on how you perceive that person or company.

 
A quick example would be a doctor. A well-known doctor’s practice may have been recommended to you by a friend. Because they have had good experiences with this doctor and place them on a pedestal, your initial credibility is positive and you believe in their capabilities as a doctor and their ‘expertness’ in the medical field. You then pay a visit to this doctor and he notes all your symptoms and draws logical and reasonable conclusions about your illness and you gain confidence in his ability as a doctor and your transactional credibility is established. Just before leaving the doctor, he diagnoses you with something completely unrelated to your symptoms – making you want to seek out a second opinion, thus your end credibility is different to your initial and transactional credibility and you leave with a certain perception of this doctor (recency effect).

Why does reputation affect credibility?

Reputation is the sum of all perceptions held about a person or a company. Perception (or image) is uncontrollable – made up of unplanned messages sent out through actions, rumours, culture, appearances, service, quality, gestures and interactions.

Reputation building consists of a person or company shaping their identity – an intentional manifestation of their reality that is completely controlled – and exhibiting consistency in the images they project. A strong reputation comes about when image and identity align and there is consistency in all planned and unplanned messages. Inconsistent messages affect a company’s credibility because people are unable to believe in the actions or messages of a company or person because they are never guaranteed to be the same.

Think of it like this: if we, at DataRapt, state that our products have fewer than 0.5 bugs per 1000 lines of code, we have a reputation to uphold. If, however, there were actually 10 bugs per 1000 lines of code, we acquire a bad reputation because it would seem we are lying and people’s willingness to believe our statement would decrease. This would leave us with poor credibility and any future statements made would be questionable.

During interactions, we believe that if you keep the 3 pillars of credibility and the different types in mind at all times, you will build a solid reputation and establish well-known credibility.