Book Club Discussion – The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey

Join us for this discussion of the Speed of Trust by Stephen MR Covey.

Transcript – Book Club Discussion – Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey, Covey Leadership Center

Mickey Gamonal:

All right, so my name is Mickey Gamonal. I am Paula Williams’ son and I am the founder of Gamonal Tutors, LLC. I’m building my tutoring company, and as far as The Speed of Trust goes, I thought it was a really good book. It sounds like the general idea is basically that trust has economic impact, so how much trust a company has in itself and from others is going to directly affect the bottom line, how much money it’s producing and how much power it has really. Let me grab some things. So that’s my thoughts.

Paula Williams:

Cool. Paula Williams, ABCI, Mickey’s mom and John’s wife, and Jeremy and Debbie’s hopefully now good friend that they take out to eat whenever they’re in St. Louis. Anyway, so one point and then carry on or just introductions now?

Mickey Gamonal:

One point, yeah. One point and then carry on, why not?

Paula Williams:

Okay. Cool. Page 304, there is a matrix in there of basically not trusting anybody to being incredibly gullible, and finding the right balance between those things. Sometimes I wonder myself, “Am I trusting this person too much? Am I going overboard? Am I messing this up?” And so that matrix to me is incredibly helpful to just check myself and go, “Is there something about this person that I am this trust because of some superficial reason or is there really a reason to distrust this person?” So I think that was a really helpful thing for me because I have to trust people a lot in order to market for them effectively, because anybody that we do business with could really mess us up, just having our name associated with theirs so that matrix is really helpful for me.

Mickey Gamonal:

We’ll circle around back to it.

Paula Williams:

Yeah.

Mickey Gamonal:

Go ahead, John.

John Williams:

I was going to talk about two points but now I’m down to one.

Paula Williams:

You can do two.

John Williams:

John Williams, I did the, as everybody knows, the backend work for Paula and she’s the rockstar in this company. Page 149, they have all the different religions and what they say with respect to how you treat other people.

Mickey Gamonal:

I knew you’d like that one.

John Williams:

Well, when I went to business school somehow or another they brought that thing up, and I was sitting in the front row and I said, “Well, I think it’s bullshit,” and I still do. It says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That’s the Christianity version. The prof looked at me and the class did a great intake of breath, and he said, “Well, what would you say?” I said, “I think you need to treat people as they want to be treated. There’s a huge difference.” And he said, “How do you know how they want to be treated?” I said, “You’ve got to talk to them and trust them, so you start to trust here and when they’re in a conversation it works up or down based on what you find out.” The prof took a step back, looked at me and he said, “We’ve got a fricking genius here in the front row.” Really makes you feel bad. But we had a lot of conversation after that.

Paula Williams:

But what makes that interesting is if everybody treated people the way you wanted to be treated, Mr. Williams, everybody would be a lot more, I’m going to say, honest and blunt than they are in real life, and so that would not make the world a better place necessarily.

John Williams:

Well no, I like to know where I stand and I don’t like all this dancing around with words. Tell it straight. That’s where I live.

Paula Williams:

Right, and that’s why you have to treat other people the way they want to be treated, not the way you want to be treated or else you would never have any friends.

Mickey Gamonal:

All right, we’ll come back to it. Let’s keep going with introductions and then one point, and not jump too fast. So go ahead, and even if you didn’t read the book, whatever thoughts you have on trust, no stress. So go ahead, Jeremy.

Jeremy Cox:

Jeremy Cox, I’m the principal of JetValues-Jeremy. I’ve known Debbie longer than I’ve known Paula and John and I just met you today. I have not read the book, I know nothing about the book, I just wanted to hop on because I like you guys and I had time to articulate and chat. But anyway, trust. Interesting thing. I think a lot of companies, people that run companies fail on trust because they micromanage instead of letting their employees get on with it. If they would trust in their employees they’d be a lot more successful, and I’ve got more points to say on trust but you said say one thing so I’m going to shut up.

Mickey Gamonal:

That’s what I’m talking about. That’s what I’m talking about, Jeremy. Killing it. Sweet. Go ahead, Debbie.

Debbie Murphy:

Hi, I’m Debbie Murphy. I’m VP of marketing with JetBrokers and I’ve known Jeremy for… I have no idea how long we’ve known each other.

Jeremy Cox:

1999.

Debbie Murphy:

Decades, yes. And so my point would be how trust comes from… They have the four corners of credibility. It starts with yourself and it goes out in…. Actually, there’s five waves. Self, relationship, organizational, market, and societal. So it starts with being honest to yourself and then building relationships out. I thought that-

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah, and that’s a cool graphic that they use too, when they’re using the waves, because waves is the exact word they’re using where they have the droplet to represent the individual and then everything else echoes out. So great, great points all around. So yeah, I feel like talking about my statement, basically trust influences your bottom line. That’s the premise of the book so we don’t necessarily need to get into that and debate it as much, but let’s talk trust matrix.

Let’s go back to the trust matrix on…

John Williams:

304.

Mickey Gamonal:

304, exactly. And in this matrix you can see it’s just a four panel thing thing. Bottom left is going to be worst case scenario, so that’s no trust which results in indecision. So you trust no one and then two axes, your X axis… I’m a math tutor by the way so this is why I derail. The X axis, the horizontal plane is going to be your analysis, so whether you’re analyzing things low or high is going to influence how smart your trust is, and then the propensity trust, so whether you have a propensity to trust. What does that mean to you? Mom?

Paula Williams:

Propensity to trust?

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah. Since it’s your graphic we’ll throw it on.

Paula Williams:

Okay. I think I have a much higher propensity to trust, probably, than John does so that’s why it’s good to have that in a company. But in terms of what that means, I trust everybody until proven other wise. I am more likely to err on the side of trusting someone too much which is good and bad, but I think I personally have to start from that perspective because I’m an optimist and because in order to sell, which is my primary job with AVCI, is to sell our products and services and to help other people sell their products and services. You have to start from the point of view of we are all trying to accomplish the same thing and we’re all trying to do good for each other, and if I don’t believe that then I can’t sell or at least I’m not going to be as effective as a salesperson.

Mickey Gamonal:

Right.

Paula Williams:

Does that make sense?

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah, absolutely. Especially for my situation, I’m in this group of some up and coming tutors and one of the issues is we all need legitimacy. Anybody that we book our sales calls or consultations with, the potential student or potential client always thinks, “Is this guy a con artist?” That’s the first thing, right?

Paula Williams:

Yeah.

Mickey Gamonal:

And so propensity to trust, if they never thought, “Is this guy a con artist?” They’d probably be conned. That’s probably why they already have these ideas of, “This guy’s going to try to take all my money and not give me anything in return.” So I can see where that originates from but I think you’re right in saying that you have to come from a place of blind faith to make any difference. Why would you ever try anything if you were sure that it wasn’t going to work, right? So I think that’s a good point. Anybody else have any thoughts on this kind of-

Jeremy Cox:

I do.

Mickey Gamonal:

Great. Go ahead.

Jeremy Cox:

I was going to say-

Paula Williams:

I knew you would.

Jeremy Cox:

So propensity is a tendency to do something and naturally I will trust people because it’s in my nature to trust people, but experience has taught me to actually trust nobody and to actually be careful, especially when you’re paddling your own canoe like I am. It’s surprising, the people that you have in your gut that you say, “That guy’s a crook,” or, “That gal’s a crook,” turns out to be very trustworthy, and the people that come across and you think, “Boy, these are upstanding pillars of the community, I can rely on them,” turn out to be real dirt bags. So the reality is my natural instinct is to trust but I’ve retrained myself to trust nobody.

Mickey Gamonal:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Williams:

Trust but verify.

Jeremy Cox:

Yeah, exactly.

Debbie Murphy:

That’s more where I come from. I am from New York City originally.

Paula Williams:

Oh heavens.

Debbie Murphy:

And absolutely that colors this for me, right?

Mickey Gamonal:

Good.

Debbie Murphy:

I don’t distrust people immediately, I just check them out before I trust them.

John Williams:

Somebody once said that there’s so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us, it’s hard to tell which of us are [inaudible 00:11:19] the rest of us.

Debbie Murphy:

Exactly. Well, I will be more likely to give everyone a chance but I definitely check them out before I trust them.

Jeremy Cox:

And when it comes to money I use the one strike rule. Not the three strike rule. You scam me? Then tough.

Debbie Murphy:

You’re on the list.

Jeremy Cox:

Exactly, you’re on the list.

Mickey Gamonal:

No, you have it coming at that point. With how small the world is nowadays, if you start off on a bad foot you’re going to be kicked out of business quick and you have that coming.

Debbie Murphy:

We all know about it. Yeah, we’ll all tell each other.

Mickey Gamonal:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Exactly, yeah. You’ll never find a client again just because everybody has that tendency to verify, right? Me personally, I’m looking for a wedding planner, I’m getting married next year, and so first thing, Yelp. There’s a list of X wedding planners that we think we like on Yelp and if they have anything less than five stars, which is insane, if everybody has five stars that means they probably gave away more than they should have at some point.

If you have 37 reviews and you have five stars, you worked hard to get there. You probably gave up more than you should have at some point and that’s almost the cost of doing business nowadays with how transparent things are and how you can look into people. Jeremy, I think you had a really good point as far as, “I want to trust people but I need to see what they’ve got first,” and then the one strike rule, that’s so true with the way things are nowadays. Good stuff.

Let’s move on. We’ll talk different religions’ respect. I’ve heard this story from John so many times but it’s true, it’s true. You say it best because you’re well versed, but the thing is if you’re going to treat someone the way you want to be treated there’s a chance they’re not going to like that and you can speak to that best.

John Williams:

When I was a kid I was into religion so bad because of my grandparents and my parents until one day when I was 16 and I was just finishing another four or six week course in bible training in the summer time, and the realization hit me that it’s all bullshit. My perspective on religion, it gives structure. If that’s what you need, fine, but with respect to all the rest of it, you can use it as a guide but that’s just me. And this is just one of the items. Why would I treat somebody else the way I want to be treated? Paula brought that out. That’s just not right. And the prof asked me, he said, “Well, how do you know how people want to be treated?” I said, “You talk to them, you communicate, and during your discussion you figure out what they are, how they want to be treated, and do your best to do that.” So that’s all.

Paula Williams:

I have another thought about that.

John Williams:

Raises her hand.

Paula Williams:

Exactly. Mr. Moderator, if I could interject.

Mickey Gamonal:

Go for it.

Paula Williams:

There is a tool called Crystal Knows, C-R-Y-S-T-A-L K-N-O-W-S, so Crystal like the girls’ name, knows, and it’s an artificial intelligence tool that you can use on people’s LinkedIn profile. And based on their word choice and other kinds of things it tells you what it knows about that person, and you can actually ask it, it’s got some little tools and things like that but it’s been fairly accurate. I did myself, I did John, I did a couple of other people that we’ve been talking with and it gives you some suggestions for how to phrase things.

It’ll tell you, “With this person you’re going to want to slow down and you’re going to want to talk process,” or, “With this person you’re going to want to get straight into the financial details.” It gives you those suggestions based on what’s in their LinkedIn profile. Now I am very suspicious, talking about trust, of artificial intelligence but this is uncanny what we’ve seen so far with this thing. We have no relationship to them or anything else, it’s just if you want to know how someone wants to be treated, that is a potential clue, right? Before you talk to them the first time.

John Williams:

And as a footnote to what I said, I separated religion and the spiritual so to me, my relationship with a supreme being, whatever you or I determine that to be, is different. It’s there, okay? But religion is something man put together and did it poorly in my opinion.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah. The religion part, it’s in there but it’s quick. The idea is that everybody needs…

John Williams:

Yeah.

Mickey Gamonal:

And they all agree on that sort of thing, which is the idea, right? As far as the Crystal Knows stuff goes, I think that’s a great tool. If it is used for what you are saying it’s used for, it’s a way of doing what John says which is treating people the way they want to be treated and not necessarily the way that you want to be treated. And so yeah, I think that’s great. Jeremy, did you have something on that?

Jeremy Cox:

Oh, absolutely I do. I think this whole business of treating people the way they want to be treated or treating the people you’d like to be treated… I think it’s a misdirection. The reality is there’s only one way to treat people until they wrong you and that is with politeness, with respect, with empathy, and acceptance. The biggest thing that Christianity teaches me you don’t judge other people.

And unfortunately, especially in modern life where we’re constantly inundated with electronic interruption we’re turning into these judgemental beings which is irrelevant. It’s wrong. But from my perspective you’ve got to have empathy and treat people with respect. To me the ultimate respect is going to the Middle East and eating chicken sausage and beef bacon. It’s revolting but I’ll do it because that’s what they eat, so there you go.

John Williams:

Been there, done that.

Jeremy Cox:

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, it really boils down to intolerance, and there’s so much intolerance in this world. You just look at Facebook now, my god. If you use your crystal meth thing to analyze my profile you’re going to come up with assassin, probably. I don’t know. Artificial intelligence scares the bejeezus out of me to be honest. Anyway, I should shut off. Sorry.

Mickey Gamonal:

No, I love it. That’s great. That’s great.

Debbie Murphy:

I think all of it comes down to putting yourself out there to build a relationship. To find out who the person is, to listen, to respond in a way that shows them that you’ve heard them. That’s how you’re going to do sales or build marketing or anything, is to be there.

John Williams:

Yeah.

Jeremy Cox:

Larry. Hey, Larry.

Debbie Murphy:

Hey Larry, I’m on the phone.

Paula Williams:

Hey Larry.

Mickey Gamonal:

Hey Larry.

Debbie Murphy:

That’s why the door’s closed.

Mickey Gamonal:

No, I think you bring up a great point. And one thing, we got derailed with the religion because it is a religious aspect in the chapter, but the title of this chapter, it comes from the 13 behaviors that build trust, and the title of this chapter is Respect. The title of this chapter specifically isn’t just one word, it is… What was it? Demonstrate Respect. Show respect because respect is a great idea and I think knowing how to use it, that demonstrate word is so important because the greatest intentions…

We all want to be respectful people. We all want to think that if we went to the Middle East that we’d eat whatever was given to us, but that’s not always the case. I know that first hand. We don’t always deliver. We don’t always do what we think we’re going to do. We don’t always demonstrate that respect so I think that showing your motives and being a respectful person in more ways than just being it, showing that respect. I think that’s great.

The various religions saying that you should treat people as they want to be treated as a method of showing respect is a great segue into that respectful nature and demonstrating respect, but understanding beyond that that you should treat them the way they want to be treated really allows us to demonstrate it further. We’re not just showing them internally that we mean to treat them this way, we are taking their ideas and treating them the way they want to be treated, which is showing that proper respect.

Debbie Murphy:

That works great in sales.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah.

Paula Williams:

Yeah.

Debbie Murphy:

Making a connection that you would not be able to otherwise.

Mickey Gamonal:

Absolutely, yeah. I’m in this sales step of my marketing program and yeah, the first thing you want to do is listen. Always listen, listen, listen, listen. And that’s another one of the trust building things is something listen but yeah, you want to understand where they’re coming from always because you’re going to have a better idea of what they need, absolutely. So good stuff.

Jeremy Cox:

You know, Mickey, you talk about… Debbie talks about it’s a great thing in sales and a lot of salespeople train themselves to be a mirror and salesmanship is acting, you could be on the stage or in a movie. The key to being a successful salesperson appears to be not being yourself which I think is the greatest mistake and greatest sin in sales because if you’re trying to be something you’re not you’ll always come across as fake, false, and the worst kind of salesperson.

I truly believe, and before you started this, before you came on, John was talking about being yourself, being genuine, and that’s the most important thing of all. It’s about having the ethics and the integrity to be who you truly are. And you know what? You’re going to piss off several people, maybe a lot of people, that are potential purchasers or they’re at least people you’d like to sell to because they just don’t like you. Well, that’s fine. That’s life.

But the reality is you’re also going to gather and attract a much larger group of people that want to do business with you because they like who you are. So I think that’s the greatest sin in all of these sales training books and manuals and videos and everything else, they want you to not be yourself which is insane. I’m sorry, I just had to say that. I just went for it.

Mickey Gamonal:

That’s great. No, no. It was-

Debbie Murphy:

What’s interesting about this, the five waves where you start with yourself, knowing yourself, having self integrity, then it goes out from there.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah. Exactly right, yeah. No, it totally falls in line. What you guys are both saying completely falls in line with what this book is saying, is the authenticity-

Jeremy Cox:

It’s a good book.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah. Exactly, right? You should read it.

Paula Williams:

Of course it’s a good book.

Jeremy Cox:

I ought to read it.

Paula Williams:

It’s Stephen Covey.

Mickey Gamonal:

Somebody needs to send him this book.

Paula Williams:

I try to send him books. He told me not to.

Jeremy Cox:

I don’t want those books.

Mickey Gamonal:

Well, cool. That’s fine. Apparently you’ve already got the knowledge so who needs the book?

Paula Williams:

He does. He’s excused because he has the life experience so he gets full credit for-

Debbie Murphy:

I think he read a lot of books already.

Paula Williams:

Absolutely.

Jeremy Cox:

Yes.

Paula Williams:

No but Mickey, do you remember the make your bed speech? It was a graduation speech by a commander, an admiral or somebody, I’ll have to look that up, where he says, “Make your bed,” because integrity with yourself and doing what you think you’re going to do, that’s the basis of… If you don’t trust yourself, that’s when you come across as shady, I think, and that’s when you start acting like other people.

I can be considerate and when I’m in Morocco visiting Mickey in the Peace Corps I am not going to order bacon for breakfast because I don’t want to embarrass him and I don’t want to insult his host family. That doesn’t mean I’m not being myself so there’s a line between, I think, knowing who your customer is and being a version of yourself that is line with their preferences, making them comfortable. I don’t think that’s necessarily dishonest.

Debbie Murphy:

It’s respectful too.

Paula Williams:

Yeah.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah, to do your research. If you’re using your crystal ball from before, if you’re using that it’s respectful to say, “I’ve used this and I’ve learned X about you.” You probably don’t want to reveal your sources as a salesman. But anyway the idea is there, the intention is there that you’re doing your research. You don’t necessarily have to be the perfect person that this person wants to buy from but you want to know what they want to know. It’s like Debbie says, it’s a respect thing.

John Williams:

And the greatest sales guy is the guy or girl that can sell a product the client needs even if the client doesn’t like them.

Mickey Gamonal:

True that.

Paula Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mickey Gamonal:

True that.

Debbie Murphy:

If they trust you to do the right thing for them, it doesn’t matter if they like you.

John Williams:

Right.

Debbie Murphy:

Yeah.

John Williams:

That’s exactly right.

Paula Williams:

Trusting someone and liking someone are two different things sometimes.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah. That’s true. So let’s go on. Let’s go on to Jeremy’s point, distrust of employees and companies. I thought that was great. Are we all good with different religions and respect, the previous point? Everybody’s good? We’ll wait for thumbs. Sweet.

So yeah, distrust of employees. I worked for a company like this. I was a purchaser for a glass company. The owner of the company, the guy who had the big office was notoriously difficult. He took pride in how much of an ass he was. He would park in the handicap spot five days a week because he owned the building. It was ridiculous, absolutely terrible. and unfortunately… I guess unfortunately or fortunately he doesn’t work there anymore but at the time yeah, it was a climate of distrust. Everybody was trying to cover their ass. Nobody was getting anything done. It was so much more important to have six buffers, six points of association who failed before they get to you, and then as soon as they see your failure you’re projecting.

This is what the book calls a trust tax. This is something where you’re pouring money into a company and it’s not producing anything because all of your money is going into trust issues. So Jeremy, it was your point. If you want to start with a little more information on distrust of employees and how that works.

Jeremy Cox:

Well, I’m going to broaden that, really, because I do work for myself and I think I’ve worked for one big company my entire life. One time. Not my entire life working for a big company, I only worked for a big company for less than two years and I didn’t like it because the culture is counterintuitive to who I am. I’ve always been very self-driven, very independent, and I thrive and do better if you just get the hell out of my way and let me get on with it.

I think that’s a lot of the trouble that this country has, and all countries, but this country especially, we’ve seen corporate America evolve over time and now I think corporate America has pretty much died a death especially with Covid with everyone working at home, that the normal structure is gone. It’s been turned on it’s head so it is probably a good thing to see it be turned on its head, and people need to be trusted more and they need to be more independent.

I’m surprised at how people are in a career where they’re basically riding along in the back seat or the passenger seat, they’re actually not driving even thought it’s their own career. It just blows my mind how subservient people are and how people need direction. It’s counterintuitive to who I am, but expanding that, the worst thing about corporate America in my opinion, and I’ve observed it by coming from a different country and taking this country up as my chosen settling point, is that internal competition.

It just blows my mind how a company sets up a division and ruling system, divide and conquer, whatever you want to call it, and they set up little tribes within the company that run their own little piece of the company, and they all forget that there’s just one pot of money and it’s a collective action to keep on adding money to that pot instead of having individual pots. And you see it in the services. You have the Army/Navy football game, you have police, firemen, and EMS fighting each other. It’s like, “What is wrong with these people?”

Debbie Murphy:

Americans like to fight with each other, Jeremy, haven’t you noticed that?

Jeremy Cox:

I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. Anyway, that’s it. I’m sorry.

Mickey Gamonal:

No, that’s great. That’s great.

Jeremy Cox:

Forgive me for spouting. I get pissed off a lot.

Debbie Murphy:

It’s interesting.

Mickey Gamonal:

We need the fire, man. That’s great. You’re right, you’re totally right. Yeah, you’ll see that in my glass company, perfect example. We had IG where people would put sheets of glass to make them thicker or whatever and it was all about getting IG more money than the cutting department. They all wanted that preferential treatment and it was always a competition and it was never about the customer, or the product, or efficiency. It was never about any of that. And you make a good point, I just joined the military and it’s the same in the US Military. It’s crazy. We’re all servicemen but we don’t see it like that, so good stuff. Yeah. Anybody else have an example of internal competition?

Debbie Murphy:

I think the other thing that gets lost in that is long range vision of success.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah.

Debbie Murphy:

Instead of just making your money now and then cashing out, and then what happens three years from now? Or five years from now? People don’t always build for the future when they’re competing internally in the present.

Mickey Gamonal:

Right. No, I think you’re right. I think it’s more short sighted. I think it also speaks to Jeremy’s point about people want to be subservient because they’re just trying to pay the bills at the end of the month or whatever, and yeah, it’s that short sighted thing that you’re saying, Debbie, that’s exactly what it is. It’s not about long term planning.

Paula Williams:

Right. I think American culture adds a lot to that too because in this country everything is driven by election cycles which is two years or four years, and by quarterly earnings reports which are quarterly, or the 24 hours news cycle, so Americans play a very short game to see if they’re winning or not in just about anything that they-

Debbie Murphy:

Or the dividends cycle when you’re company’s going to pay a dividend to their investors.

Paula Williams:

Yeah, so that’s quarterly usually but there are companies in China and Japan where they have 100 year or 1,000 year business plans so they are very used to playing a long game. I think as people we need to start playing the long game, and I think the five of us are pretty much unemployable by a large corporation because we play longer games than the companies we would work for, and that’s how you-

John Williams:

Yeah, we do. I’ve got a staff and we all have a five year and a ten year plan. We’re working on looking forward beyond that. You have to.

Paula Williams:

Right. You need to work on that hundred year plan.

John Williams:

You have to get a vision of what’s going to happen so that you can modify it, and you change it and… Everybody’s got a one year plan, right? So you’ve got a one, five, 10, and 100. We were up to 10 and every year, actually currently every week we update. On Monday we have a meeting and we update all that stuff. Once we get a little larger and can do some different things then we’ll probably drop that back to monthly updates.

Debbie Murphy:

Well, we’ve got to adjust right now.

Paula Williams:

Yeah, especially this year.

Debbie Murphy:

Assuming we’re going to survive.

Jeremy Cox:

And plus, as long as rioters and looters don’t kill us stone dead in the next three or four months, the reality is I think it was 2006 or… No, no it wasn’t. I’m sorry. That’s wrong. It was I think 2010 or 11 there was a medical conference in Stockholm because I remember listening to an article on the radio all that time ago. Literally they stated at that medical conference that the first person to live to 150 has already been born and that was back in 2010. So to John’s point, you have a 100 year plan, you might have to enact that, my friend.

Debbie Murphy:

You might need one, yes.

Mickey Gamonal:

That’s great.

Debbie Murphy:

Actually, on rest might be a benefit for aviation.

Jeremy Cox:

Well yeah, but it’s-

Debbie Murphy:

Because people want to be safe, they’ll pay more money to be safe.

Jeremy Cox:

It’s repulsive. Let’s not even go there.

Debbie Murphy:

Let’s not.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah. It’s a little explosive. It might be a little much for Stephen M. R. Covey right now. Let’s jump on over to Debbie Murphy with JetBrokers, the four corners of credibility breakdown.

Debbie Murphy:

Let’s see. What’s interesting is that’s inside the five waves of trust.

Mickey Gamonal:

Okay.

Paula Williams:

Yeah, the metaphors within metaphors.

Debbie Murphy:

Four corners of credibility.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah, either one. It’s your point so however you want to run it.

Debbie Murphy:

Personal integrity, good intent, your credentials are excellent, and a good track record. But I think what I got out of that was just how you’ve got to trust yourself to go out, get to the next level, and have people trust you. I don’t really know I apply that to the business. People need to trust us or they won’t buy a jet from us or allow us to help them. And my brother says, because I asked him about and I’m telling a point, share information with them that they can verify so they learn that they can trust you, so you build the trust deliberately.

John Williams:

Yeah, they trust the… Companies are all made of people so they want to trust the person first.

Debbie Murphy:

Yes.

Paula Williams:

Right. If you’ve ever done business with a company like Mickey’s glass company you can feel that. If the people in that company don’t trust each other, you can feel that when you’re doing business with them and you’ve got somebody on the phone and he’s like, “Well, let me see what I can do for you but I’m going to have to go the long way around with this,” or something, and they trust you more than they trust their partners and the rest of their company.

Mickey Gamonal:

And their firm.

Debbie Murphy:

Yeah.

Paula Williams:

And that always sets off alarm bells for me because I don’t know if this person can deliver because I don’t know if this company’s behind him, and if there’s a lot of discord there I don’t want to have anything to do with that, right?

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah.

Debbie Murphy:

In our company it’s all about relationships. It’s not a very big company. We have a weekly meeting now that we do on video chat, Jeremy.

Paula Williams:

Yay.

Debbie Murphy:

We build those relationships with each other too and that’s really important internally, to not have discord with each other but to be able to help each other.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah.

Paula Williams:

There’s a totally different energy and you can tell by working with you guys. I could tell when we were in St. Louis with you guys that you all like and trust each other, and that, I think, exudes into your customers. They can feel that from you.

Jeremy Cox:

I kind of wish I was still at JetBrokers so I could be part of your weekly Zoom conference call because you know I’d wear a different hat every week.

Debbie Murphy:

I love being in conference calls.

Paula Williams:

Well, you’ll have to wear a different hat to every book club, Jeremy. That would be fun.

Debbie Murphy:

I love your hats. They’re great hats. I just wear scarves, I don’t do the hat thing.

Paula Williams:

Yay. That’s cool.

Mickey Gamonal:

I love the props. I love the props. Props to the props.

Debbie Murphy:

You have to pay attention though, what you look like. My background is not ideal, it’s messy over there. It’s not as neat as Paula’s.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah. It builds credibility, it looks honest. It looks like you do work there which is more than I can say-

Debbie Murphy:

Actually this whole office, it’s actually not all my stuff but it’s a physical office space.

Mickey Gamonal:

No, that’s great.

Paula Williams:

You exude authenticity.

Debbie Murphy:

I’m pretty good at that.

Paula Williams:

Right.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah. I think with the four corners of credibility, I think it’s great because like you said in regards to topics inside of topics you can apply your for corners of credibility. There’s two that are based in what you do and two that are based in how you do it. So one is… Let me see real quick.

It was.. Let’s see. Integrity, intent, capabilities, and results. So integrity and intent is who you are and then your capabilities and your results is what you produce. To Debbie’s point, I think this is one of the most important ideas of this book, is that trust isn’t built on how they make me feel or how they look, or how trustworthy they smell or what have you, but it’s actually built on what the hell they do, what they can actually get done.

Back to where Jeremy says, “If they blow my money, they’re out.” One strike, right? If they don’t deliver, you can’t work with them, and I think that’s something that’s commonly ignored in trust discourse. “Can we trust so and so?” “Oh, I don’t know, they seem okay.” But do they deliver? Because that should be the question that’s at the forefront of everybody’s mind, you would think because integrity and intent, those are damn near impossible to measure. But the ability to deliver, you can see that for sure.

Paula Williams:

It’s a binary thing.

John Williams:

But the ability to deliver is based on integrity, and integrity’s based on the fact that you do personally whatever you’re supposed to do whether anybody’s watching or not.

Paula Williams:

Right.

John Williams:

You do that all the time in your life then you’re going to deliver.

Debbie Murphy:

We also talk about as character and competence.

Mickey Gamonal:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. No, I think that’s great. Yeah, the character is what you do on your own as an individual and then the competence is what you create or what you know. Yeah, I think if you get those bases covered as an individual and then if you can do that as a group, organization, squad, platoon, company, what have you, you’re going to deliver much more results. That’s, I think, the premise of the book. That and the inverse, the trust taxes that they mention. Trust dividends and trust taxes. Yeah, good stuff. Nice. I looked at that and-

Debbie Murphy:

Jeremy looks like he’s in a stormy mood.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah. You left the jet.

Jeremy Cox:

Yeah. I went honest for a little bit, I actually have my real background in my little office here in Waterloo, Illinois, but then I went to Manhattan to the stop of the Empire State Building, and quite frankly I think this is where I really belong, right here.

Mickey Gamonal:

There you go.

Paula Williams:

Yes.

Debbie Murphy:

You better stay out of the water.

John Williams:

Yeah, I think we all belong there.

Jeremy Cox:

I love seeing these backgrounds.

Mickey Gamonal:

Well, the eagle has landed, definitely.

Jeremy Cox:

That’s right. Exactly. Sorry.

Mickey Gamonal:

No, you’re good.

Debbie Murphy:

No, it’s good book and it’s a good topic for our aviation business discussion, how we do business with each other, who we’ll trust within the company, not just customers.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah. No, I think that was the best point to land on, was the basic, that’s the nuts and bolts of how the book runs. We’ll wrap it up here. We’ll just do outros, your name, your business, and then thanks for coming. Good work everybody. So my name’s Mickey Gamonal, I’m with Gamonal Tutors.

Paula Williams:

And a pitch if you want, your 15 second sales pitch.

Mickey Gamonal:

Oh, I can do that?

Paula Williams:

Yeah.

Mickey Gamonal:

A sales pitch.

Paula Williams:

Good place to practice, right?

Mickey Gamonal:

My name’s Mickey Gamonal, I’m with Gamonal Tutors and I’m launching the ASVAB Domination program so if you or anybody you know is trying to get into the military and needs to boost their score to get that high level job, I’ve got the program for you. Let me know.

Paula Williams:

Paula Williams, AVCI. We help aviation companies sell more of their products and services.

John Williams:

John Williams and I’m the guy that runs the money for her.

Jeremy Cox:

Jeremy Cox, principal of JetValues-Jeremy. I specialize in appraising off-book aircraft, and what I mean by that is aircraft that are not covered by any price guide. But I also appraise anything that flies. I love appraising, I have a passion for it, and I love my life. So that’s it. www.jetvaluesjeremy.com, come visit.

Debbie Murphy:

I am Debbie Murphy, VP of Marketing for JetBrokers. We help people buy and sell Jets. Visit us at jetbrokers.com.

John Williams:

Nice.

Paula Williams:

Well done.

Mickey Gamonal:

Cool.

Paula Williams:

Well, that was fun. I think we should wear a different hat every time.

Debbie Murphy:

You’ll have to get a few more backgrounds. Those aviation backgrounds are good.

Paula Williams:

There you go. Debbie, you can wear a different scarf every time.

Jeremy Cox:

Right.

Mickey Gamonal:

I’m trying to bring Mel in. I don’t think you guys saw Mel but I’ve got my buddy here. I don’t know if he was in the picture.

Paula Williams:

He was in the picture.

Debbie Murphy:

He was in the picture last time too.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah, cool.

Debbie Murphy:

[inaudible 00:44:36]. It’s good.

Paula Williams:

[inaudible 00:44:38].

Jeremy Cox:

Mickey, you know Leilana and some of the other hula girls? You ought to make it your signature that whatever your sexless artist dummy is, you should dress it for every Zoom thing so it will be in something different every time. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah. I’ve got some tissues right here, I can make it happen.

Jeremy Cox:

There you go. Yeah, dress it in different clothing every time.

Paula Williams:

You could do a Greek toga or yeah, all kinds of things.

Jeremy Cox:

Yeah, and also think of all the positions you can put him in. He could be doing the running thing, he could be doing the down dog. He could be doing anything. Wouldn’t that be awesome every time? And you don’t say anything about it, he’s posed in a different way every Zoom and people will start thinking, “Hey, I’ve got to watch Mickey because I don’t know what his guy’s going to be doing.”

Mickey Gamonal:

That’s right. That’s right.

Paula Williams:

That’s fantastic.

Mickey Gamonal:

Well Jeremy, I’m going to have to add you. And happy birthday to Debbie just recently.

Debbie Murphy:

Oh, yeah. I had the big… I’m not going to say how old I am.

Mickey Gamonal:

Hey man, it’s better than the alternative. [crosstalk 00:46:03].

Debbie Murphy:

[crosstalk 00:46:03].

Paula Williams:

Understood. Great. Well, thanks guys. This was really, really fun and next week is… Mickey, do you know what is next week? I don’t remember.

Mickey Gamonal:

Yeah, so the next one you don’t have a book. It’s a marketing tool so go ahead and whatever marketing tool you use… I’m thinking either ManyChat or ConvertKit. I’m learning about all these new tools lately so I don’t know what I’ll end up using, but if you have a marketing tool, even if it’s Google Spreadsheets or Excel, whatever you use to get business done and you want to sing their praises, that’s going to happen two weeks from now.

Paula Williams:

Okay.

Jeremy Cox:

Nice.

Paula Williams:

Sounds good.

John Williams:

Nice to see you all again.

Paula Williams:

Bye bye.

John Williams:

Stay healthy.

Jeremy Cox:

See ya.

Paula Williams:

Absolutely.

Mickey Gamonal:

Bye.