Jennifer Polhemus ⋅ Santa Monica, CA Precision Research (self-employed) ⋅ 25 years experience

Perhaps you have done this already, but establish a good business trade name and file for a DBA and a business license, if needed in your location. To look legitimate, be sure you ARE legitimate. Look into the Chamber of Commerce, for example.

Pay or barter for a good-looking and simple logo. Read and re-read everything you send out, to be sure it is grammatically correct, concise, and quietly powerful.

Become a thought leader in select high-quality electronic forums.

I hope this helps!

James Watters ⋅ Norman, OK Business Consultant, retired ⋅ 17 years experience

Josh L -

Look at SecurityIntelligence.com and the article...

“What’s the Best Way to Build Digital Trust? Show Your Customers You Care About Their Data Privacy”
... Consumers today are more likely to do business with brands they trust, and will continue to do so as long as that trust holds strong. A big part of building trust is ensuring that when a customer hands over their personal information, they understand the organization is doing all it can to keep it safe from bad actors. With businesses acknowledging the importance of data privacy but lagging in actually delivering, what can be done to close the gap? Here are two places to start:

1. Build a Culture of Privacy

Any major shift in a business needs to grow into an organization-wide effort to make an impact. When the entire business is invested, these changes hold more weight, so getting buy-in all around is crucial. Leadership needs to promote and support this shift to customer privacy, and employees at all levels should take an interest and care about their customers’ privacy. Privacy and security teams may already be focused on these efforts, but total buy-in from the business will turn data privacy from a process shift into a cultural transformation.

This also helps make privacy efforts better and more efficient because leadership can allocate proper resources, such as the right data privacy tools and adequate staffing for the privacy team. However, it’s not just about hiring more people or buying more tools; privacy requires constant care, including testing current privacy policies and ensuring the business is always following best practices. Business-wide support and constant attention will show customers that the business is doing everything it can to keep their critical data safe.

2. Profess Your Love for Transparency

To give customers privacy assurance, it’s important to focus on transparency. There are too many headlines about businesses misusing data, selling it without consent, etc. that can erode consumer trust. Once the culture has been built and you’re being open and honest about what data you are taking and what you are doing with it, consumers will feel more confident in their transactions with you. Businesses should even take it a step further and be proactive in promoting the great data privacy programs and policies that are in place. Don’t be afraid to brag about it — profess your love for customer privacy.

On the other hand, doing the opposite is an easy way to lose customers’ trust. Not disclosing how you are using data, failing to properly protect it from outside threats or even disclosing when there has been a breach will lead customers to spend their money elsewhere. Building a strong, trusting relationship can pay off if something goes wrong as well. Consumers will be more forgiving if they already have heard from the organization that their data is being handled honestly and is being protected.

To be transparent, businesses need the proper staffing, programs and tools required to determine where a customer’s personal data exists within the organization, who has access to it and where vulnerabilities may exist. Building the culture first and understanding the data will make being open, honest and transparent much more impactful for customers.

Digital Trust Can Help Grow Your Business ...

GO NAVY