Do you want to be seen as trustworthy? Be trustworthy.

Trust is one of the more important qualities you can build in life, whether for yourself or for your business. While there are some shortcuts you can take, they’re generally short-lived.

In reading Edward Slingerland’s “Trying Not to Try“, he summed it up very nicely when it comes to building a positive reputation for your company:

Evidence suggests that the best way to acquire an enduringly positive corporate reputation is to simply be an enduringly positive company.

Not only is that better in the long run, but it’s generally easier too. You can try to find ways to make your efforts look good, or spin activities so they look more beneficial to others — or you can just do it.

Locally, I look at people like Angie Brown. She works with some amazing organizations, but that’s not necessarily enough; people could get jobs and just virtue signal through them. I don’t know Angie very well, but I see three things consistently from her:

• She’s active in serving at Piedmont Church in many capacities.
• She serves at events with MUST Ministries.
• I’ve seen her dozens of times literally walking the streets near MUST Ministries picking up trash. My daughter’s old dance studio was near there, and I constantly saw Angie out there just making things a little better for everyone.

If you want to be seen as a good person, be a good person. Tricks and tactics could help for a while, but simply being a trustworthy person that helps others over a long period of time is tough to beat.