382 Natalie Doyle Oldfield

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Natalie Doyle Ofield is the author of The Power of Trust, how top companies build, manage, and protect it, and also President of Success Through Trust. Trust Across America has named her one of the top thought leaders in trust for five consecutive years. Other leaders who have been named include Howard Schultz, founder and CEO of Starbucks, and author Stephen Covey.

Natalie is recognized as one of the most inspiring women business leaders and entrepreneurs and has been nominated for the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Award of the year. She's on a mission to help business owners and leaders grow their companies by building trusting relationships with their customers and colleagues.

Natalie's training programs, Trust Measurement System, Tools, and Proprietary Trust Building Framework are based on science and evidence. A regular podcast guest and writer, she contributes to Forbes and is featured in Economist Impact as a business trust expert. 

Natalie founded Success Through Trust in 2013 and resides in [00:01:00] Halifax, Nova Scotia. And before we start the episode, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the Deep Wealth Mastery Program. Here's Bill, a graduate, who says, the Deep Wealth Mastery Program has transformed the KPIs we're using to accelerate growth and profits.

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Deep Wealth Nation. Welcome to another episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast. And you heard it in the official introduction. We have a thought leader, an author, a world class [00:04:00] individual who's talking about something that is so important, not just in business, but in life. Let me ask you something, Deep Wealth Nation, Does the marketplace trust you?

Your current customers do. What about your future customers or do your existing customers, do they have that trust or not, that maybe they're no longer going to be a customer? We're going to talk about all that and more. And if you're thinking about a liquidity event, some kind of business exit down the road, which is our wheelhouse here at Deep Wealth, trust is the currency in the M&A world, forget about money.

It's all about trust. So Natalie, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us. And I'm curious, Natalie, because there is always a story behind the story. What's your story, Natalie? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: Well, thanks for having me, Jeffrey. It's so great to be here. What got me from where I was to where I am today? Well, that's a big question. And the short and long answer is that after working for about 25 years in [00:05:00] the IT industry in a variety of different roles I decided that I was going to try to find the answers to a few questions that my whole career I've been fascinated by.

So questions like, what makes people tick and how do they decide to buy? And why do some companies succeed and others fail? And I've always been fascinated by those questions and intrigued by how different companies do different things. And I decided to go back to university and I did graduate research to answer the question, how is it that customers decide to buy?

And why are some companies successful and others not? And I did this while working full time. As Chief Marketing Officer for a software company, and my research focused on successful companies, and what I found out after doing my research is that What I learned [00:06:00] is that the singular factor that can predict an organization's success or failure, the most critical asset a company has, and the singular factor is trust, specifically having the trust of their customers. Trust is an asset. It can be measured and it can be managed. And I got so excited about this that. In addition to doing my master's on this and doing all this research, I decided with my practical business hat on that I have to create a diagnostic, something to manage this and something to measure it.

Because I'm from the school that, what can be managed can be measured. So I actually created a framework based on science and evidence and a diagnostic tool that can quantify trust and can quantify the precious asset that [00:07:00] I call trust equity. And trust equity is. It's a quantifiable score the trust that customers have in a company.

So I love that you say it's the currency. It totally is, Jeffrey. It is the most critical asset. And I got so excited about this that I started doing workshops and teaching people this. Framework that I built and these principles of trust and I now have a trust mastery program where I teach individuals from companies, so I work with companies, business owners and leaders to teach them how to become the most trusted in their industry.

And I also measure trust for customers, so we have a Trust Equity Accelerator program where we do survey a company's customers, they get a trust equity score, and I think you and I are going to have lots to [00:08:00] talk about, Jeffrey, because some of my clients actually do that, and then they use this.

Trust equity score as part of the package to sell their company and they get a higher price because they can show by a third party objective view that they truly are trusted. They have their customers loyalty and they have, like I said, that precious asset, trust equity.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's so amazing. And there's a lot to unpack there, but before we do, Let me take it back to the beginning, because I'm really curious, Natalie, when you firstly went back to school, very admirable, you could have done your research really in any area. You somehow landed on trust. And as you say, the power of trust in business, it's huge, it's everything.

But I'm curious, Were there personal experiences that led you to discover that trust is one of the factors [00:09:00] in success in business? What led you there?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: Yes and no. I did not go into university to do my graduate research thinking that the answer was trust. So, I didn't know that. Intuitively, when I started my graduate research, I knew, intuitively, that people buy from, people invest in, people partner with. People they are comfortable with and people they trust.

I knew that intuitively. However, I really wanted to create and to know that and create an evidence based framework. So, like I said, I mean, looking back, I knew that intuitively, but I didn't go in thinking that the answer and this. Force multiplier, if you will, is trust. I didn't know that at the time.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Interesting. And something else that you said that really resonated before this conversation, if you would have asked me or even Deep Wealth Nation, can you measure trust? [00:10:00] I suspect the answer is not really, it's really an intangible. It's very difficult to measure. It's something that's out there, but it's really more on the art side than on the science side.

And now you're saying, well, actually I developed a system that I can measure it and I can put some metrics, I can put some data behind that. So how do you go about building that trust, measuring that trust, that's really practical for founders, for companies, for the marketplace? What's going on with that, Natalie?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: Well, how do we do it? It's a survey. love that you ask what's going on with that. It's a survey instrument. So we survey my company, Success Through Trust, we survey a company's So I have customers on their behalf, and in approximately nine minutes, we can gather by a Trust Equity score by the customers answering statements and questions about the company.

And then I plot them and [00:11:00] it's they get a Trust Equity score and Like I said, we created it using the scientific method, created it while in academia, and then graduated, and then I continued to test out the model over Several years, Jeffrey, and it's been peer reviewed and tested academically.

We actually tested it with a very large sample size of 80, 000 people. And in total, it's just under 90, 000 people that it's been tested before I started using this as a tool with companies. And what's really exciting about this is It actually identifies the cracks that a company would have in their business, and it identifies opportunities.

So not only does it give you data and you get a trust equity score, but we do in the [00:12:00] research world, what we call segmentation analysis, and it actually, we get insights to help companies. Increase loyalty, increase trustworthiness, get more referrals, increase their revenue, and increase their trustworthiness.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely love what you're sharing there of how we can take something and really bring that out there. And by the way, Deep Wealth Nation, when you go to the show notes, click on the show notes because you'll have a number of links there. One is to Nally's first book, The Power of Trust, How Top Companies Build, Manage and Protect It.

And now her latest book, Trusted, The Proven Path to Customer Loyalty and Business Growth. And speaking of the latest book, I know in there you have eight principles. So you've taken for what some people's very abstract and you put it down to eight principles. Now I'm going to ask you a question.

You could say, Geoffrey, that's not really a fair question. It's like asking me to pick my favorite cousin or child or relative, but of the eight [00:13:00] principles, is there one principle that really stands out for you more than the others?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: No.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yes.

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: So, so, yes and no. So the reason I say yes and no, so let me back up a little bit. So a cost, a company's trust equity score

Is a predictor of future success and loyalty. And all of these principles must work together. It's like a chain, right? They all work together to build, manage, and protect trust.

And there are actually three, they come out of three fundamental components or elements of trust, Jeffrey. So they come out of the following, what I call a trust triangle, communication, behavior, and service. I was doing a workshop with a company, and it was a senior leadership team, and I got everybody to stand up. It was a beautiful day, it was a Thursday, and it was a sunny afternoon, and I thought, [00:14:00] okay, I gotta get everybody to stand up. So I had to get everybody to stand up and put their hands together and make a triangle.

Because there are three components of a trust triangle, communication, behavior, and service. And out of those come the eight principles of trust. So at the base of the triangle is behavior, and one principle that I would say stands out, Jeffrey, is Acting in the best interests of others. So if you made me pick, I might pick that one.

Acting in the best interests of others.

so that shows your integrity, right? And your motives and your intentions. And the other part of the base of the triangle is doing the right thing. And that shows your ethics. However, on the communication side, That includes several principles, including listening and being honest, it includes being sincere and authentic, [00:15:00] and it includes being, transparent.

Which are all important as well. And then service includes, you know, being genuine and being empathetic and doing the right thing. So they all come together. But if you really made me choose, I'd probably say acting in the best interest of others. Because if you think about it, you can be the best communicator in the world.

And you can have a really clear message that everybody understands, and you can be open, and you can be transparent, and you can be honest, and you can provide timely, pristine service. But if you act inappropriately,

or without integrity, or you don't walk the talk, you lose trust. The whole thing falls down.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So interesting. As you're talking about that with trust, but also really looking out for other people's interests. As we here at Deep [00:16:00] Wealth say, and this is in our Deep Wealth Mastery Program, we always want to tune into the world's favorite radio station for every one of our stakeholders. Perhaps you've heard of it, WII.

FM, the What's In It For Me radio station.

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: Oh, yes.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so, Based on what you're saying, it really gels with what we're saying, what we found. It doesn't matter if it's a customer, a future buyer or investor, perhaps it's a supplier, perhaps it's one of your team members. It's never about us. It's what's on their mind.

People always are thinking about themselves. So how can I help them? And if we're sincere about it, if, Hey, can I help you? I not expect anything in return. You can tell me if I'm on base or off base, at least in my experience, a data point of one for you, not the 80, 000 Natalie, but a data point of one, If we're sincere about it, I really want to help you.

I'm not expecting anything else in return. It can bring goodwill. Perhaps friendships can come out of it. And if there's an opportunity that we can really help each other, maybe down the road or who knows when, hey, yeah, I'm going to remember Natalie was so kind to me. [00:17:00] She really went out of her way to help me.

She's top of mind. If I can help in that area, I'm definitely going to do it. How am I doing with that? Is that what you found in terms of the building trust where I'm really coming in with good intentions?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: Absolutely. Absolutely. And what I often find is when I'm talking with founders and business owners and leaders, they say, Oh, well, our whole team does that. That's part of the values of our company, yet they then share with me that they have some business problems that show me that there's a lack of trust at the core.

And when I say lack of trust, it's trust in a relationship. Trust is between two humans that's a fundamental truth. We put trust in another person and companies are made up of people. So, when they share with me things like, well, we have declining revenues, or we have sales cycles are really long, or we have all these leads coming in, but nothing's [00:18:00] closing. Or, we have a lack of repeat business, customer retention or churn is not where we want it to be. Those business problems, those business challenges or issues, whatever we want to call them, those are all signals for me that there's, A Trust Issue in a Company,

Jeffrey Feldberg: Interesting. And as you're going through trust and actually what I love about the book, the newest book that just came out, it really, it read my mind in terms of what I'm about to say because Deep Wealth Nation, does this relate to you? Are you nodding your head? Because I find at least for myself, it's very helpful.

Everything today, and I know everyone says this even throughout the generations, but today, more than ever, life seems so fast paced. And now, with online, our ability to not only reach other people, but to hear what's going on, there's so much skepticism. We hear so many negative things, particularly from online, that Building trust today, regardless of business or even on the personal side, [00:19:00] to me, people seem more guarded.

They seem, okay, what's the scam in this? Can I really trust this person? What's going on with that? So in today's environment, more so than ever, Natalie, what can we do to really begin that process of, yes, I can trust Natalie, I can trust Jeffrey, they are the real deal. This is where it's happening. And I know all eight principles speak to that.

Generally speaking, though, from a very high level, what would you want the Deep Wealth Nation to know of how we can begin the process of really having people trust us? We build that trust. What's going on with that?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: well, I would say that I would start with listening to really truly understand the other person's point of view and what their priorities are. And what their perspective is, because you are a hundred percent right. People are guarded and they are more skeptical and they are wondering what's the scam.

I'm speaking later this [00:20:00] week at a conference that the whole conference is about AI, artificial intelligence. And I'm so grateful that the keynote speaker, who's me, is about the human element Because it all comes down to that, because it's like you said, Jeffrey, people are guarded and they are wondering, is it true?

And they're skeptical and customers, doesn't matter what your business is, whether you are selling a product that is one time sale or software as a service or a managed service, a subscription base, or it's a professional service. Every single customer is more skeptical and they're more empowered, so they have access to the information.

I would suggest start with listening and then keep in mind that because people are so skeptical and guarded, as you say, I love that word, it's so true, that we be really honest [00:21:00] and transparent. And I would add another word, we need to be open. Open, honest, and transparent because people want to not only work with people and buy from and invest in and support people they trust, but there was a study done last year by Economist Impact Group Study that showed that 86 percent of business owners and leaders worldwide. Want to do bi transparency is the most important thing for them.

They want to do business with people who are transparent.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Not surprising there, based on what we're talking about and where things are at. So let me ask you this, because you're out there, you're in all different kinds of environments, big companies, small companies, everything in between. As entrepreneurs, the glass is always half full, sometimes to our own detriment, we just don't see things.

And so my question for you is, if we were to compare, so if you looked at a company, they've done a really good job, people trust them, [00:22:00] they're the golden child, if I can use that term, in the industry, they have a really good reputation, and you compare that to a company where, hey, I can't trust that company, further than I can throw my garbage out the door, it's not happening, I want nothing to do with them.

What are some of the differences? What's the company that has a golden reputation? What are they doing and doing right that the company that doesn't isn't either doing it all or they're just missing the boat completely? What's going on there?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: would say there are two things, which usually for me, I say three, but I think there are two things, Jeffrey. I think the first thing is they realize that reputation is about past performance. Trust is a predictor of future success. So with that being said, they focus on having a culture of trust in a company that's customer centered. So that's the first thing. They realize that they need to focus on this and be intentional. [00:23:00] It's just like if you have a company that safety is important, you focus on safety in the workplace, you have less safety issues. So that would be the number one thing is the focus on trust and the focus on customers, knowing That we need to be intentional about it.

And the second thing that really sets people apart, and in fact, I see it in every single situation, is the company that would be the golden child, as you would say, they have all of their customer facing frontline people. So project managers, sales engineers, plant managers, people in shipping, people in customer service are all trained and have the skill set of Building relationships of trust. That's the big thing because if you think about it, you can put two companies together and they both make, if we just think of your example, one's the golden child, one's [00:24:00] not. Maybe the one that's not actually has the better product.

That often happens, as we know. The one that's the golden child, the one that's trusted, is because they focus on it and everybody knows how to build relationships of trust. that's the biggest difference because at the end of the day, you can have the best product. You can have the best process.

You can have the most patents. You can have the best infrastructure, the best technology, but it's the people. It's the people who know how to build, manage, and protect relationships of trust.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And what's interesting with that, Natalie, is you talked about culture, and culture at Deep Wealth in our nine step roadmap. Step two, X Factors, this is where a company has world class attributes that no one else is doing exactly like they're doing. Money can buy a lot of things. So in other Competitors can copy a lot of what another company is doing.

They can [00:25:00] buy the same technology, copy the same kind of marketing ads, even hire away some of the employees with all that money, but money cannot buy culture. Culture is like a fingerprint. It's unique for every company. And so you can tell me if I'm on base or off base because what I'm hearing you say is, The golden child of the industry, that company that everyone really trusts, even if their product may not be as good as the next company, has a better product, but they're not trusted.

One of the things that I heard you say was, hey, it starts with the culture of the company, being transparent, owning up to mistakes perhaps that are being made, having that dialogue with all stakeholders, especially the customers. So it's really, A CEO, a founder, business owner, entrepreneur, perhaps they've got the vision down.

Perhaps they're even trustworthy. But what I'm hearing you say is if it's not in the company culture, then it doesn't really make a difference at that point because the company is going to exhibit what it shouldn't be doing if it doesn't have that trust. How am I doing? I know I'm a little bit all over the map with

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: No, that's

Jeffrey Feldberg: you say

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: That's it. [00:26:00] Exactly. And you're making me think about a story. So as you mentioned, I have a new book coming out called Trusted, the Proven Path to Customer Loyalty and Business Growth. And it's a collection of stories of real companies, real situations, the challenges they had, what they did, how they overcame them.

And one of the stories and they're, Broken down by principle. So we have a chapter for each of the eight principles. And one of the stories was a company that. New they were the, in fact, the golden child beforehand. And then they had throughout the pandemic, they had a lot of supply chain issues, a lot of lead time issues, a lot of customers were upset with them and they wanted.

To be the most trusted in their industry, they wanted to be seen as trusted advisors. wanted to get their revenue growth back up. Customers were complaining, [00:27:00] and several of their long term customers were starting to talk to them about the potential of giving notice to get out of their contracts. Well, all of those are the reasons why I was brought in to talk to the leader and the leadership team. However, once I started talking to them all, I realized, in addition to all these business problems, There's a big culture problem here in that the employees were tired and the CEO said to me, when it was just him and I on the phone, he said, I feel like our whole culture is slipping away because so many people were they were tired, they were working from home.

And then when they came back to the office they did not have the same culture that they had before. So you are right a hundred percent, Jeffrey, that It is about the culture, [00:28:00] which can be loosely defined as the way we do things around here. And so for this company, what we did is we said, okay, well, we call it a regaining trust initiative because they needed to regain the trust of their customers.

So we measured the customer trust equity for their. With their external customers, but we also did a lot of things internally, because as you can imagine, trust starts inside the organization with the team starts with the team, and then The employees and high performing teams, the glue that keeps them together is trust.

Well, they had lost some of that, so our strategy we called regaining trust, but we also worked a lot internally around rebuilding the trust culture inside the company.

Jeffrey Feldberg: so amazing when you think about it, how a company can do everything right, but they're so busy. They're off in every direction. They're [00:29:00] ignoring the culture and wow, can that come home to roost in such a negative way? And that leads me to the next question. So I'm putting myself now as an entrepreneur or founder, perhaps even in startup mode, and I'm just getting out there.

I have a clean slate. I can really do anything. So for that person in the Deep Wealth nation, they're saying, yeah, Jeffrey, Natalie, I'm doing my startup. I have this clean slate. Natalie, what would you recommend? So that entrepreneur, that founder, in startup mode, where do they begin? What should they focus on first?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: question. have worked with lots of founders in startup mode, and I would say being intentional about wanting to be the most trusted in your industry. So one of my clients I'm thinking about his, say his first name is, starts with an M. So I'll say his first name is Marcel, which it's not, but I'll say it's Marcel.

And he was in a similar situation about 10 years ago. He said to me, we [00:30:00] want to be the one in our industry that everybody comes to. The one. We want to be the most trusted. Now, this is an IT company, so a company that's engineering based in the oceans industry. So, they sell equipment to companies that work in the oceans industry and when it was just himself and two other people, the advice I gave him is what I would give your listeners and founders.

And that is prioritize. Building strong relationships of trust with customers. Prioritize that and talk about that internally with your team. That's where I would start. And then once you start to have customers and once you start to have some momentum and sales and revenue, really keep that top of mind.

And make sure that everybody in the team [00:31:00] also prioritizes that. And everyone on the team has the trust building skills. They know how to apply the eight principles of trust. And they know what the customer perspective is. And they keep the customer center. have it aligned with not only the company vision, but the company purpose.

And know what they're doing and how it's helping to achieve the purpose for the company and for the customer and what their role is.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific advice there. And so let's go, if we could, from startup mode. I know a company that I've been in business, it could be five years, it could be 25 years, maybe even more than that. And human nature being what it is, things are working as the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'm not saying I agree with that.

That's the saying. And oftentimes just human nature, we can take things for granted. Oh yeah, we're trusted out there. Our clients [00:32:00] love us. The marketplace loves us. They trust us. For companies that are already well established, they have their rhythm, they have their culture, whatever that may be, maybe for better, perhaps for worse, they'll find out.

But what would be some of the common, I'll call them myths or misconceptions, generally speaking that companies have when it comes to trust? And how could these misconceptions be holding them back?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: Well, I think one misconception that's very common is that it's fragile and what that trust is fragile. And once you lose it, you can never get it back. And I think that is a myth. And I do believe that the number one thing, all businesses, whether you're a year old 10, 20, 50, 200 year olds. That when you adopt a forever mindset and you adopt a mind, meaning the relationship is a forever mindset, and you adopt a [00:33:00] mindset that you're always striving to build trust equity, that you're you will do better. So I think that is a big thing that yes, you can lose trust. However, when you have trust equity built up, when you make a mistake or something happens, you have that equity built up, which is why I mentioned early on in our conversation that it truly is.

A currency, if you will, and that, for current clients and or future buyers, you really want to know what is that trust equity they have built up, because it's a predictor of future success. So you know, I think that's a big myth, thinking that once you lose it, it's gone. I think another myth I sort of touched on, and that is that we put our trust in people, Jeffrey.

So when I say to you, [00:34:00] I trust you and I trust your company, well, my experience with your company is you it's in every interaction employees have, your colleagues have. It's an opportunity to build trust or destroy trust. So it is something you can manage and it is something that you can measure.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So interesting, really, if you think about it, every interaction, we can either build that trust, or if we have that trust, we can lose it. And there's a saying I'm not going to do so well with it, but it goes something along the lines that it can take really a lifetime to build up that friendship or that trust, and in seconds, we can just obliterate it and lose it all.

And I'm wondering, speaking of myths, you can tell me, Jeffrey, on base or off base, there seems to be a myth. If I have to take the time to build up trust, it's going to be slow. It's going to be long. I'm not going to be able to be innovative [00:35:00] and I'm just going to miss out on the market opportunity.

Let me get that market opportunity first and I'll figure everything else later. And I see you nodding your head back and forth. I'm not so sure about that, but where are you on that Natalie? To someone who's thinking that, what would you tell them?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: I'm not sure where I'd start. So, but, so, I guess I would start with, well, some folks may feel that, but that comes back to what we talked about, that people are skeptical and they're guarded. And they're more critical than ever before. And some people, it takes a really long time, Jeffrey, to earn their trust. Other people trust quicker, more freely. would say that there is nothing more important than building relationships of trust. And you can be really quick to build your product, but at the end of the day, someone has to buy it,

Okay? So if you don't have a [00:36:00] relationship with the future buyer or a partner or a wholesaler, why have the product?

It's a really thoughtful question. And I guess I would ask. Why do you think if you were asking that, where are you coming from? Tell me a bit more about what you think about that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah. And as you're talking about that, you actually bring me back in the book, Trusted, The Proven Path to Customer Loyalty and Business Growth, in the introduction and principle one, it actually reminded me of our step one, the big picture. You're talking about warning signals, hidden dangers, red flags, blind spots, how we have to listen carefully and we have to have compassion.

We've got to be curious, question, involve, all those things. And in the nine step roadmap, we're seeing the same thing. If you want to find that next market disruption, that problem, that's way out there right now. You're hearing just a murmur, but you can be the first one to act on that. You can really make a [00:37:00] difference.

It sounds very similar on the trust side. We're always proactively checking in with everyone that we're speaking to. How are we doing on the trust here? Am I doing something to have you feel confident or nervous? But what would be some of those blind spots or those warning signals or red flags That are saying, hey, not so quick.

You just spoke to so and they gave these signs here. There's a trust issue or there's a developing trust issue. What would that be?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: Oh, that's a great question. So here are a few blind spots. Employees misbehaving, employees not being empowered to fix a problem, situation, or mistake. For another colleague in another department or someone outside another blind spot could be your policies. They may not be very customer focused. The timeliness to get back to people a very common blind spot would [00:38:00] be in and around what they're doing in the community.

Do they have a social conscience? The number one blind spot though, for every company, is the employees. It's the employees, Jeffrey, how they communicate, how they behave and how they serve customers. So those customers could be internally, customers in other departments as if it's very large enterprise or externally.

That's the number one, what I call critical trust risk factor.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Interesting. And

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: That's the number one. We all have that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: so surprising that our team can really make the difference in a positive or not so positive way.

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: Yeah. Yeah. So we, really to overcome that is we just want to make sure that everyone knows about X Factors. Regardless of the type of business you have, whether you're a founder and you have two employees or you are the owner of a hundred person, a hundred year old company that [00:39:00] you've taken over from your father, who took it over from their father, who took it over from their father.

That you want to make sure that everyone knows how to build, manage, and protect relationships of trust. And it is a skill, you can learn it.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And that's actually a great segue before we're going to wrap up. You have your mastery program. You have your training. You have all different kinds of resources. So if I'm showing up either myself or myself and my team, what would I expect? How long is it going to take? What am I coming out with? What kind of transformation happens?

What's going on there with your method behind the madness?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: Well, depending on what your situation is, it takes different time. If you want to do the whole Trust Mastery program for a company we could do that in six to 12 weeks, two hours a week on Zoom. And that includes group coaching, [00:40:00] mastermind, and private one on one. I do that with companies.

And here's some examples of transformations. I had one, fellow, Richard, and he manages a Well, small company, 25 employees, engineering firm, very specialized in their area. And he shared with me he said, I just want everybody to care as much about the customer as I do.

I said, okay. And again, I was trying to get to what is the business problem? That's what I always try to do, Jeffrey. So what is the business problem? He said, well, he said, I want everybody to care as much as I do. I want people to be able to go to a meeting without me having to go and be in every single meeting.

Right now I'm terrified. And a lot of founders, and I share this because he was the founder, a lot of founders and business owners. So, these folks are very involved and are sort of the chief sales officer, and they're the chief ambassador for the company, along with the chief executive officer, and they're the best [00:41:00] salesperson.

Anyhow, he said, I'm terrified to put people in front. So, his team went through the Trust Mastery program and there was one gentleman that went in the program, that brilliant engineer, and he's a computer scientist, and he was very highly regarded within the company. However, he didn't want to send him ever to a client meeting without him because when he would go to client meetings, he would answer every question like this. No. Yes. No. Yes. And he didn't realize the impact he was having. So two weeks into the Trust Mastery Program, we did a self assessment. And he then realized how the way he was communicating was impacting other people. And then we did an exercise which I call an empathy [00:42:00] map, this exercise we do in the Trust Mastery Program.

And He had a complete epiphany. He said, Oh, I didn't realize that the customer wasn't a ticket number. I just thought of them as a ticket number or a file number or ABC company. I never really thought about them as Jeffrey, who has A life outside of work and when I'm answering the questions hmm, they're thinking, well, is it gonna help or hinder?

He just had no idea. He did not have. Empathy skills. He didn't have any, what a lot of folks say, are soft skills. So, the transformation happened pretty quick for him. And what was pretty incredible is they had about 12 people, I believe it was 12 people in this Trust Mastery program, and all the folks were in different positions.

They all had similar, Transformations. And within about 30 days [00:43:00] of the program finishing, they did the program over multiple weeks, clients started In fact, one of the clients said to the owner, wow, like what's happening there? It's almost like, when you go golf with one of your friends and you see that they have a great swing all of a sudden, like what are you behind the scenes?

And. So, clients started noticing, but more importantly, for the owner, is they started seeing it on the top line. Clients were doing additional projects with them because their team was what I call sales sensitive and they realized, oh, okay, if this is what Jeffrey needs, we should suggest A, B, and C. So they became leaders.

If you will, in business development, this group of people that went through the Trust Mastery Program. So that's an example of a transformation. And actually, every chapter in my new book, [00:44:00] Trusted, talks about a transformation, if you will. A light bulb that goes off for someone and then what the business result is.

Because at the end of the day, I'm all about helping, like you are, business owners and founders and leaders grow. That's what I love. Grow your customer base, grow your business, grow your revenue.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's so interesting. I wouldn't have connected the dots. You just did it for us, how really having the emotional intelligence is one of the terms that's used out there. It sounds like this particular client didn't necessarily have that, or at least wasn't aware of that, but going through that trust process.

Opened them up and wow, the results are speaking for themselves. So that's remarkable. And so let me ask you this before we go into wrap up mode, Nali, is there a question I didn't ask or a topic that we haven't covered or even a message that you'd like to get out to the Deep Wealth Nation?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: There's two things that, I think that would be important for the Deep Wealth Nation. [00:45:00] One is that you really can measure trust equity. You can measure The customers trust in you and this quantifiable score can be used as a key performance indicator and the X Factors.

It's an asset that you can then talk about with future buyers, because I know part of what you do is help companies in that state with future buyers. The other message that I think is really important for business owners and founders to remember is that everybody on the team, every single one of us, every single one of your employees.

Has a part to play and the customer's decision to trust.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So true. And Deep Wealth Nation, in the show notes again, it's all points and click. When you go there, when you click one of the links, it'll take you to the Client Trust Index. And this is something that Natalie developed. It has really taken the business world by storm in terms of what [00:46:00] it's doing. Why not go through that?

Better yet, you can speak to Natalie about that, see what's going on and really see where you stand, what you need to be doing, probably some things that you haven't even thought of that you can begin to add into the mix. So, with all that said, now, Leigh Anne, you're absolutely right, really, any one of those areas could be an episode in and of itself.

Sadly, though, we need to go into wrap up mode, and it's a tradition here on the Deep Wealth Podcast. It's really an honor, it's a privilege, where every guest, I get to ask the same question. It's a fun one. Let me set this up for you. When you think of the movie Back to the Future. You have that magical DeLorean car that can take you to any point in time.

So imagine now, Natalie, it's tomorrow morning, you look outside your window, not only do you see the DeLorean car curbside, the door is open, it's waiting for you to hop on in what you do, and you now go back to any point in your life. Natalie, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be, what are you telling your younger self in terms of life wisdom or life lessons, or hey Natalie, do this but don't do that?

[00:47:00] What would it sound like?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: I think that it's about being persistent and resilient and continually focusing on that, what you want to do and why you're doing it.. . 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Talk about really an ethos to have your North Star, wherever you're going, whatever direction you're doing. I mean, isn't that really what it's all about in the first place as entrepreneurs? We're out there solving problems, making the world go round. Not always easy, that persistence and that resilience.

As I like to say, resilience trumps resources. So all the money in the world doesn't add up to what resilience can do. So some terrific advice for Deep Wealth Nation, be persistent and resilient. And now Lee, I'm done. If a listener has a question, they want to speak with you, better yet, they want to work with you.

Where's the best place online someone can reach you?

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: You can reach me on LinkedIn under Natalie Doyle Oldfield or go to my website and you can find me at [00:48:00] SuccessThroughTrust. com or you know what, Jeffrey, you can just send me an email, noldfield at SuccessThroughTrust. com. Yeah.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, Deep Wealth Nation, did you hear that? It doesn't get any better. Natalie has shared her email. Talk about trust. You're walking the talk there. Take Natalie up on her offer. Speak with her. See what she has to say. You'll walk away the better for it. Well Natalie, it's official, congratulations, this is a wrap, and as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe.

Thank you so much.

Natalie Doyle Oldfield: Thanks for having me. It was great to chat with you today. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? 

So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. 

Did you find this episode helpful? 

Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? 

And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these [00:49:00] episodes coming to you.

Are you ready for it? 

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Thank you so much. 

God bless.