I Depend on You… But Do I Trust You?

In my last rant, I addressed the topic of dependency. If you missed that story, click here. End-users are dependent on Distributors to deliver what they ordered. Distributors are dependent on Suppliers to complete that transaction. Suppliers are dependent on Distributors to bring them orders... and of course pay the invoices on time. We are all dependent on each other!

At times, this need for dependency, although necessary, is just a bit scary. And our dependency need sets the stage nicely for this rant, which addresses another industry relevant topic... TRUST. That is the second part of the equation that goes hand in hand with being dependent.

This is a topic that I have wanted to cover for a while. Just in the past few months there have been big controversies highlighting trust issues. There was a big controversy over PPAI's Hosted End-User Buyers Program at the PPAI Expo, which ultimately was rescinded. There was a website that calls out "Shady Suppliers" with a tagline, Stealing Your Clients Like a Thief in the Night. If you missed that story, click here. It's my feeling that the root of these issues is a lack of trust. Maybe there is a justification for a lack of TRUST, but the question I ask is, where does this leave us as an industry if we can't trust one another?

To address this important topic for the FreePromoTips Community, I called on past PPAI Chairman of the Board, Paul Kiewiet, MAS. Paul is passionate about our industry and is a seasoned promotional marketing veteran. Paul "gets it" and has covered trust in great detail in an article we are featuring on FreePromoTips.com.

Paul notes:
"Our industry has changed. Our channels have changed. The ability to keep secrets has changed. The needs of the market have changed. Our value propositions have changed. I propose to you that lack of trust is a symptom of the race for the bottom. The acceptance of commoditization results in price over loyalty, price over relationship, price over value."