How do you build reputation? How do you gain trust and sustain it?

These questions are as fundamental for every organization as they are for every individual personally.

Trusting a company is even more critical from a buyer perspective. How can enterprise buyers gauge if their vendor partner has a robust internal strategy and thus is able to deliver on its core promises? Further, what characteristics indicate that they will be able to sustain investor trust? What are the indicators of visionary, forward-looking internal leadership?

My latest report, “Elements Of Reputation: Seven Traits That Indicate A Thoughtful Tech GTM Strategy,” analyzes some common threads that are characteristic to the most well-perceived organizations. Specifically, I explore seven key ingredients of a successful go-to-market (GTM) strategy and what each of them means for buyers.

Often, we see companies follow glamorous tech trends and poster examples of star startups or profitable consumer companies and completely overlook the need to address their individual industry’s distinctions.

And other times, companies fail to define their own market and, worse, themselves. Soon, someone else will define it for them, and suddenly they find themselves in an industry they didn’t want to be in.

In the report, I explore how a buyer can see through some of these distractions in their partners. As we turn into the next decade, the modern high-tech business landscape is drastically different from how it looked like when man landed on the moon, just a few decades ago.

According to a Forrester survey, out of 2,486 services decision makers whose firms have hired business/management consultants, agencies, technology services firms, or other third-party services firms in the past 12 months, 21% of respondents indicated that the “IT manager” is among the most important decision makers for a third-party service provider choice. So what should an IT manager look for in the partner they seek?

Even how customers can pay for products and services in technology are evolving faster than ever — newer pricing and service models add to the complexity of decision-making processes for every enterprise buyer.

Thus, in an increasingly complex technology and organizational landscape, it is important for aspirational organizations in high tech to portray some of these signs — not only to build trust with their customers but also to exhibit signs of a healthy internal strategy.