My wife and I love hiking and camping with our dogs. It’s our escape. So, last year, we took a trip up to the beautiful Grayson Highlands in western Virginia for a quick weekend trip with a couple friends. Hiking along those exposed ridges at a relatively high altitude provide some of the best views you’ll find in southern Appalachia. The first day was absolutely gorgeous. After a long day of backpacking, we decided to set up camp just off the ridge in a little patch of woods. Not long after we set up camp, we had to turn in early because of a constant drizzle from a small storm. We were all wiped out, so it wasn’t a problem. At least, not for the first couple hours. That small storm turned into a massive thunderstorm and it was blowing right over the ridge we were camping on.

My wife, Jessie, shook me, but I was already awake. Nobody could sleep through that noise. “It sounds like lightning is right on top of us!” she said. It was loud, but I wasn’t concerned. “Count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder. The lightning is a mile away for every 5 seconds.” I recalled from my time in the Boy Scouts. At this point, we were at 15 seconds. 3 miles. No problem. It was loud, but we were safe and that put Jessie at ease. The dogs, not so much.

Unfortunately, that 15 seconds quickly turned into 10, then 5, then 3. “Half a mile? We’ll be fine. At least we’re not out on top of the exposed ridge!” I thought to myself. Jessie, on the other hand, was not feeling great about the situation. She gets sweaty palms when she’s anxious and, at this point, they were sopping wet. That’s when it happened. CRACK! The light was blinding and the sound deafening. Zero seconds. It was right on top of us. Then again. CRACK! This one was different. It was followed by a long, low creaking moan and hard, leafy thud. A tree just fell in the forest and we heard it.

The next day, we were a little shaken up, but everyone was OK, even the dogs. We found the fallen tree about a hundred yards away and decided that we’d never camp on a ridge during a storm again. We hiked back down to our cars and couldn’t wait to get home to sleep with a solid roof over our heads.

This is a true story, mostly. The trip, the storm, and the nervous wife all happened. The falling tree, not so much. It seems like a plausible story, but it’s fiction: The same kind of fiction that your customers receive from other, less-reputable contractors. Your customers have been burned by bad contractors that told them plausible stories about their building assets just to, ultimately, be disappointed by bad outcomes like unexpected equipment failures and exorbitant expenses for unnecessary work. They are wary of touching that hot stove again.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? An age-old debate. Sorry, I don’t have an answer for you on this one. I do, however, have another question for you. If you tell your customer a tree falls in a forest, will they believe you? Those other contractors have made it difficult. How about if you show them this?

Absolutely, they’re going to believe you because those disreputable contractors have made your customers skeptical. You can write pages describing the work you perform for them or spend hours on the phone with them, but they’ll still question you regardless of your company’s reputation. Instead, show them. Show them pictures of the leaking system. Show them videos of the failing asset. You should even show them when things aren’t broken just to reassure them that their equipment is in good condition. Show them everything. You’ll stand out from all the other contractors as transparent and trustworthy and they’ll be happy to pay a premium for your reliable services.

Sound like a lot of work ot show pictures and videos from every job to the customer? It’s not. Technology makes it easy. All of your techs are used to taking pictures and videos with their smartphones. Getting that rich media in front of your customers is another challenge altogether. Ad-hoc emails with attachments are not the answer. Instead, let software like ServiceTrade, solve that problem in a scalable way. ServiceTrade logs every picture and every video your techs take and automatically organizes them against jobs and quotes that are effortless to share with your customers. For example, after your tech snaps a couple pictures and a quick video of an equipment issue and collects the customer’s signature, all of that information, the pictures, the video, and the signed work order, will automatically be sent to the customer’s inbox. That’ll show them!