During Covid’s peak, my TV comfort food was Maine Cabin Masters, a series where a tight-knit crew of beer-drinking Deadhead Mainers descend on lakefront cabins to fix them up so they can serve their families for another generation (it’s true, I love the show).
The homeowners (cabinowners?) all have visions for making their cabins a little bigger, for bringing in a little more light, for updating electric and plumbing, but first – before the crew can focus on transformation – they have to battle a leaky roof and a rotten foundation.
The roofs and foundations didn’t suddenly need urgent repair from a single Nor’easter or a big dump of snow. Their collapses started years earlier. One unnoticed drip at a time.
There’s a similar kind of leak that can attack the structural integrity of your business: the “trust leak.” No single “trust leak” will damage your reputation or your business immediately, but with time, they will eat at your structure and leave you weak.
Trust leaks often begin with things you may think aren’t hugely important. Things that are internal matters or issues that you’d simply rather not spotlight. Price hikes. Unexplained leadership changes. Ownership changes. Sunsetting software.
Whether the decision to be silent is strategic (“We’re better off if no one notices”) or logistical (“We want to announce this with something else later”), one day you might find your roof caved in by an irate customer (or influential rival) posting something like this on Reddit, LinkedIn, their podcast, etc.:
“Why didn’t they tell us?! What else are they hiding?! What’s going on with those guys?!”
What Exactly Is a “Trust Leak”?
A trust leak is simply a business change that feels deceptive because it was never clearly communicated. It doesn’t matter why you did what you did. There’s a good chance it will look like you were hiding something.
Here are five common trust leaks we see and how you can prevent them.
1. Quiet Pricing Tweaks
Nothing corrodes goodwill faster than the late discovery of higher prices or a customer discovering they’ve been paying a vendor for an unused service.
Slack is amazing at building trust here: When someone leaves a team, Slack automatically adjusts their bill. AWS is at the other end. Examples abound of companies that woke up one day to find they were paying way more than they thought. (Our client, Summit, helped Basecamp parent 37Signals with this challenge. Let me know if you want to see if they can do the same for you.)
It doesn’t matter if you had no choice but to raise your rates. An unannounced change reads like a money grab. A good comms approach here would be to explain what’s changing, why it’s necessary, and when it takes effect—well before it hits.
You don’t need to trumpet it with a media push, but you should say something. A short, plain-language note and an easy-to-scan FAQ can go a long way.
2. Change of Ownership
This leak is particularly relevant when the new owner is a private equity firm, given the bad rap they have. But while some private equity strategies are distasteful, stripping companies for parts, loading them with debt, and leaving employees and customers high and dry when the inevitable bankruptcy hits, most firms bring the financial resources required to power new innovation and increase strength.
Whether PE or some other owner, you should proudly announce the change along with your shared vision for the future—new product innovations, a financially stronger business, better customer support, etc.
3. Key Person Departures or Layoffs
Companies will often have leadership or employee changes due to some sort of negative event. A C-level employee might be removed for falling short of goals. Layoffs might occur due to a difficult fundraising environment.
Some companies may decide they’re best served by not talking about changes like this at all. But the team-change trust leak might be riskiest of all. Key people (like a CEO) coming or going, and team numbers going up or down, are both seen as barometers of success or the opposite. If kept quiet, people who later learn of this sort of thing will think: “What are they hiding? Are they a sinking ship?”
Thankfully, you can avoid this problem with communication, perhaps a note to key stakeholders that shares the news, explains what’s next, and reaffirms your vision.
Depending on the nature of the departure, the level of the executive, or the size of the company, a comms team might also undergo an internal Q&A or put another executive in front of the media to drive your key messages forward. The objective is simple: people change; the strategy doesn’t.
4. Unannounced Product or Feature Sunsets
“Rip the band-aid” is good advice for removing band-aids, but not for sunsetting products or features. When ChatGPT launched GPT-5, people were furious that they lost access to their friendly and supportive friend, 4o.
This led to a huge wave of resentment aimed at the company, particularly from its most frequent users. We can argue about the mental health benefits of dropping the obsequious version 4o (many users were in unhealthy relationships with it, to the point of psychotic breaks), but the lesson is real. No matter how much bigger and better the new version of your product, the prior version will have its loyalists.
Bring in your comms team to help plan the change well ahead of time, to build messaging around the change, and to give people a path forward: migration guide, API parity map, and a reasonable timeline they can plan around. You can even leverage this situation to start talking about future products, however far off they are.
5. Disappearing Promises
I used to work at a company where the classic biz dev strategy was to talk up a big opportunity, and then, when that opportunity inevitably fell apart, the BDR would introduce some new opportunity in hopes that the first was forgotten.
And for years, that same company frequently promised its customers it would soon provide them with a new software platform, with each new announcement neglecting to reference prior promises. In the end the new platform was never released, and the company collapsed.
A smart comms strategy would be to speak honestly to why an expected new thing didn’t happen. Share the obstacles that caused the delay but within the context of you being a well-run company making smart decisions for all of your stakeholders.
A Strong House Is Built to Last
You generally don’t lose trust because of a single event. It’s because you let things go unaddressed for too long. You hope that no one notices your broken promises. You don’t explain when key people leave. You go silent when strategies change (as if no one had ever pivoted before).
So many of these things just can’t be avoided. But when bad things (or things that you worry may be perceived as bad) happen, standing up and being honest with your customers and other stakeholders will ensure your company has a strong foundation and a sound roof, ensuring success for generations to come.
