CEO, co-founder, and chairman of Nav.com, Levi King has learnt one thing from a couple of decades of building businesses, from manufacturing electric signs in his early twenties to running a fintech platform that helps small business owners manage their credit: it’s that trust is the currency that matters most.
“And trust starts with truly knowing your customer: not just what they buy, but who they are, what keeps them up at night, and what they need from you that they can’t get anywhere else. I started with a beat-up pickup and a boom truck, hustling for jobs in an industry where everyone was at least 30 years older than me. Back then, getting a customer’s trust was as much about showing up as it was about doing a good job,” he added.
“I was young, green, and in a world where relationships mattered. Some customers would throw me a bone—let me fix a sign, see if I could handle it. If I did, maybe they’d trust me to build or install one next time. But that first job always came down to trust: if you don’t have it, you don’t get the business. Looking back, those early days taught me the fundamentals of customer trust. It’s a relationship, person to person. You have to earn it, and you do that by being reliable, honest, and present. If you want to know your customer, you have to be willing to listen, to show up, and to care about their problems as much as your own,” King remarked.
Moving Up The Value Chain: Trust And Complexity
As King’s businesses grew, the stakes got higher. He ran a financial services business for Spanish speakers, selling insurance, tax prep, and mortgages.
“That was still a face-to-face business. It’s a lot easier for someone to trust you with their Social Security number when they’re sitting across from you in a respectable office, sipping free coffee, maybe referred by a friend. They know you’re real. You’re part of their community,” he said.
However, as the world shifted online, everything changed. At Nav, most of King’s customers are not interested in knowing his name or caring about any other details about him.
“Yet we’re asking for their Social Security number, EIN, asking them to connect their checking accounts, trusting our recommendations on loans and credit cards, decisions that could mean tens of thousands of dollars in interest. The stakes are higher, and the opportunities for trust are fewer. In a digital world full of scams and fraud, earning trust is more important and more difficult than ever,” he said.
Building Trust With Customers Sans Handshake
At Nav, King and his team give small business owners free access to the data lenders use to judge them—personal and business credit scores, cash flow analysis. It doesn’t just provide data; it helps them understand it and improve their profiles.
“We use our love for data to make recommendations that save them time and money, sometimes even doing the hard stuff for them,” he stated.
King also advocates businesses to beef up their online presence, suggesting, “These days, if someone hears about your business, the first thing they do is Google you or check LinkedIn to see if you’re legit. That means your online presence—such as your articles, your reputation, and your reviews—matters as much as any handshake ever did. If people see you’re regularly producing content, being quoted by trusted outlets, and sharing your expertise, it builds credibility. It’s the digital version of being “belly-to-belly,” or in other words, showing up in the modern village square.”
Listen First, Sell Second
Getting to know your customer isn’t just about what you say; it’s about what you hear. Some of the best feedback King’s ever got came from listening in on customer calls or reading their suggestions.
Nav had customers telling the venture that the latter needs to do a better job showing what the average Nav customer is like, what they go through.
“That’s gold. If you want to know your customer, you have to be humble enough to listen and adapt,” King noted.
Authenticity Is Non-Negotiable
People can smell a discrepancy a mile away, especially small business owners. They’re used to being sold to, used to people overpromising and under delivering. If a business wants to build trust, it needs to show up as its authentic self.
“That means being honest about what you can and can’t do, owning your mistakes, and being willing to say ‘I don’t know’ when you don’t have the answer. I’ve learnt that customers don’t expect perfection. They expect honesty and effort. If you’re real with them, they’ll be real with you,” King concluded.