Why Trust Matters?

By Andrea Ross, a designer & facilitator of Trusted Advisor Workshops

The one question I get asked the most from participants in workshops is, “How can I get my client to trust me?”

Well, it is certainly a good question.

First of all, it is important to change your perspective from self to others. It is difficult at times to put clients first when we are bogged down with KPI’s, revenue targets while struggling with the anxieties of not having enough hours in the day. All these could sometimes compromise your integrity when it comes to servicing your client.

If I asked you to pen down all the benefits you would receive out of a trusted relationship with your client, I bet you a dollar, that the very same client would write down the exact same benefits. So why do we struggle to be trusted advisors to our (internal and external) stakeholders?

...there is a tendency to view the more rational components of trust as being the most critical at building trust -- being credible and reliable only because these have more air time.

One reason is that, there is a tendency to view the more rational components of trust as being the most critical at building trust -- being credible and reliable only because these have more air time. But the challenge with this is that we can’t rely on only those components alone -- it is just not enough to build trustworthiness.

I have been passionate on the topic of “Trust” throughout my career and especially during my search and selection days. Specialising on senior finance within the financial services industry in Singapore had required me to build trust with my stakeholders (i.e line managers & HR of a client, candidates that were looking for roles, maintaining relationships with candidates that I had placed or those that were not looking for a role right now but may well be in the future).

Gaining their trust within a sales environment goes against what we all think -- it takes time. However in reality, we must actually learn the tools to expedite trust when you are in a sales role or you are in jeopardy of missing out.

That is where the non-rational components of trust come in. What do I mean by the non-rational? A simple way to describe the missing part of the jigsaw, is to introduce you to a leading expert in the field of trust with more than 20 years of experience in consulting within this field -- Charles Green. As part of the Trusted Advisor group, Charles regularly writes trust-based articles, blogs, webinars and podcasts to continue spreading the word on how to build trustworthiness.

Last summer, I took a trip to New Jersey to meet the best-selling author of “The Trusted Advisor” & “Trust Based Selling” to explore further the benefits of applying The Trust Equation to executive leadership development workshops.

As Charles wrote in his 2007 “Trust in Business: The Core Concepts” article; The Trust Equation is an analytical model of the components of trustworthiness:

Trust is a bi-lateral relationship -- one trusts, and the other is trusted. While the two are correlated, they are not the same thing. The trust equation is a model for the second -- the one who would be trusted. It is about trustworthiness.

Those four variables can be described as Credibility, Reliability, Intimacy and Self-Orientation.

Credibility

Credibility has to do with the words we speak. In a sentence, we might say, “I can trust what she says about intellectual property”; the information she provides is valid, persuasive and believable.

Reliability

By contract, reliability has to do with actions. We might say for example, “If he says he’ll deliver the project tomorrow, I trust him, because he’s dependable” -- those actions are justifiable and supportable.

Intimacy

Intimacy refers to the safety or security that we feel when entrusting someone with something. We might say, “I can trust her with that information, she’s never violated my confidentiality before, and she would never embarrass me” – there is a strong rapport between us, a mutual understanding and confidentiality kept.

Self-orientation

Self-orientation refers to the focus of the person in question. In particular, whether a person’s focus is primarily on one’s self on the other person. We might say, “I can’t trust him on this deal. I don’t think he cares enough about me and he’s just focused on what he gets out of the deal”.

Increasing the value of the factors in the numerator increases the value of trust. Increasing the value of the denominator – that is, self-orientation – decreases the value of trust.

The world is ready for a different breed of executive with transformational trust-building skills that not only can inspire relationships, but also deliver outstanding results and put the clients interest first over their own.

If your organisation is keen to transform its trust-building skills, please reach out to Andrea Ross at [email protected] or alternatively at [email protected].

For further details on Trusted Advisor one-day workshop that is geared towards senior executives/ board members within sales, business development, account & client relationship focused roles, reach out to Andrea Ross on +65 92720574.

Andrea Ross is the founder of The Career Establishment (www.thecareerestablishment.com) and designs & facilitates Trusted Advisor workshops on behalf of Trusted Advisor LLC in Asia Pacific.