Are You Settling for Trustworthy When You Could Be a Trusted Advisor?

Being trustworthy is a good thing. But that alone won't make you a trusted advisor. To convert a trusted business relationship into a trusted advisor relationship, you must go one step further. You have to go beyond just being trusted; you have to reverse roles with your client and learn to trust them as well.

Most professionals will agree that trust is a major plus. If a client trusts you, they are predisposed to do many things: take your advice, share more information with you—and buy from you rather than from a less-trusted competitor.

The obvious deduction seems to be that we should strive to be trusted by our clients. Pushing that simple logic, we can become trusted by: a) getting them more likely to trust (us), and b) making ourselves more worthy of being trusted—i.e. being more trustworthy.

But in that simple sequence, we forget one thing. Deep, rich trust is a two-way street. If we spend all our time being trustworthy, and our client spends all their time trusting, the game soon runs out of juice. After a period of time, the client wonders if this is really a trust-based relationship—or just a pleasant but lucky coincidence of similar styles.