Valuable Advice, Based on Trust

Intro

I continue to think about the power of valuable advice.

With all the positive outcomes stemming from valuable advise, it requires a base of connection that allows for productive collaboration and open dialogue.

What does it come down to? Trust. 

Trust is the foundation for so much in life, and even more critical when you’re allowing someone into your world. Sharing intimate details about your business—private information, historical journey, metrics, financials, feedback founders have received, and information about the team. 

The Story

If you can make genuine connections with leaders internally or prospective clients that you can help, you have the opportunity to establish real trust. Trust is the unlock to the value you offer. Trust, coupled with value and desired change creates customers who want to continue to work with you. That change, a transformation for the leader, their team, and/or business, and results are only possible through a meaningful level of open trust that allows for the barriers to come down. 

Trust has made me think back to where this has played out in my experience. There are so many, but one example jumps out from 2007. After a year, year and a half or so, establishing trust with a primary client, through delivery, open communication, meeting my client stakeholder where they were, and consistently showing up—in person, email, by phone, and positioning myself to be top of mind as a valuable resource, being there when they needed me. 

In this example, after building this trust and a pattern of performance on a lot of smaller open positions, the client brought up a new project. This project was the biggest I had ever been involved with directly to date, allowing me to lead it and learn the ins and outs of the business at a much deeper level beyond recruiting talent. 

This one project nearly tripled our margins on the account, provided years of income for the firm, and a great case study on developing a services program through a staffing provider, by helping optimize from a legacy industry service specialist that was a massive contract—costing potentially 10x more for the same work, compared to what we were charging. Not to mention, this project helped me advance personally and professionally.

For this example, I had started my career with this firm gaining staffing/recruiting experience, yet this experience taught me a deeper more strategic level—professional services, primarily human capital solutions moving towards managed services. I learned the evolution of services and the bundling/unbundling based on circumstances, market, price, and relationships. 

This experience taught me:

• Relationships run the world

• Sometimes the real value is the people

• Your service better offer something beyond talent

• Services are only as good as the strategic nature of the partnership and trust

• The exact same deliverable can be packaged up in so many ways—sometimes $20MM is getting you what $2M can get you through a different lens

• Great questions can lead to great outcomes 

• Presence over perfect—show up, be a great partner, and deliver what you say you will

This project ended up being my entry point into services, beyond transactional fulfillment. This was a game changer for me personally, and this project ended up being a jumping-off point, launching my career in solutions and managed services. 

https://www.eidigital.com

Closing

What you want is on the other side of showing up consistently, building trust, and sticking around long enough with a presence, likability, and value that allows you an opportunity to earn an opportunity from this genuine trust. It takes time and persistence, and. It requires a level of genuine care and connection, that doesn’t come in a must win, must sell, must succeed right now. Meaningful work and can tae a meaningful journey to get there.  

None of this would have been possible without a relationship delivering valuable advice centered on trust. 

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Supporting Content - For More to the Story

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About the Author, Graham Peelle