More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
If we are seeking advice, if we are going to make a significant commitment to another entity, we want a counterparty that on some level we “know,” in order to have trust. We want accountability; we want to know who is behind the relationship; we want names, and we want to put faces, depth, and values to those names.
If there are fewer personal interactions, then the weight we place on the remaining interactions becomes even greater.
If all we measure is “trust,” then we have no practical way of addressing the problem—is it the propensity to trust on the part of the truster, or is it trustworthiness of the trustee?
Trust increases when one party (the ‘ “truster”) takes a risk by trusting the other, and the other party (the ‘ “trustee”) proves themselves to be trustworthy.
Aspiring trusted advisors are often tempted to focus solely on being trustworthy, and not on trusting. This is a mistake.
If you want to build trust, you must learn to play the proactive, risk-taking role of truster as well as that of trustee.
you don’t get the chance to employ advisory skills until you can get someone to trust you enough to share their problems with you.
three basic skills that a trusted advisor needs: (1) earning trust; (2) giving advice effectively; and (3) building relationships.
“the problem is rarely what the client said it was in the first meeting.”
The trusted advisor is the person the client turns to when an issue first arises, often in times of great urgency: a crisis, a change, a triumph, or a defeat.
The trusted advisor acts variously as a mirror, a sounding board, a confessor, a mentor, and even, at times, the jester or fool.
This ability to focus on the other person is evident in virtually all the trusted advisors we have encountered.
A common trait of all these trusted advisor relationships is that the advisor places a higher value on maintaining and preserving the relationship itself than on the outcomes of the current transaction, financial and otherwise.
advice giving is almost never an exclusively logical process. Rather, it is almost always an emotional “duet,” played between the advice giver and the client.
It is not enough for a professional to be right: An advisor’s job is to be helpful.
Acts of understanding and respect should precede the giving of advice.
If we are to influence a parent or a client, we must find a way to prove that we are trying to help, not to criticize.
the successful advisor assumes responsibility for the proper mutual understanding.
To earn a relationship, you must go first. You must give a favor to earn a favor. The one you are trying to influence must visibly perceive that you are willing to be the first to make an investment in the relationship in order to earn and deserve the relationship.
To make anyone believe something about you, you must demonstrate, not assert.
Before you go into any meeting with a client (or prospective client), figure out the two or three things you want the client to absolutely believe about you by the end of the meeting.
At the core of earning someone’s trust is convincing them that you are dealing with them as a human being, and not as a member of a group or class or subset.
One of the biggest mistakes that advisors make is to think that their client always wants their advice. This is dangerously wrong.
Earning the right has three parts: Understanding the client’s situation Understanding how the client feels about it Convincing the client that we understand both of the previous two items
In business conversations, as in friendly or romantic conversations, people don’t always say what they mean.
To be an effective advice giver, you must work at making sure that what you intended to say was actually heard that way.
It is more often the case than not that you will need to ask for your clients’ help in solving problems. Don’t be afraid to ask for it.
Demands are usually resented, while requests for help usually evoke a positive response. It is an interesting feature of the human condition that we often resent those who have done us a favor, because we now owe them something in return. In contrast, we feel kindly disposed to those we have helped.
There is no more certain way to make somebody think you are fascinating and enjoyable to be with than to keep them talking about themselves.
there are few things more destructive to friendship, romance, or trust than the feeling that you are being taken for granted.
“You’ll have more fun and success by focusing on helping other people achieve their goals than you will by focusing on your own goals.”
As Dale Carnegie said, “The only way to influence someone is to find out what they want, and show them how to get it.”
it takes self-confidence to wait and believe that after listening and brainstorming, we will still have ample time and talent to discover the technical answer.
Just as wanting all the credit and none of the blame is self-focused, so is accepting all the responsibility.
Ego strength allows one to focus on the matter at hand, and not on who gets blame or credit for getting there.
The right to solve problems is earned by informed listening, which in turn is driven by curiosity.
Inclusive professionalism means acknowledging and engaging the professionalism of others. It means that the unique talents of each party should be brought to bear jointly for the greater good. It means joint responsibility for the effectiveness of work.
If you treat people as THEY, as objects, or as “others,” they in turn will treat you instrumentally. It’s completely predictable and unavoidable.
We are not loyal to self-interested people—we don’t trust them. Which means we are always likely to leave them for a better price—or for someone we actually trust.
The ‘ “trick” for professionals is not so much to pick the right values as it is to be assiduous in applying them.
it is often easier to first change one’s actions (adopt caring behaviors) as a way to achieve caring than it is to change one’s mental state (which takes more time).
If you try to “fake it” (i.e., use the tactics without really caring), but always act that way, you’ll probably end up creating something that is indistinguishable from the genuine article, either to the client or to yourself.
As Gerald Weinberg said in his book The Secrets of Consulting, “The trick of earning trust is to avoid all tricks.”
trust has multiple dimensions. I might trust your expertise, but distrust (profoundly) your motives (i.e., self-orientation). I might trust your brilliance but dislike your style of dealing with me (your intimacy).
Credibility isn’t just content expertise. It’s content expertise plus “presence,” which refers to how we look, act, react, and talk about our content.
while most providers sell on the basis of technical competence, most buyers buy at least partly on the basis of emotion.
The best service professionals excel at two things in conveying credibility: anticipating needs, and speaking about needs that are commonly not articulated.
Don’t tell lies, or even exaggerate. At all. Ever.
Judgments on reliability are strongly affected, if not determined, by the number of times the client has interacted with you. We tend to trust the people we know well, and assign less trustworthiness to those with whom we have not interacted.
We unconsciously form opinions about someone’s reliability by the extent to which they seem to anticipate our own habits, expectations, routines, and quirks.
