IQ, EQ and now...TQ

Yes, there was a Trust Quotient (TQ) even before unscrupulous investment bankers caused consumers to question everyone's truth in the marketplace.  But your mother's advice to "Just trust your gut" has morphed. Now the world even has "trust consultants."

Today we're connected worldwide, but it can be impersonal. In this age of social media relationships and speed networking opportunities, people are trying to determine who to trust (because that's who we want to do business with) as well as how we can best exhibit our ability to be trusted (so people will want to do business with us). 

In 2001 David H. Maister, with Charles H. Green and Robert W. Galford, published The Trusted Advisor, stating that professionals must earn the trust of their clients and keep re-earning it throughout their careers. They broke trust into component parts that, when assembled, could move an outside advisor to a client's inner sanctum. Green's work is the basis for a TQ self-diagnostic formula/equation from The Trusted Advisor. Basically the equation is "credibility + reliability + intimacy and a low level of self orientation = TQ (trustworthiness).

In 2008 Jeffrey Gitomer came out with his Little Teal Book of Trust: How to Become a Trusted Advisor in Sales, Business, and Life. He says there's no simple formula for trust, but gives a step-by-step game plan to achieve it. This year Andrew Sobel  published All For One: 10 Strategies for Building Trusted Client Partnership. He also has a model for developing enduring client relationships.

And on Friday of this week, there's a Trust Summit in New York City, featuring four leading consultants on trust in the business world: Maister and Green (mentioned above) and social media gurus Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, co-authors of the 2009 book Trust Agents; Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. Brogan and Green say the most valuable online currency isn't the dollar, but trust itself. 

The economic recession has created changes internally and externally for most companies. Perhaps the people who loved doing business with you and only you are gone from a client's company. Or maybe clients have cut back on purchases of products and services you painstakingly provided in the past. Some might have pulled projects in-house to provide work for their own employees. Whatever the case, take a minute to think about trust and its role in solidifying your business reputation.