I’ve been having a lot of conversations with clients lately about how to create a culture of trust. Here’s a four-part “test” to see how well you’re doing on that front.

In The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, Charlie Green and I asserted that there are two basic dimensions of trust-based organizations: virtues and values. Virtues are the personal qualities that high-trust people embody—tools like the trust equation help here. Values are what guide the decisions and day-to-day actions in the organizations people work in. We said that in high-trust cultures, virtues and values are consistent and mutually reinforcing.

Old and unchallenged ways of thinking lead to ineffective ways of being. Consider three common myths about trust-building that could be standing in your way.

Myth #1: Trust takes time. You know the saying, “Trust takes a long time to build, but only a moment to destroy.”

Masterful listening is one of the fastest ways to build intimacy in any relationship. It’s also an essential (albeit unexpected) driver of influence. To help the cause, there’s another new eBook on the street—a hand-picked collection of simple and underused listening best practices.

2018 ended on a humbling note for me in some important ways, including a couple of screw-ups on my part. Nothing earth-shattering or life-threatening, just lesson-inducing. I’m sharing the most recent screw-up—and the learning it recalled—because, as usual, I think we can all benefit.

The screw-up: I got triggered by a question that someone (innocently) asked me via email and indulged in my reactive state by sending a lengthy and negative reply. What’s worse, it was relatively late in the evening and I prefaced it with, “I don’t really have the bandwidth to talk about this right now” … yet I continued on. I next admitted to being triggered in a self-congratulatory way (‘Look how insightful I am!’) And then I proceeded to dump all over her in writing. Class act LOL.

I’ve been writing a lot about screw-ups lately (mostly mine). This week brings a little reprieve in order to focus on sales mastery. Don’t worry, there are more screw-ups in the queue.

In looking over the 229 tips I have written to date, I’ve apparently had a lot to say about what’s wrong with conventional sales training and practices.

The recent onslaught of holiday messaging (emails, cards, etc.) has brought some important lessons to my attention—specifically, do’s and don’ts for your next client reach-outs.