Before becoming a consultant for The Octalysis Group, I assumed one skill out of all was most important to success: competence. Consultants advise people. Obviously the advice needs to be good.

And yet, the more I experienced consultancy in The Octalysis Group, as well as in outside teaching, facilitating, and tutoring relationships, the more I realized consultancy can often be more like dealing with a close friend or partner; your trust in each other matters just as much if not more than your competence. You can have the best advice in the world, want to take your friend by the shoulders and shake them until they take it, but ultimately, if they don’t trust you, they won’t take the advice.

Consulting is no different. To take our advice, our clients must trust us first. So, I dived into the world of The Trusted Advisor by Maister D et al. (2021) and learned exactly what makes up trust and how we can build it as consultants. 

I came to a powerful insight: the aspects that make up trust in consulting, are fundamental skills for any relationship. By learning how to be a more trusting consultant, you learn how to be a more trusting partner, friend, etc.

The “I Trust” Acronym

The book breaks down trust in a number of ways, but I decided to organize them into an easy to understand actionable acronym simply titled, “I Trust” because hopefully that’s what your client will say about you if you implement all of this.

I: Intimacy

Intimacy is the sense of psychological safety, closeness, and mutual openness that allows people to share honestly. We normally don’t think of intimacy as something we build in client relationships. But without intimacy, we don’t have the trust in each other to give feedback, point out problems, and more. Here are some ways we can build it.

1. Develop Closeness

Many consultants scoff at this thinking business and personal life should be entirely separate. This has some merit—I’m not about to share about my deepest darkest shadow thoughts with my clients on a call discussing a strategy dashboard. 

But consider this idea: there is no such thing as a business relation, only people you are making business with. People will always have interests, feelings, needs, regardless of the context they’re in. It’s not like they come to business and suddenly, zoop, they’re enlightened Buddhas without any desire for anything except business.

So, get more personal with your clients. Don’t be afraid to set the norm by sharing some of your interests during the call, perhaps when you introduce yourself at the beginning of a project. Ask how they’re feeling if they don’t seem in tip top shape. If they share about themselves, inquire further.

Some of this work can be done beforehand, by looking up information about your clients online. Look up their faces if it’s a phone call. Look up the weather in their area and comment on it at the beginning of the call. 

Of course, do this out of a genuine want to get closer, not just in the aim they will take your advice more readily. People are not just means to an end. The relationship should be treated in many cases as ends in themselves. We’re only on this planet for a few decades. Don’t waste it using others.

You can also build closeness in more subtle ways. Use emojis in messages. Use more words in email and inflections in voice messages. Put your camera on whenever possible in an online call. 

2. Create Psychological Safety

Psychological safety refers to how welcome people feel in their ability to voice thoughts, ideas, feelings and more without being shut down by the group. 

Psychological safety is essential to healthy trust. Too little and nobody voices anything out of fear of punishment. Too much and hierarchy and time pressure dissolve, leaving the relationship in chaos. 

How do you build psychological safety with your client?

• Show decent human kindness. It’s obvious but sometimes the most obvious things go under the rug.
• Encourage feedback, sharing thoughts and feelings as long as the client understands how it might affect things like time.
• Use compliments but not flattery. 

3. Build Integrity

It’s much easier to be intimate with someone when they are aligned in actions and values. Some of the ways you can build this are:

• Be radically honest in questions. Don’t lie about lack of knowledge or how long something will take. It always hurts you in the long run. 
• Follow through on what you say 
• Take responsibility when you do something wrong or bad 

All of these things can help you build intimacy and thus build trust with your client. 

4. Don’t shudder away from emotions

Many consultants avoid discussing emotions because it feels fluffy, unobjective, irrelevant. What a shame. Often, emotions are the very thing blocking your project from moving forward.

Perhaps your client is furrowing their brows, putting their face in their hands, and sighing. Why not voice that they seem frustrated. It’s very likely it’s not because of you but rather something to do with the project. Isn’t it essential to understand why so you can clear that up?

Voicing emotions in this way is a huge builder of trust because it’s a risk. You might be wrong. And that’s okay. Your client will appreciate you trying to care for their emotions anyways. 

Ultimately, intimacy isn’t just about building trust, it’s about getting closer with another human being. Just because a consultant client relationship is more transactional, doesn't mean it can't be deep. Even so, you can't have intimacy without competence. This brings us to the next part of the "I TRUST" acronym: Track Record.

T: Track Record

Of course, an essential element of building trust is being credible, which requires a good track record. I know, you actually need to know what you’re doing and give good advice. Bummer. What many consultants don’t realize is how to do this without coming off as salesy or arrogant.

One of the core insights from The Trusted Advisor is that trust isn’t just built from credentials, case studies, or big client names—it’s built from relevance, resonance, and repeated reliability. Put simply:

People don’t trust your past; they trust how your past makes you helpful in their present.

So how do we showcase our track record without sounding like we’re applying to Harvard Business School?

Here are a few ways I’ve found that work:

1. Personalize Your Proof

It’s easy to fall into what Maister calls “solutionitis”—talking about what you’ve done instead of why it matters to this person, right now.

Instead, connect your experience directly to their world. If they’re a nonprofit, don’t mention your work with that Fortune 100 tech company—talk about the pro-bono project where you helped a mission-driven org drive engagement with zero ad budget. If they’re data-driven, highlight a metric. If they’re people-first, highlight the human story.

Track record is only impressive when it’s relevant. Otherwise, it’s just flexing.

2. Show, Don’t Sell

Telling someone you’re trustworthy is a bit like telling someone you’re funny. If you have to say it, you’re probably not. The best way to demonstrate trustworthiness is to act in a trustworthy way, consistently.

That might mean:

• Responding on time, every time
• Admitting when you don’t know something (and following up when you find out)
• Delivering a draft or deck before the due date
• Asking one more question than expected to show you’re paying attention

In other words, let your actions write your résumé for you. Don’t just say “I’m a thoughtful consultant.” Be one.

3. Share Your Failures (Strategically)

This might sound counterintuitive, but sharing a failure—especially one that taught you something—can increase trust. Why? Because it shows humility, honesty, and most importantly, that you’ve grown. As The Trusted Advisor puts it, “Admitting your limitations invites others to be open about theirs.”

Of course, don’t trauma dump. The point is to show that you’ve walked through the fire and came out with a few burns, a few lessons, and maybe a fun little Excel automation to prevent it next time.

4. Make Your Wins About Them (With Data)

Even when you’re sharing a win, frame it around how it helped the client. Don’t just say, “We increased traffic by 35%.” Say, “We helped the client reach more of the audience they cared about—and in turn, helped that audience find support during a really tough time.”

Give a number. Don’t just say you helped increase engagement on a learning platform. What shows you increased engagement? 

Trust grows when your expertise serves their mission, not your ego.

5. Be Consistently Useful

A track record isn’t just about the past—it’s about proving you’re dependable now. It’s the email you send with the resource you mentioned. The follow-up question you ask that shows you were actually listening. The note after the meeting that helps the client think a little clearer.

You don’t need a fancy testimonial for that. You just need to care.

At its heart, a strong track record isn’t a trophy case—it’s a living relationship between your past and your present. Not a list of what you’ve done, but a promise: I’ve walked this path before. And I’ll walk it with you now. But it doesn't matter how good you're track record is if you can't reliably implement it, bringing us to the next part of the "I TRUST" acronym.

R: Reliability

Reliability is the opposite of your college dorm mates; it’s the trust your client has for you finishing things on time and with quality as well as communicating what needs to be done and responding promptly. Without reliability, it doesn’t matter how good your work is or how strong your client trusts you in other matters, they don’t know if you’ll actually do things and on time.

1. Finishing things on time and with quality

It’s pretty simple actually—finish things at the time you say you will. Groundbreaking I know, and yet it can be so tempting to puff out your chest and say you’ll do things faster. You want to look incredible right. But over the long term, this will only erode your clients trust because they realize you aren’t able to keep your word.

Because of this, try and plan for some delay and set the expectation in your clients mind. Most of us, unless you’re superhuman, experience the planning fallacy, the reliable underestimation of how long things will take even when we know about the planning fallacy! Try and incorporate this into your estimates by adding a few hours, a day, or even weeks onto deadlines than how long you think they will actually take.

Don't sacrifice quality just to meet a deadline. If you believe you have to, it’s usually better to ask for more time than to hand in something bad. Ask before the deadline comes.

2. Communicating what needs to be done and responding promptly

Reliability isn’t just about your time and quality management, it’s also about the clients. They should reliably know what needs to be done between meetings and believe they can come to you for help on anything. 

You can kickstart this by sharing a meeting agenda beforehand (which of course can be changed during the meeting). This gives clarity to clients about what you’re going to be doing and allows them to prepare beforehand for any questions or alterations they might have. At the end of the meeting you can ensure you give clear next steps for the following meeting. 

This could mean giving the clients homework too! Try to follow up with action items from the meeting and any resources which will be helpful within 24 hours of the meeting ending.

As for response times, of course it differs on culture and project, but generally you want to respond within a few hours or at most a day during the week. Personally, I like to check messages as a batch in between deep work hours and stop doing so after 5:00 p.m. when the workday ends for me. This creates a balance of focusing and responding.

At its heart reliability isn’t about just being timely—it’s about showing your client you are dedicated to serving them promptly, and with quality and clarity. Out of the literally infinite other things you could be deviating your time to, you are choosing them. And if that doesn’t build trust, I don’t know what does. 

U: Understanding

”People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” - Teddy Roosevelt 

Like in personal relationships, people don’t want advice from you until they feel you have earned it. You’ve done the work to understand their unique problems. Otherwise your advice will become another dusty book on the shelves for endless self-improvement books which sell catch all solutions to life’s problems. There are a few ways we can build understanding in our client relationships. 

1. Don’t jump right into the solution, develop a relationship first

This means doing some of the other things in this article for building trust. Build intimacy, show selflessness, show reliability, and tailor to the specific client. 

Strive for curiosity, not judgment. Attempt to see the clients unique situation. What is different about them compared to your other clients? As a consultant it can be so easy to believe we have found the patterns of solutions which work for almost everyone. Yes, to some extent this is true. But as you are probably aware of by now, the problem the client comes to you with is often not the real problem. Slapping a solution onto it before truly getting to know it is doomed to fail. 

2. Listen deeply

Perhaps the most important aspect of building a relationship before giving the solution is listening. Not hearing, listening. This involves asking open ended thoughtful questions and deeply listening to what the client has to say. 

One of my favorite acronyms for listening is LAURA:

1. Listen: – Give your full attention. Don’t interrupt. Stay present.
2. Affirm: – Acknowledge what the other person said. This can be a nod, a “mmhmm,” or repeating back what you heard to show you’re with them.
3. Respond: – Address their concerns, feelings, or thoughts. Keep it genuine and respectful.
4. Add: – Bring in your perspective, gently and constructively, after you’ve shown you understand theirs.

Going through LARA before giving a framing of the problem will not only make the client feel understood, but dramatically increase the chances you are actually solving the problem that needs solving. 

In the end, understanding isn’t just about making the client more trusting of you. It’s about honoring everyone’s uniqueness as an individual. While there are certainly patterns of problems which exist across society, every problem is shaped by the unique client or clients individuality. The next step of the I TRUST acronym is about taking this honoring and using it to navigate your self-interest.

S: Selflessness

Imagine your friend asked you for a favor and said they would pay you $50 for it. You’d likely be flabbergasted. Pay… For doing your friend a favor. 

It seems such a ridiculous situation because the interests of you and your friend are misaligned. The friend seems to have misconstrued your relationship as a short term transactional one, whereas you were looking at it more from a long term friendship lens. 

Obviously, in client relationships, we do want money. But we don’t want to fall into the same trap as above. A fundamental aspect of trust, is the sense our interests are aligned and we are looking out for each other long term. Funnily enough, this actually increases our profits long term because clients come back for more work, our work is higher quality, and we feel better about ourselves at the same time. What a win! 

Here are a few ways of building selflessness in your consulting. 

1. Show interest in the client long term

Who’s to say your relationship has to end after the project is over? Why not reach out every now and then and ask how they’re doing. It’s essential you do this from a genuine seat of curiosity rather than with the goal of scoring another project. The client will smell that. It reeks like socks after a backpacking trip. 

2. Align interests with the client

As a consultant it can be easy to fall into the mindset that as long as you deliver what you promised, you shouldn’t be held accountable for it not working. It’s the clients job to make sure it works out. This is a fundamentally self-interested view of consulting. 

Don’t you want your work to have a genuine impact? Are you doing this just for the money, or to make actual change in the world as well? If the latter, then you’ll care about your work actually succeeding in what the client is aiming for. That means trying your best, making implementation clearer for the client after the project is over, and if you’re really invested doing quality assurance.

Essentially, this could mean recommending the client to someone else if they come to you with a problem you can’t solve. It’s okay to give a client relationship up if you can’t help them. It will only hurt you in the long run if they discover you couldn’t truly help them on that project.

3. Care about relationship more than minute technicalities

Did a client show up late to a meeting? Did they implement one of your next steps inaccurately? Did they heaven forbid, mispronounce your name? 

Don’t let these things ruin the relationship long term. Like in personal relationships, minute technicalities should be glossed over in the interest of the relationship overall. 

4. Don’t gatekeep knowledge

We’re consultants not prison guards. Some consultants believe their knowledge exists behind so plexiglass gold barred door. If the client wants it, they are going to have to fight, pay, and beg for it. Don’t do it.

If you have information which you will believe will be helpful for the client’s specific problem, give it. Sure, you can tell them not to spread it to outside people so your service remains valuable. But the trust built from not gatekeeping your knowledge will build so much more dividends in the future than keeping it to yourself. 

Ultimately though, selflessness isn’t about building trust, it’s about honoring the relationships you will have in this short lifetime. Unless you’re my grandfather and have insane genetics despite eating frozen waffles for breakfast everyday, you will likely not live past 80 or 90. Do you want to use that time developing short term, dog eat dog relationships? 

The last part of the I TRUST acronym brings this honoring to the everyday interaction with your client in how you tailor yourself to them. 

T: Tailoring

Do you talk to a baby like you do a full-fledged adult? Do you talk to your dog like you do your best friend? Of course not!

And yet many of us consultants can get in the trap of talking to our clients in the same way every single time. We use the same solutions, the same slide deck, the same manner of managing a meeting. This hurts trust because we don’t honor the unique individual we are interacting with. Here are a few ways we can tailor ourselves to each client.

1. Give options instead of rigid solutions

Most people hate being told what to do, and we hate it more when it’s a catch all solution. We can avoid this by tailoring our solutions to be options. Here is a simple four steps process to giving advice: 

• List out options 
• Give pros and cons 
• Give your personal recommendation
• Let the client decide

In all likelihood, the client will choose the option you think is best if the trust is good. Even if they don’t, they won’t be doing it out of resentment or rebelling against force but because they think it’s better for them. And why not listen? It’s their project after all. 

2. Personalize methodology and answers to clients interests, understanding, and unique problem

If you were explaining game theory to a mathematics major, you would do it differently than if you were explaining it to a psychology major. The same thing should be true with your clients.

If they love The Olympics, use that as an example in your reasoning. If they resonate with value based reasoning, use more value based reasoning. If they aren’t very versed in game design and you're explaining that topic, make it simpler.

Do some research before, during, or after your client relationship to learn more about them and their company. What do they do? What do they value? 

Tailor your slides. Use pictures from their site. Include them in your reasoning. Try and predict what they value. It might be wrong! But trust building is all about risks.

Don’t stick rigidly to the methodology you have used for other clients. Sure, it might serve as a foundation, but if your client seems to need something else, consider veering away from the methodology.

You can literally ask them how they prefer to work: what tools do they like to communicate through? Do they prefer fast iterations or more deep planning? 

3. Always begin by discussing the agenda

Some consultants start meetings by listing out the agenda and hopping right in. What if the client believes it’s important to talk or do something else? Including the client themselves in the agenda creation, will not only build trust, but also ensure you work on what most needs working on.

Some consultants believe involving clients in the agenda means ”hijacking” their plan. This is ridiculous. You are collaborators. If the client suggests doing something you don’t think is critical, politely tell them the consequences of going down that route for the project as a whole, and be open to doing it none the less.

Ultimately, tailoring isn‘t just about building trust, but honoring the unique relationship you have with every client. Your interests, methodologies, understandings, and more mix together to create something that doesn’t exist anywhere else. That’s special. 

Tailor “I TRUST” To Every Type Of Client

Not all clients are created equal. According to The Trusted Advisor, clients vary in what they need to feel trust. Here’s how you can adapt the I TRUST framework—Intimacy, Track record, Reliability, Understanding, Selflessness, Tailoring—to fit the unique psychology of each main client archetype:

🧠 The Analyzer

What they value: Logic, structure, thoroughness

Tailor “I TRUST” by:

• Emphasizing Track Record with clear metrics, frameworks, and industry benchmarks
• Using Tailoring to adjust your language to their technical understanding
• Keeping Intimacy restrained but respectful—don’t over-disclose too early

🚀 The Driver

What they value: Speed, control, impact

Tailor “I TRUST” by:

• Prioritizing Reliability—deliver quickly, communicate crisply, stay ahead
• Framing solutions with clear ROI—Tailor advice toward goals and outcomes
• Keep Understanding focused on obstacles, not emotions

🤝 The Amiable

What they value: Warmth, collaboration, relationship

Tailor “I TRUST” by:

• Leading with Intimacy—be personable, ask about their weekend
• Focusing on Understanding and emotional resonance
• Tailoring your tone and pace to be patient and inclusive

🦊 The Skeptic

What they value: Independence, evidence, transparency

Tailor “I TRUST” by:

• Sharing Track Record with honest limitations and lessons learned
• Demonstrating Selflessness—give space for them to push back
• Let Intimacy build slowly through follow-through, not charm

🎨 The Visionary

What they value: Innovation, big-picture thinking, creativity

Tailor “I TRUST” by:

• Using Tailoring to connect your ideas to their larger vision
• Building Intimacy by reflecting their passion and boldness
• Offering Understanding by affirming their ideas before adding yours

🛡️ The Protector

What they value: Risk management, stability, team wellbeing

Tailor “I TRUST” by:

• Highlighting Reliability with clear contingency planning
• Demonstrating Understanding of team dynamics, not just leader needs
• Showing Track Record through examples where long-term value was preserved

📚 The Learner

What they value: Growth, insight, personal development

Tailor “I TRUST” by

• Teaching through Understanding—share relevant knowledge, frameworks, metaphors
• Building Intimacy by co-creating ideas rather than lecturing
• Using Selflessness to coach without ego

Final Thoughts: Trust Isn’t Soft—It’s Sacred

Before joining The Octalysis Group, I thought trust was the soft stuff. The emotional strawberry you ladled on after delivering the chocolate of your strategy.

Now I know: trust is the strawberry. Without it, your best work will be left untouched on the plate.

Trust isn’t just about being liked or even being right. It’s about showing up with integrity, with empathy, and with a deep commitment to the client’s success even when it’s inconvenient. It’s about listening before solving. Caring before convincing.

When you live the “I TRUST” framework—Intimacy, Track record, Reliability, Understanding, Selflessness, Tailoring—you don’t just become a better consultant.

You become a better human being. And that, I think, is worth trusting in.