“To be successful, you have to be able to relate to people; they have to be satisfied with your personality to be able to do business with you and to build a relationship with mutual trust.” George Ross

Trust is the foundation for any successful partnership. Whenever we begin a relationship with a vendor, client or network partner, establishing trust must always be kept at the fore front. At Innovo we operate in a relatively sensitive area of human capital management for our clients. We do not begin pitching our services and products from the word go, understanding our clients needs is our primary concern. Once we establish what those needs are we evaluate if we can successfully provide them.

Taking on work which you do not have the expertise for delivering is a guaranteed way of eliminating any trust which you may have worked hard in establishing. Being a trusted and reliable partner requires you to work in the best interest of your client. That could mean referring your clients to a competitor if you believe they can do a better job than you can. These are the things which will be remembered. Once trust has been established it becomes your largest and strongest competitive advantage. Trust can be leveraged to gain valuable insight into your clients needs and processes. This in turn will help you to serve them better and build an even stronger relationship.

If there are three words which sum up developing trust they would be; honesty, reliability and openness. When evaluating your relationship with your partners or clients use that as indicators to gauge just how strong your partnership actually is.