August 30, 2018
Trust is precious ‘Commodity’
Srikanth Bhagavat
Managing Director & Principal Advisor, Hexagon Wealth
Trust is precious ‘Commodity’
How does one build trust? This question has always excited me.
Is it something to do with our emotions? Or is it a simple process?
To start with, we trust our loved ones—we know they have our best interest at heart. But what about strangers like a surgeon or a pilot? Any mishap by the professional spells certain death for his patient or passengers. But we trust them. Don’t we? How does that happen?
I believe Trust is:
• Binary—it either exists or not and
• Granular—one could impose trust to a certain extent. For instance, I can trust an advisor with a small proportion of my wealth, but not all. I may trust a particular doctor for simple illnesses but not serious ones.
Trust is build buy a process, devoid of emotions. The process to build trust is a “Hexagon”—the strongest structure in nature!
“Building Trust, the Hexagon Way”
I discovered ther
e are six steps to establish trust.
The first step is a conviction in qualifications. The patient is confident in the surgeon’s ability to operate and the pilot’s to maneuver. So, a great way to start is to pursue the minimum qualification specified by the regulator and build on it.
The second step is to share references. Remember a client needs to be confident in your services too. Sharing references builds trust. An advisor confident of his service will share it without hesitation.
The third step is to build a process. A process is evidence that the advisor has tried to think through. You can teach and replicate a process across advisors in a company, for consistency. It provides a scientific structure to build a plan.
A process needs humans to run it – else a computer would have been enough! It is all about emotions. A skilful advisor senses emotional undercurrents and puts the right questions. The eventual idea is to craft a financial plan that can achieve the client’s goals—even the deep, unexpressed ones. This fourth step is as important as the rest!
The fifth step is also qualitative but assessable. It is honesty. You can assume honesty if you see transparency. The transparency is about his commissions, his justifications for recommendations and the risk.
The final sixth step takes time. Why? Well, it is Time! For time is the ultimate evidence of all the five factors mentioned above. It builds a strong foundation of trust.
So it is possible to generate ‘trust’ using this six-step process without leaving it to ‘gut feel’ or ‘hearsay’.
Very well explained and so very true!
Super. Well said.
This is a topic of interest for me too . One more dimension to it ( part of your 6 th step) is that the proceed of trust starts from believing. You believe a person and time again he proves that believing him was correct then it builds into trust over a period. But failure of belief even in single instances brings back it to ZERO and then process restarts.
Trust needs proof but belief is taken for granted. Thus it is a continuous process.
This is purely my personal approach on the subject.
Completely Agree with this , when the product is intangible, only Trust built in can build clients. You have well articulated the steps of trust. Since I have known Hexagon, its absolute fact to every word at Hexagon. Kudos to Hexagon team. Thanks for sharing this secret with the community.
good info.