Leverage Trust
Here's the bottom line: The ultimate value that you create with your clients is building trust.
Most of your relationships could be divided, in a very simplified way, into either professional or personal. For those acquaintances where you have combined both types, you have become a trusted advisor. Of course, it is the rare advisor who can do business with every one of their friends. However, I have observed that those advisors who can find a way to build business capital out of social capital are the highest performers.
Here's the bottom line: The ultimate value that you create with your clients is building trust. Think of all the relationships that you have built over your career, where your clients trust you implicitly. Now think of your circle of friends, where the trust is already established. Doesn't it make sense to begin looking at these friendships in a more profound and different way, especially those who fully appreciate you and trust you?
-Ray Sclafani, in Transform Social into Business
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