THE 6 DIMENSIONS OF BECOMING A TRUSTED ADVISOR
Updated: Aug 17, 2021
What Does It Mean To Be A Trusted Advisor?
Do you want to know how to become a Trusted Advisor? The first installation in this Trusted Advisor series explained the importance of being a trusted advisor to your clients. If you haven’t gotten the chance to read this post, click here to do so.
Imagine you’re a potential client searching for a consulting company to do business with. When assessing different companies, your process is very similar:
You may start by visiting the business or reading the website to find out about the services they have to offer you.
If they pass this initial assessment, you call them to express your interest in doing business.
From here, you will either choose to hire this company or continue your search with other businesses.
During your search, you, as the client, will develop a perception of each consulting company you’ve researched and considered doing business with.
How Do You Retain Clients Once You’re The Trusted Advisor?
Now imagine you’re the Trusted Advisor, working to gain new clients while maintaining relationships with current clients. When assessing your relationship with current clients, you’re proud of the customer satisfaction you’ve upheld. With that being said, you may be a little too proud when interacting with potential new clients. How well you perform in the eyes of potential clients varies among each client, both in reality and their perception. 15 minutes before your initial call with the potential new client, your wifi crashes. While a common, unintentional error, this will affect the reality of your performance and can negatively impact your business with this potential client. Now consider this: you’re on top of your management consulting game and a potential new client comes to you in search of sales consulting services. This potential new client could develop a negative perception of your business, solely based on the fact you don’t provide the service the client is looking for.
You Should Be Prioritizing Trusted Advisor Training, If You’re Not Already.
This is what makes the Trusted Advisor relationship so important to thoroughly understand, and why Trusted Advisor training should be a priority. These moving targets are unpredictable, but Encompass-CX can help you achieve this mentality. It’s important to measure the 6 dimensions of a B2B relationship from a client-business perspective. By doing so, the relationship between the Trusted Advisor and client will be strengthened and future business can be expected.
The 6 dimensions of the Trusted Advisor relationship are as follows:
1. Integrity: The client deems you reliable, dependable and trustworthy.
2. Competency: The client believes in you and your product or service. Clients realize your company seems to have the tools, processes, and people in place to uphold company values.
3. Recognition: The client feels that you treat him/her/them as an individual person instead of a number for your business.
4. Proactivity: The client believes you are actively looking out for his/her/their best interest and that you’re transparent with your product/service.
5. Savvy: The client feels that you understand and recognize the issues he/she/they care about.
6. Chemistry: The client enjoys working with you and thinks your communication clicks with them.
These dimensions are not behaviors, but pillars of a Trusted Advisor. Your client’s perception of your business will change how you are performing in regards to these 6 pillars. While you may believe your business is the most proactive in the industry, your opinion doesn’t matter if your client doesn’t agree. By recognizing how these pillars affect the client’s perception of your business, you hold the ability to adjust your practices to meet the needs of your client.
Start Your Trusted Advisor Training and Increase Customer Retention and Revenue Now
At this moment you should understand the positive impact being a trusted advisor will have on establishing relationships with your current and future clients. Feeling nervous? Excited? Don’t know where to start? Check out our materials on being a successful Trusted Advisor here.