Today, I’m going to take you on a bit of a journey – warning: it involves algebra!

How many people do you have in your life that you trust? I mean, you’d let them hold your wallet, trust. You’d let them babysit your kids, trust. Think about it for a minute.

Now, think about just your business/professional world. How many people in that world do you TRUST?

I’m guessing it’s not that many!

Here comes the algebra!

We know that scarce things are more valuable, right? It’s a supply and demand thing. The more rare something is, the greater its value.

If trust is rare and rare things are valuable, then to the extent you can build trust within your professional network, your value increases.

Put another way (You + a community that trusts you) = You with more money!

How do you build wealth trust?

David Maister and Charles Green developed something called the trust equation to help explain how to build trust. They posit that:

Trust = ( Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy ) / Self-Interest

You can increase the trust that others have in you by:

• Increasing your credibility – your credentials and honesty
• Increasing your Reliability – do you do what you say you will do?
• Increasing the intimacy in the relationship – we don’t trust people we don’t know. By being self-revealing, we increase trust.
• DECREASING our self-interest. Are you more focused on my needs or the other’s needs? The more people see us as focused on their needs, the more trust we build.

Want to put some money in the bank? Build trust with your business network.

(You can read more about the trust equation in The Trusted Advisor)