Black Girls Consult TOO!
The Black Girls Consult Too! podcast provides a business resource for women in consulting, especially women of color, to successfully navigate a hyper-masculine, highly competitive industry. It demystifies how to start and grow a thriving consulting business by simplifying the process and helping to avoid common pitfalls that can derail even the best ideas. Each episode is crafted to dive deep into consulting practice, business strategy, mindset, and more. For more information, visit www.excelatconsulting.com/podcast.
Black Girls Consult TOO!
Episode 130: The Trust Deficit: How to Win Clients in an Age of Skepticism
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Trust is in crisis. With AI replacing human interaction, businesses are overpromising and underdelivering, and skepticism is at an all-time high. Earning client trust has never been more challenging. This trust deficit can make landing clients even more complicated if you're a consultant selling expertise instead of a tangible product.
So, how do you establish credibility in a world where people don't know who to believe? What unique challenges do women of color face in building trust with clients? And most importantly, how can you turn trust into your greatest business asset?
In this episode, we explore the trust economy, what it is, why it's more critical than ever, and how you can position yourself as a trusted authority in your industry. If you've ever felt like you had to prove yourself twice as hard just to be taken seriously, this conversation is for you.
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Welcome to Black Girls Consult 2. This is your go-to podcast for women who are looking to build thriving consulting businesses in an industry that was not necessarily built with us in mind. I'm your host, dr Angelina Davis, and today we're going to dive into something that can make or break our consulting businesses, and you may be wondering what that is. It is something that we want in any relationship, and that is trust. Trust is really at an all-time low. Right now, at a bottom low. Right now, we are living in a world where AI is starting to replace a lot of the human interaction that we've had in the past. Media is controlling a lot of what we see, think and hear, and businesses are really pushing products and even services that we aren't even sure if they work. So people are more skeptical now than they have ever been before, and what does that mean to us? It means that it makes selling consulting services something that's completely intangible, meaning that they can't touch it, they can't feel it, they can't see it. It makes selling that even more challenging. So what I want us to talk about today is how do we begin to thrive in an environment where trust is in short supply, and I want us to have this discussion today, but not just today. This will be a theme for us for a few episodes, because I want to break down how we are able to build trust and capitalize on it as it being our most valuable asset and, most importantly, how do we build on that in the face of everything that we have to overcome, such as biases and skepticism, all the things. So let's get started. I don't know if you realize this, or maybe you've just never given it any thought, but trust is very powerful in business. As a matter of fact, there was an article that I was reading recently from the Atlantic that and I'm going to read this quote it said that trust is, and always has been, at the core of the economy, and when you think about it, that's very true.
Speaker 1:People buy from and work with people that they trust. Think about your life. If you're hiring, for instance, a painter to redo your living room, you don't just pick a random name out of the hat. I mean, back in the day, maybe we would search the yellow pages. I'm telling my age right now to find someone, but in most cases, what you're going to do is you're going to look for reviews, you're going to see what other people have said. You're going to ask people for recommendations, or you're going to go with someone who you've worked with before, or someone who may have done the house next to you or down the street. You're looking for evidence that they can be trusted. Or, if you're choosing a doctor, you're trusting that their expertise is going to lead to the right diagnosis for you, which is extremely important in your life and your treatment. And if you're looking for a daycare provider to take care of your newborn baby, you need to know without a shadow of a doubt that your child is going to be safe.
Speaker 1:I know how I was when I was searching for someone to care for my girls. I would look high and low for the best facility. I didn't want them to have any type of negative incident or any type of negative write-up that I could find. I wanted to make sure the person was extremely caring. I wanted someone that would treat them well and that I knew and could trust that they would be cared for.
Speaker 1:So a lot of the decisions that we make are rarely just about logic, and this is true in our personal lives as consumers, but it's also true even when you think about decisions that are going to be made on a corporate level, there still is a level of trust that's needed. It's one of the reasons why referrals tend to be a major way that people acquire business because someone wants to know that they can trust you to do the work. Trust is really the thing that bridges the gap between uncertainty in terms of the outcome that you're going to receive and you taking action to work with that person. So trust is big, and this same thing applies to us in consulting. If we're going to have a client that's going to pay us to come to their business to assess their challenges, get all into the back ends of their business, know all their dirty financial secrets, whatever it may be, and provide solutions, they have to trust us. They have to be able to trust that. So that means that we have to have the expertise to deliver the result. We need to be able to understand their needs right and act in their best interest. And then we need to be who we say that we are, and the challenge is that trust isn't something that's freely given.
Speaker 1:It's not easy to earn trust, and for us as women especially women of color in consulting typically the bar is set higher for a number of different reasons. So when we think about trust, I just want to make sure that we're on the same page in considering the fact that trust plays a major role in our ability to do business. Let's just be real when it comes to trust and credibility, the playing field is not level. There is a research that has shown that women, particularly women of color, have had to prove our competence over and over again in ways that other people don't. So there is not that trust that is given, especially in the instances where women are trying to build their name and their reputation in the consulting industry.
Speaker 1:Biases and stereotypes create obstacles that can make it harder to establish this trust, because decision makers and stakeholders may have their own preconceived notions before we even get to the table. So being able to garner trust is hard. Women in leadership are often judged more harshly when they assert their expertise. What is that name that we're often called behind closed doors? When we're trying to be more assertive right that B word there are instances where Black women in particularly are frequently labeled as being aggressive or angry the angry Black woman when we're just simply trying to be direct and more confident. And then when you just look at the fact that women of color are less likely to even be seen as experts to start with. So if you're not even seen as an expert, although you have the credentials, the experience to live up to every aspect of that title, then it's hard to even think about how you have these conversations around trust when you're not even put into the same category. So there are a number of obstacles that are often in our way, but it does not mean that we can't overcome them. We just have to be intentional when it comes to building trust. We can't rely on the fact that it's going to come. We can't rely on the assumption that people are just going to give it to us. It may not be that way, so we have to have a way that we can intentionally and more strategically develop that trust, and develop trust in a way that is going to return to us financially.
Speaker 1:I just want to take this quick break to thank you for tuning in to Black Girls Consult 2. If you are enjoying this episode or have enjoyed any episodes in the past, I would love it if you could leave your five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this episode and this podcast with a friend, your help in getting the word out about this podcast will help it grow and reach more and more people who truly need this information to have a consulting business that thrives in this year and the years moving forward. Okay, back to the episode Now. I know you're probably thinking I hear you when you're talking about all the challenges that we're facing. I'm feeling it, I've lived it. I understand where you're coming from, dr Angelina, but how do we build this trust? Where do we start in terms of being able to build and maintain the trust that we need? And one of the places that I always like to go to, because I am just a Harvard Business Review lover. I just love many of the write-ups and the summaries there.
Speaker 1:Just, I don't know, I'm biased, but either way, there was a great framework that was presented in a Harvard Business Review article on the trust triangle, and I thought that it really encapsulated everything that we need in order to establish trust in the business relationships that we're trying to form, and how they describe this trust triangle. Of course, it has three sides or three key drivers, and those are authenticity, empathy and logic, and so, in order for us to establish and maintain trust, we need to have those three things. Authenticity, meaning are we showing up as ourselves, who we really and genuinely are? Empathy do we feel that we care about our clients and their success? Do we really care about what happens to them and to their businesses? And then logic do we have the knowledge and the ability to deliver the results that we say that we can deliver?
Speaker 1:And when you think about it, whenever trust breaks down in any relationship, I will argue trust breaks down in any relationship, I will argue is usually because one of these elements, one of these sides, becomes a bit wobbly, as they would describe it, meaning it's not coming across clearly to the people you want to work with. There's something about either your expression of authenticity, of empathy or logic that is shaky, just shaky, and we want to keep it in just real, plain terms. So let's talk about this and break this down Now. When we talk about authenticity, I feel like that's often used as a catchphrase. We hear that word so often Be authentic, show up as yourself, be the real you. And, yes, people want to know that they're working with the real you. They don't want to feel as if they're working with someone that's putting on a show or putting up a facade and telling them or selling them something that is not representative of who they truly are.
Speaker 1:Think about how we felt, even in recent days, recording this in the beginning of the year, and as we watch all of the talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, dei unraveling and being torn down, at least as a term and as a structure as we know it or knew it before. Those are instances where many of the businesses that have decided to get rid of their DEI programs we felt a breach of trust, right, because the authenticity piece them showing up as who they really are seems to not have been the case. We were misled. We thought that those businesses, aka Target, we thought that they represented something different and so when we see that they are taking these programs away, things that we thought were embedded in the values of who they actually were as a business and a company, that is problematic for many of us as consumers. So we don't want to have businesses see us in that light. We want people to know that they're working with a real person who is authentically who they are, whether it is in front of the camera or off the camera, whether they are seeing us in the middle of a meeting or they don't see us at all and we're negotiating on their behalf we may want to know that they can trust us and that we're not putting on an act. And although this sounds rather easy for many of us to do because I do believe that we often feel as if we are being authentic in our practice For us as women and women of color especially many of us have been conditioned to hold a lot of who we are back.
Speaker 1:We have been conditioned by corporate to show up in these professional settings and be somebody else. We code switch, we soften our voices to avoid sounding too aggressive, we shrink ourselves so we don't come across as being intimidating. I remember when I was in training, one of my advisors had a sit down talk with me and one of the things that he shared and he was a cisgender white male one of the things that he shared with me was that oftentimes when I would communicate, I came across as being very intimidating, and it was such a weird discussion that I had with him that day because in my mind I was like intimidating. I have the biggest smile always, and actually my smile has often been something that I've seen as not necessarily a weakness. But I felt other people judge me because I smiled a lot. Like often, if you smile, people think that you're not as strong, and so for me, I was just taken aback, that he thought that I was intimidating and that he was implying that my being intimidating was problematic in our environment, there, in working, in training. So I began to soften my approach. I did all of those things that I'm saying, that we have been conditioned to do. I have lived it. I have lived it. I have done it.
Speaker 1:I continue to still fight to pull myself away from a lot of the corporate conditioning that I've experienced over the years, which is why I talk a lot about how corporate conditioning and corporate trauma can play a huge role in how we show up in our businesses, and it can negatively impact our businesses because it does things like this, which is break down trust because we're not being authentically who we are or who, I would even argue, god called us to be. So we have to break and move past that, and it's not always easy to do it, the more and more that you can lean into, embracing your unique voice, your perspective and your lived experience, those things that you know to be true because you have lived through them. That's what's going to make you different. That's what's going to make your expertise more valuable to some clients than others. It's what is going to return to you in dollars and cents, right? So we have to work on this whole aspect of showing up more authentically and really pushing past many of the limitations that we have formed out of necessity of survival in many of our corporate spaces.
Speaker 1:So authenticity is one area where we may unintentionally break trust, and the second is with empathy, and empathy is just all about showing that you care. It, honestly, is making the client feel like you only care about them, that you're not focused on just getting paid, because if you're focused on just getting paid, they're not going to trust you. It's one of the reasons why, when people reach out to you and may cold call, a cold message, and immediately they just start talking about their services, you don't trust them. Often you don't want to hear anything else they have to say, and the reason is because their initial interaction with you has already breached trust. Because they are not being empathetic. They have not shown that they care about you, and this is why some of the biggest consulting firms I always think about McKinsey and Company have faced serious backlash over the years. Mckinsey and Company took a huge hit because they were seen as prioritizing profits over client well-being. They were focused on making money, doing things that brought money in the door instead of ensuring that their clients were safe and protected. At least, those were the claims. Now I'm not here to argue. I don't work behind the scenes or have never worked for that organization, but this is what numerous headlines were being published in recent years. This is what they were saying. This is the conversation that people were having. It was all about how they were prioritizing profits over clients. And then when this trust is broken on that scale, at that level, it begins to trickle down to the rest of the industry.
Speaker 1:So, unknowingly, many of us have faced scrutiny because organizations have watched these larger firms breach that trust. They've watched them end up in situations that make them question their interaction with you. How do you differentiate yourself? How do you begin to show clients that I'm not like them, right, I'm not like them, I'm different, and that all starts with being client-centered? The more you can show that you care about the success and the well-being of your clients, and not just a paycheck, not just getting the most money out of them, not just getting them to sign on at all costs. The more you can become client-centered and remain client-centered, the more trust you're going to build. That is the whole essence of empathy, and it's all about you asking thoughtful questions, being concerned about what's happening in their world, listening more than you speak, making recommendations that actually serve their best interests.
Speaker 1:And here's the hard part even if it hurts yours, even if it means turning down the work because it's not a right fit for you. This can be hard when you have bills to pay, when you have a company to run because it's not a right fit for you. This can be hard when you have bills to pay, when you have a company to run, if you have any employees, if you have overhead expenses, whatever it may be that is on your plate. It can be hard to turn someone down when you feel like, oh well, I can do an okay job solving this problem. I'm not the best at it, but I can do okay, I can. I'll take that on, because the person is desperate for help.
Speaker 1:But in those moments, that's where true empathy has to arise. And we have to say I'm not the best at this particular issue and because of that, I'm going to either lead you in another direction or I'm going to be very honest and transparent about what I know and what I can offer, and if we still work together and collaborate, I'm going to do my best to show up in excellence and get you to that end result. However, these are the things that we're going to have to navigate through. That may be a little bit difficult and sticky. Those are ways that you can step into this empathetic role and position and begin to build trust instead of breaking it away. And then the last is logic, and logic is all about proving that you can deliver. It's the proof, it's the evidence. Clients need to feel confident that you know your stuff, that you are not just faking it and getting by, that you are going to actually show up and deliver.
Speaker 1:And I feel as if logic took a huge hit during the pandemic, when a lot of businesses went online. It became really easy for a few years for online businesses to thrive. It's a lot different now than it was before, but at that time, people were eager to find help, as there was a crisis. There was just kind of everything burning down around us and we were trying to figure out how to navigate it. People needed help and then there was a lot of access because everybody was online. It was easy to grab your laptop and say you were an expert and this, that and the other, and get your business started and start selling packages, right. But during that time, a lot of people were burned.
Speaker 1:And, getting back to what I was saying before, the result of that has led us to this period where we are living with a lot of skepticism and it's difficult to build and gain trust. So, when you're focusing on logic, this means staying in your lane, focusing on your strengths, speaking on what you actually know and can do, owning, like I stated before, when you don't know everything, because no one knows everything. So owning that and being honest when something is outside your expertise, you'll be surprised at the number of people that will continue to work with you, and I've had this happen a number of times. They will continue to work with you because you have been honest about your strengths and your expertise and what you may not know, because in that moment, they know that if you are not knowledgeable enough, you're going to point them in the right direction to find the additional help or you're going to secure the additional help and that you're honest enough to tell them that you can't do it, and they trust that that's actually probably the thing that sold them the most on your business. So remaining honest is key to really being able to grow this logic piece, this logic arm.
Speaker 1:And then the one thing that I will harp on until the end of time is that when you focus on constantly improving your craft, mastering your craft, mastering your practice, mastering becoming the best consultant that you can be, then it's easy for you to show up as an undeniable authority. That's easy and people believe it. Why? Because you are mastering it. You're not shifting messages over and over again, you are not being inconsistent, you are not fabricating stories. You are showing up in a way that they have confidence that you're going to do the work, you're going to deliver, you're going to always be there. They can trust you with this major investment.
Speaker 1:There have been far too many people that have been over-promising and under-delivering. They are not meeting expectations, and so our goal is not to just meet expectations, but to exceed expectations, and that's the way that we overcome this skepticism. If we focus on consistently delivering high-quality work, the results are going to speak for themselves. The results are going to speak louder than any words that we can say. So those three pillars the authenticity, the empathy and the logic those are the components that go together to help us build the trust that we need.
Speaker 1:We need to show up as our real selves. We need to show clients that we care about their success first and foremost, not just the money. And then we need to deliver. Deliver real results and own our expertise. And the thing is that when we're able to do these things, we elevate our reputation. You become known for your specialty. You become known as a person who can get things done, and the fact that you elevate your reputation as the person that is known for generating a particular result you're going to attract more high quality clients. They're going to come to you because there are a lot of things that are going to attract more high quality clients. They're going to come to you because there are a lot of things that are going to be going on in the background that you're not seeing. You're not going to be seeing the word of mouth from the person telling someone else their colleague, their friend of the wonderful work that they've done with you. You're going to also get the outcomes the benefit of the outcomes that are seen as someone else looks at a business that they envy, or maybe they're competing against and they want that similar result. You're going to have all these different things working in the background for you as a result of the fact that you elevated your reputation and then, ultimately, all of this leads to greater trust that increases the financial success of your business.
Speaker 1:It honestly goes back to trust and that's why we are living in a trust economy. So, as we close, I want you to think about how you can do a trust check in for your business. Seriously ask yourself Am I showing up authentically or am I holding back in some way and challenge yourself to think about the barriers that may exist. Because you have been in corporate or been in a professional environment for so long and you know what helps me do this. When I run this trust check check-in for myself, I always think about how do I show up when I'm getting off work or when I am free on the weekend, when I am free on the weekend. If I'm completely different during those periods of time, then I know that there's something about how I'm presenting myself in the work, corporate, professional environment. That needs to change. That's not authentically who I am.
Speaker 1:Fully Ask yourself do my clients feel like I genuinely I mean genuinely care about their success? My hope is that any client I have ever served, even those who may not have paid me a dime if you're listening to this podcast right now, if you tune into a webinar, if you look at anything on social media, if you have interacted with me on threads, in any aspect of our interaction it is my hope that I am showing that I genuinely care about your success, that I do this because I care. Those are the things that we have to ask ourselves. And oh and one more ask yourself am I clearly communicating my expertise and delivering results? Are you communicating what you can do, meaning sharing everything that you can offer, and then, are you delivering on that? And if you're not, we got to start doing it. But if you are, how can we take that up to the next level? If you do this trust check-in often because it's not a one-time fix then you will always ensure that you remain in alignment along your business journey, because if we're seeing a trust wobble, that means there's a breakdown in one of those three areas right, then. That's where you have to start working. That's where you need to focus.
Speaker 1:If you found this episode helpful, I want you to make sure you subscribe to the podcast and share it with another woman in consulting who needs to hear it. Next time we're going to dive into how we start to build this trust from day one. This is giving you the groundwork in terms of what the trust economy is, why it's important and how do we begin to think about trust and the elements that create the trust. But next I want us to talk about how we start off from day one, building the trust that we need. So you don't want to miss that, and until then, I want you to keep showing up, keep serving and keep building trust with the clients that you want to serve, and I'll see you next time. Take care.
