Building trust

It isn’t that your idea is bad. It isn’t that your personality is wrong. It’s not your clothes.

If people don’t know you, they don’t know where you’re coming from. They haven’t experienced working with you. They’re not familiar with your expertise and they don’t know why they need it.

So when you see an opportunity to make a connection, don’t squander it. Attention is rare and valuable and when you treat it as such, people respond positively. That doesn’t mean it’ll be an instant win. An instant win shouldn’t be your goal anyway.

Your goal should be making a small but meaningful connection. It may not seem like much, but it’s a first step on the path to building trust, and that path can lead to great things.