How often do we confuse surface-level relationships with the kind that actually have trust at the center? More often than we'd like to admit — and the gap between the two affects everything: how we lead, how we sell, and how we show up for the people who matter most.
The Question No One Asks Themselves
I recently had an opportunity to coach one of our clients, and they said something striking: "I've been in the sales profession for over 10 years, and all my clients already know me well. How am I going to implement techniques of building connection and trust when I already have it?"
My first instinct was to push back directly. But I paused. I thought back to a line my friend and business partner, Jeff Bloomfield, uses in our training and coaching sessions: "If you walk into someone's office and you see a picture on the wall of that person sailing, and you happen to be drinking a bottle of water, do you say — oh great news, you sail and I drink water, we must have something in common?"
I hope some of you are smiling at that. But the real question it raises is serious: how often do we confuse surface-level familiarity with deep-level connection? The kind built on the foundation of trust. This applies whether you've been in your role for one year or twenty-five.
Surface Relationships vs. Deep Trust
Here's an exercise worth doing right now. Think of a personal or professional relationship where you have a deep-level connection — one built on the foundation of trust. If you can picture someone at this moment, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Now ask yourself: how many relationships like that do you actually have in your network? The answer might surprise you.
Most of us have far more surface-level relationships than we realize. We know people's names, their companies, their job titles. We see each other at conferences. We exchange pleasantries. But that's a long way from trust.
The Self-Preservation Trap
We have to be honest with ourselves. We often approach relationships from a self-preservation mindset — one centered on what we get, how we're perceived, and what the relationship does for us. That's a natural human instinct. But it's also the thing that keeps trust at arm's length.
To move from a mindset to a mind-shift, we have to genuinely and authentically care about the other person. Not perform care. Actually feel it. This is what's commonly called empathy.
That's genuinely hard. But if we can do it, we're on the road to building trust-centered relationships filled with both personal connection and professional credibility.
Five Practical Steps to Trust-Centered Relationships
These aren't abstract principles. They're practices you can start using in your next conversation.
- Be vulnerable so that someone can see your authentic self
- Ask the deeper question: "Why do you do what you do?"
- Actively listen — not just hear, but listen to understand
- Adopt other-person preservation rather than self-preservation as your default
- Demonstrate empathy — which means you actually have to care
Next time you're with a current client, a new contact, or a friend, ask yourself honestly: is this a surface relationship or a deep one? You might find the answer challenges you more than you expected.
Coaches Corner: Trusting Your Whole Team
For the coaches and managers reading this: do you have a deep-level trusting relationship with each of your team members? Challenge yourself before you answer quickly.
Here's the truth. You can't win without your team. Not your one or two superstars. The entire team. Football season reminds us every Sunday that one person or one play doesn't win a game. It never does. And we, as coaches, know this.
Do you inadvertently put team members into "in-groups" or "out-groups"? The Leader-Member Exchange Model (Graen & Dansereau) documents how leaders do this — and how it often happens below the level of conscious awareness. The members we're closest to get our time, our coaching, our investment. The others don't.
Here's your challenge: use the five steps above and have a genuine, game-changing conversation with each of your team members over the next 30 to 60 days. Every one of them.
I can guarantee you this: you will learn something new. And you will begin — or continue — the process of building a deep-level trusting relationship with each person on your team.
Worth a conversation about what this looks like inside your organization? Reach out to the Braintrust team — we'd be glad to talk through it.
