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Do You Have Credibility?
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II Sure Did!
The best consultants work hard to build trusted relationships but to build a trusted relationship a consultant needs to be seen as credible. The challenge is how does a consultant show a potential client that they are credible if they don’t already have credibility with them?
Credibility is a quality given by a client and not bestowed to a consultant overnight. Not only does it take time to be deemed credible, a consultant needs to continually work on enhancing and retaining credibility. It is also easy to assume you have credibility with a client when you don’t. This means as a consultant, you need to continually evaluate if there is trust between you and another person.
Credibility is fickle. It disappears faster than it is achieved. One wrong move can destroy your credibility for years, or a life-time. Think of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscar Awards or President Richard Nixon and the Watergate Scandal or Prince Andrew and his association with notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The credibility of each individual was shattered in all three scenarios. Nixon never regained his credibility; time will tell for Will Smith and Prince Andrew.
While working at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), I was taught that there were three basic ways to achieve…
