Tight builds trust & trust creates growth
I’ve recently been working with a coaching client, Shar, on her Freedom Project. The Freedom Project is where I go into a practice and work with a consultant and their team to accelerate growth. This includes (but isn’t limited to) creating systems, sales management, teaching them how to optimise their thought leader’s capacity and helping them set up all the processes and workflows needed for the delivery the thought leader needs to do. This is done with the team so that the practice can run smoothly with minimal input from the expert.
Shar’s EA is a lovely and very capable woman named Martha, and when I went into Shar’s practice, I found something unique – there was a huge amount of trust between them. Shar trusted Martha and Martha trusted Shar, and most importantly they both knew that the other had that trust in them.
But despite that trust, Shar was having a hard time letting work go. Martha was very capable of doing so much more, and she was being underutilised in the practice. This was holding Shar back from being able to really grow, because she was keeping herself stuck in the details (and as a result working all the hours of the day!). This needed to change, but the good news was, because the trust was there, we could get everything moving much more quickly.
So, working with Martha and Shar, I began to implement changes to the practice, and this involved allocating more tasks to Martha’s role. Things were going very smoothly, but over time it became clear that there was one thing that wasn’t working well – they weren't speaking frequently enough. They were still only meeting once a week. This might have been fine before, but now they were going to go through a lot of change, and they needed more opportunities to give each other feedback and to collaborate.
I told Shar that they needed to meet much more frequently – ideally every day in a daily huddle, just for 15 mins. Shar asked, ‘Is that really necessary? Do we need to meet?’
I said, ‘If you want your business to move fast so you can really grow, you need to be able to communicate with each other very quickly. Tight builds trust.’
Tight builds trust
For Shar and Martha, there was already a lot of trust between them. And working more closely, and speaking more frequently, allowed them to build on that trust. We implemented the daily huddle, which was only 15 minutes, and then we put in a WhatsApp chat, which allowed them to communicate about urgent matters or on-the-run type issues. And we also added in the end-of-day email which ties everything up and sets your team up for the next day’s work.
These three processes made a huge change in Shar’s consulting practice and between Martha and Shar. Because they were talking frequently, and with ease, they were able to create speed and agility.
It’s important to understand that this is not about control or micromanaging. We’re not building in these layers of communication because you don't trust your VA or your team. We’re putting in these controls because it will allow you to speed up your work and provide better service to your clients.
Trust builds speed
Being able to move quickly as a consultant, expert or thought leader is vital. As Stephen Covey tells us in his book, The Speed of Trust, ‘Nothing is as fast as the speed of trust.’ He describes how trust dramatically affects the speed and cost of everything in business. When trust goes up, speed increases and costs go down. But when trust goes down, everything slows and costs rise.
Trust is one thing that affects everything else you're doing. It's a performance multiplier, which takes your trajectory upwards for every activity you engage in from strategy to execution.
Shar and Martha are a great example. With their communication, their trust was strengthened, and as their trust grew so did their ability to manage the work and the practice. They were able to act with speed and agility.
Speed creates growth
With the new speed and agility, Shar has seen incredible growth in her consulting practice. Martha is now able to work quickly, empowered to make decisions and take action, and easily able to get in touch with Shar when she needs guidance and advice. When we last measured it, her capacity was up 500%.
And Shar has her weekends and her energy back. So she can now focus on doing the real work of a consultant – think, sell and deliver – rather than being stuck in the weeds of admin. She’s able to come up with more creative ideas for her work and her practice has had a significant jump in revenue as a result.
Steps for your consulting practice
If you’re a consultant who’s wondering how to grow your own consulting business, ask yourself:
Does your EA and/or team trust you? If not, ask yourself, ‘What do they need from me to feel fully trusted?’ Have an open conversation and then endeavour to make it part of your culture, rather than leaving it unspoken.
Do I meet with my EA/team frequently enough to stay aligned? If the answer is no, consider trialing a daily 10-15 minute huddle for updates, priorities and quick check-ins and layer it with a urgent/critical communication channel (like Slack or WhatsApp). The end-of-day email worked well to close the loop for Shar and Martha and works well for high performing small teams..
Are you holding on to tasks that would be performed more efficiently by your team out of habit, perfectionism or a lack of trust? If so, audit your workload, and choose one new task that you can delegate to your EA or team. Do this each week until you’ve got your time back and your EA is fully utilised.
Have you found that tight builds trust in your team? I’d love to hear your thoughts…
