EVERYTHING You Need To Know About TRUST

Expat Property Story

#219

Finding trustworthy people to work with is probably the biggest challenge facing remote investors of UK Property.

Charles H Green is the author of The Trusted Advisor and founder of Trusted Advisors Associates.

He has been exploring, researching and advising on TRUST for more than 25 years.

Few people on the planet know as much about the topic of trust as Charlie.

We discuss:

• Two sides of trust: Trust involves both being trustworthy and being willing to trust others. You have to focus on both.
• Reciprocity drives trust: Trust is often reciprocal—when you show trust, others are more likely to trust you in return.
• Taking risks is necessary: You can’t build trust without taking some level of risk. Playing it safe all the time leads nowhere.
• Transactional relationships hinder deep trust: Approaching interactions as one-off transactions limits the potential for strong, trust-based relationships.
• Intelligent risk is key: Trusting everyone is naïve, but starting with a default of intelligent trust (and waiting to be disproven) opens more doors.
• Practical actions matter: Demonstrate transparency and be willing to admit when you don’t know the answer—it builds credibility and trust.
• The Trust Equation: Trustworthiness = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-Orientation. Intimacy (emotional safety) is the strongest factor.
• Self-orientation reduces trust: The more you’re focused on yourself (nervous, self-absorbed), the less trustworthy you seem.
• Women and older people appear more trustworthy: Data from Charlie’s Trust Quotient (TQ) self-assessment shows women outperform men on intimacy, and trustworthiness increases with age.
• Listening is crucial: True listening (to make others feel heard, not just to collect info) initiates and strengthens trust.
• Building trust can be rapid: Trust doesn’t necessarily take years—it can be established quickly through genuine, meaningful interactions.
• Trust-creation process: The key steps are: engaging, listening, framing (posing hypotheses), envisioning, and committing.
• Institutional vs. personal trust: Institutional trust is “thin” and relies on reputation and track records; personal trust is “thick” and more emotionally nuanced.
• Testing and mitigating trust: Responsible due diligence is important, but one of the best ways to assess someone’s trustworthiness is to trust them first in small ways and see how they respond.

This episode is the sequel to #215 Don't Know Who to Trust in UK Property?

Keywords

trust, UK property investing, remote investing, expat investors, finding trustworthy people, The Trusted Advisor, trust equation, trustworthiness, taking risks, building relationships, listening skills, intimacy in business, credibility, reliability, self-orientation, transparency, customer focus, collaboration, long-term focus, transactional relationships, due diligence, risk mitigation, trust in sales, gut instinct, AI and trust, online reviews, Trustpilot, reputation management, sales strategies, business relationships, empathy