Credibility is the technical and contextual authority that makes your recommendations worth following. It is earned by demonstrating domain depth, accuracy, and follow-through.
| Indicator | Evidence from recent engagement | Rating (3=Ready / 2=Developing / 1=Gap) |
|---|---|---|
| Customers ask for your technical opinion before making architectural decisions | ||
| You have been right publicly when others were wrong, and they acknowledged it | ||
| You cite specific data, reference architectures, or customer precedents rather than speaking in generalities | ||
| You acknowledge what you don't know and follow through on what you said you'd find out | ||
| Credibility Score | ___ / 12 | |
Reliability is the cumulative experience of your customer having asked for something and consistently receiving it: on time, at the quality level they expected.
| Indicator | Evidence from recent engagement | Rating (3 / 2 / 1) |
|---|---|---|
| You have never had to be reminded to follow through on a commitment | ||
| When something is going to be late or incomplete, you proactively communicated it before being asked | ||
| Your customers know what to expect from you: your communication cadence is predictable | ||
| You deliver on verbal commitments made informally in meetings, not just written ones | ||
| Reliability Score | ___ / 12 | |
Intimacy, in the professional sense, is the degree to which your customer will tell you things they don't tell other vendors. Shadow Stakeholders. Political constraints. Prior failures. Budget fears. The Trusted Advisor hears these because they have created safety.
| Indicator | Evidence from recent engagement | Rating (3 / 2 / 1) |
|---|---|---|
| A customer has told you something about their organization they specifically asked you not to share | ||
| A customer has called you outside of a scheduled meeting to ask for your opinion on a decision | ||
| You know the specific personal pressures your primary contact is under, not just the project pressures | ||
| Customers have referred you to peers or colleagues outside the formal sales process | ||
| Intimacy Score | ___ / 12 | |
This is the denominator in the Trusted Advisor formula. High self-orientation: serving your own agenda first: divides all three numerators. It is the hardest dimension to rate honestly.
| Indicator | Evidence from recent engagement | Rating (3=Low self-orientation / 1=High) |
|---|---|---|
| You have recommended a competitor's product or a "no purchase" option when it was genuinely better for the customer | ||
| You have told a customer something they didn't want to hear within the first 30 minutes of a meeting, not as the last item on the agenda | ||
| Your discovery questions are designed to understand the customer's problem, not to position your solution | ||
| When a deal stalled, your first instinct was to diagnose what the customer needed, not to find a new angle to push | ||
| Self-Orientation Score (lower = better) | ___ / 12 | |
The Trusted Advisor formula (from Maister, Green, and Galford): Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-Orientation
| Credibility Score | ___ / 12 |
| Reliability Score | ___ / 12 |
| Intimacy Score | ___ / 12 |
| Sum of Numerators | ___ / 36 |
| Self-Orientation Score | ___ / 12 (lower is better) |
Lowest-scoring dimension: