I’m sharing this guest blog by Nancy MacKay, Founder, Board Member, Interim CEO, and Forum Chair at MacKay CEO Forums.

MacKay CEO Forums is the highest impact and least time intensive peer group for over 1200 CEOs, Executives and business owners around the world.

With a dream to populate the world with inspiring leaders, Nancy founded MacKay CEO Forums in 2005, after seeing firsthand the tremendous value of having CEOs come together to learn from each other, and to help each other deal with their toughest issues and challenges. Over 60 Forum Chairs, who are all very successful trusted advisors, facilitate over 100 peer learning groups, involving over 700 meetings and retreats each year.

The blog outlines one of the key areas of proficiency every trusted advisor needs to pay attention to. I’m sure you’ll find it very valuable. Read on to gain golden nuggets you can infuse into your trusted advisory consultancy working with corporate clients.

‍Did you know? Relationship mastery is a process, not a “deliverable,” and can be repeated with every client.

Today’s modern trusted advisor uses “mastery” in such areas as time, ego, relationship, emotional, health, shared experience, innovation, and more.

In this article, we are focusing on the high-level points of being a trusted advisor who builds relationship mastery.

Trusted advisors must, above all, create relationships that not only support others, but inspire them.

It is important to take a holistic approach.

When working with clients, be aware of and sensitive to your client’s life—family, interests, background, experiences, and so forth. These issues affect how people make decisions, their perspective, and our ability to help.

When you strategically develop relationships built on trust, you become the advisor who is the first one called, the person who can immediately make a critical difference.

This is how you demonstrate your value, and how you make a big impact on your clients.

For instance:

• You practice “tough love,” telling the truth even when it “hurts,” knowing the longer-term gain is worth it.
• You don’t make judgments, don’t foist opinions on others, but use observed behavior and evidence in the environment to support your help.
  
• When you have the courage to provide tough feedback, you give them the courage to provide it to others themselves.

‍The characteristics of trusted advisor relationship mastery include:‍

• True caring about the person beyond their being simply a “client.” 
• Objective assessment of performance with nonjudgmental feedback.
• Your courage with feedback provides them with the courage to provide tough feedback and confidently make tough decisions. 
• You challenge them to grow. You don’t mistake a plateau or complacency for growth.

‍You maintain absolute confidentiality and honor all commitments and deadlines. 

• You allow for vulnerability, sharing mistakes, errors, and regrets.
• You expect to be—and are—the first person they call in most challenging situations.
• Neither of you withhold reactions or observations. 
• You challenge beliefs and assumptions to force objective decisions and rational behaviors.

Being a Trusted Advisor doesn’t mean you have to go that road alone. Just like your C-Suite leaders need your expertise, so do your peers.

In fact, I’ve found that mastering relationships with your trusted advisor peers can be game- changing. 

For example, when COVID hit, I launched 90-day peer groups for trusted advisor Forum Chairs so they could build lifeline relationships with each other. This helped them raise their game on mastering relationships with their clients because they learned from each other’s successes and failures.

As a result, most of the trusted advisor Forum Chairs had their best year ever in 2020 because they made the decision to learn from their peers how to establish even deeper relationships with their clients. And, the 90-day peer groups will live on forever, because once you find a best fit peer group, you want to be on the journey of life with them forever.

The stronger your support system, the better your accountability and discipline are likely to be.

Want to engage with your trusted advisor peers in an entirely new format? You’ll learn the 10 Critical Success Factors for Modern Trusted Advisors, and much more.

Join Kim Chernecki and I as we map out a 5-part process and roadmap to help you fine-tune your trusted advisor skills while you network and share with your peers.

The Wealthy Consultant Workshop Series starts Tuesday, June 28th and runs weekly on Tuesdays until July 26th.

Get details and register here: https://www.wealthyconsultantworkshopseries.com/‍