Why Written Reports Lack Trust

If you're not confident in your reporting data, neither are your investors. Most CFOs I speak to can walk me through their financials down to the decimal. But when I ask, “How confident are you in your sustainability reporting data?”—I get hesitation. And I understand why. The processes used to collect, verify, and report non-financial data are often lightyears behind those used in Finance. Data comes in from dozens of places: operations, facilities, procurement, HR, suppliers. Some of it lives in spreadsheets, some in email attachments, some pulled manually from legacy systems. By the time it reaches the CFO, it's been through three layers of "eyeball validation." That’s a house of cards—especially when you're facing investor scrutiny, customer assessments, and regulatory audits. The issue isn't that CFOs don't care. The issue is infrastructure. Financial reporting evolved over decades to become bulletproof. ERP systems. Controls. Audit trails. Checks and balances. It's second nature to finance leaders. But sustainability reporting? It's in its infancy. And yet, the expectations placed on this data are now equally high. Investors are using it to assess risk and long-term value. Customers are using it to decide who they want to do business with. Regulators are using it to enforce accountability. So when the data is stitched together manually—without proper traceability or systems—it’s not just inefficient. It’s dangerous. CFOs need to ask themselves: → If a number gets challenged, can we prove where it came from? → Do we have a system of record for sustainability data that matches the rigor of our financial stack? → If the audit team called today, how long would it take us to respond—with confidence? Confidence doesn't come from gut feel. It comes from infrastructure that makes data verifiable, traceable, and defendable. And until sustainability reporting is treated with the same discipline as financial reporting, that confidence will remain out of reach. But the CFO is uniquely positioned to change that. Because building trust in your numbers—whether financial or non-financial—is not a Sustainability problem. It’s a leadership opportunity.

If your PR report looks impressive with big numbers but still feels empty, this post is for you. Most agencies still sell visibility KPIs — impressions, mentions, share of voice, AVE, reach. These agencies aren't wrong in doing it, as these metrics are can be measured with ease. But these metrics lack meaning for clients. These numbers tell you how often your name showed up, not whether your story landed or your reputation strengthened. What you should be tracking instead are Trust Signals — the real indicators of reputation movement. Trust Signals look like this: - A journalist quoting you without you pitching them. - A client repeating your messaging unprompted. - An investor referencing your thought piece in a meeting. - Employees sharing company news with pride. These are lagging indicators of belief. They don’t fit neatly in a dashboard and that's why most agencies avoid them. But if your PR work doesn’t move trust, it’s just paid noise management. PR done right builds confidence in your name, not just coverage reports. So next time you get your monthly report, ask one simple question: “Which of these numbers tells me people trust us more than last month?” Which metric did your PR agency report last month?

I recently sat in on an executive team’s weekly meeting, listening to a report-out from one of the business units. The team was clearly in trouble. Metrics were lagging. Customer complaints were up. And worse, you could feel the tension. It was polite on the surface, but the moment the slides ended, the blame started. “We’re not getting enough support from product.” “Sales keeps overpromising.” “People just aren’t accountable.” I’ve seen this movie before. A team starts missing targets, and instead of pulling together, they turn on each other. The instinct is to protect your lane, control what you can, and avoid being the one to blame. So I asked a question I knew would make everyone uncomfortable: “If we’re honest, how much of this is about the metrics, and how much is about how we’re leading right now?” Silence. Eyes on the table. Then, slowly, the truth started to surface. One leader admitted he’d been micromanaging because he was afraid of more surprises. Another said she’d stopped giving feedback because it never felt safe to disagree. Someone else confessed they were spending more time defending their function than solving problems. It was the first real moment of honesty we’d had in weeks. And it made me think about how often we default to control when things get hard: More status updates. More dashboards. More layers of approval. But control doesn’t build trust. It doesn’t create safety. It doesn’t help people do their best work. So instead of another round of slides and excuses, we tried something different. We used a version of the Stress Test described in Keith Ferrazzi’s excellent book, Never Lead Alone. The exec team abandoned their normal 25 page QBR "death by powerpoint" deck, instead used a short, focused document, three pages, answering three questions: What have we achieved? Where are we struggling? What’s coming next? No big group presentation. No polished deck. Just small groups, honest conversation, and space to ask the real questions: What are we afraid of? Where are we avoiding accountability? What would we try if we weren’t worried about failing? By the end of the session, the team looked different. People were still concerned - but they were no longer performing for each other. They were problem-solving WITH each other. It was a reminder: If you want to raise psychological safety by miles, you don’t need another training. You need to stop managing perception and start surfacing truth. So much of leadership comes down to one simple shift: Move from large-group presentations to small-group conversations. It sounds obvious. But it’s one of the hardest, and most transformational changes you can make. Because when people feel safe enough to admit what isn’t working, they finally have the freedom to fix it. What’s one place this week where you could trade control for trust?

60% of directors say the candor of board-management discussions needs improvement. That finding, from the NACD 2025 Trends and Priorities Survey, should alarm every board member. Six out of ten directors believe management is not being straight with them about what is actually happening in their organizations. Without honest dialogue about where technology capabilities fall short, boards cannot ask the right questions. Without the right questions, management optimizes for what gets measured in quarterly reports rather than what actually protects the organization. The cycle continues until a material incident forces the conversation that should have happened years earlier. This matters because technology risk now sits at the top of most board agendas. With 41% of directors ranking cybersecurity threats and 30% ranking AI among their top concerns for 2025, the consequences of incomplete information have never been more severe. Boards that want better technology oversight do not need more dashboards. They need different conversations. The kind with additional context provided, where a shares CISO "we are making a calculated risk accepting this vulnerability because fixing it would require stopping three other initiatives which involves more risks to our clients and business" and the board understands the trade-off being made. Where a CTO can explain that the AI strategy being presented is six months behind what competitors have deployed, and everyone acknowledges the gap rather than pretending it does not exist. Technology governance is not a reporting problem. It is a trust problem. Until boards and executives create the conditions for candor, they will continue governing with incomplete information about their most material risks. What are you doing to ensure the conversations in your boardroom reflect reality?

Can you really make big decisions with blurry, outdated numbers?   That’s what bad financial reporting feels like: driving with a fogged-up windshield. I’ve seen it in fast-growing startups, established family businesses, even in companies with full finance teams.   The pattern is always the same: 📌 Reports arrive late — sometimes weeks after the month ends. 📌 Numbers are “close enough,” but not fully trusted. 📌 By the time leadership reviews them, the window to act has already closed. One CEO I worked with thought this was normal. Until a late and slightly inaccurate report made her miss a supplier bulk discount worth six figures. The cash was there but the report told a different story. The problem isn’t effort or software. It’s process: scattered data, unclear ownership, and no standard timeline. When we fixed it, we: ✔️ Centralized all financial data into one source of truth ✔️ Created standard report templates ✔️ Aligned delivery dates with key decision points The difference was night and day. Reports became trusted, timely, and actionable. And financial reporting turned into a growth tool not a bottleneck. #financialreporting  #businessaccounting  #finance

Most brands publish content. But.... They should be distributing insight. Publishing says: → “We just released this 20 page PDF. Go read it.” But if no one’s doing that, the issue isn’t timing... It’s trust. It’s visibility. It’s belief that this piece is actually worth their attention. Because here's the thing: Marketers ruined it. Marketers ruined the POWER of gated content. They pressed publish on PDFs that were filled with meh content. They pressed publish on whitepapers that said nothing but buzz words. And they published reports that told us what we already knew... So the trust is gone. This is why your posts need relevance: → “Here’s what 98% of marketers in [INDUSTRY] are saying about [TOPIC]” → “We just realized XX% of [audience] are SCARED of [INSIGHT FROM REPORT]. ” Instead of this: “Our new guide is live.” Try this → “98% of CMOs told us [surprising stat] and here’s what that means for your Q3 playbook.” Instead of this: “Download our latest report.” Try this → “Most VPs of Marketing are quietly panicking about [X] and this data explains why.” Instead of this: “Check out our whitepaper.” Try this: → “We pulled 3 insights from a 20-page report so you don’t have to read it. Let’s go.” Marketers: Your job isn’t to drop links. It’s instill trust. Make them feel seen. Make them feel smart. Make them want to click. That’s the distribution mindset. #marketing #contentmarketing #socialmediamarketing

Harsh truth: Your clients don’t care about your reports. (And they probably don’t even read them.) Honestly? I wouldn’t either. Most MSPs put so much time into monthly reports… Only for them to land in the client’s inbox, get opened once, then never looked at again. Not because the client is lazy. But because the report isn’t built for them. So before your next report, ask yourself this: 1️⃣ Is it made for their team—or yours? You’re listing patch updates, ticket stats, antivirus logs… But here’s what they actually care about: * What did we prevent? * What are the risks I should know about? * Are we more secure than last month? If they can’t tie data to business value, they’ll check out. 2️⃣ Is it easy to read? 10 pages of raw data = zero clarity Your client doesn’t want to sift through dashboards. They want a clear story. Try this instead: * Put a simple summary right at the top * Highlight the 3 biggest wins * Flag 1–2 risks they need to know * Use plain language, not technical jargon The easier it is to understand, the easier it is to trust. ⿣ Does it lead to a conversation? If you send a report with no follow-up… you’re saying, “This doesn’t matter enough to talk about.” It feels like box-ticking. It doesn’t build the relationship. And it definitely doesn’t show leadership. Instead: * Use the report to start a conversation * Talk through the risks, the wins, and the plan * Ask what they want to see more of And if there’s nothing to talk about? Don’t send it. Figure out why there’s nothing to talk about. Then prioritize fixing that. Reporting isn’t paperwork. It’s a chance to prove your value and earn trust. Here’s what to include: ✅ Client Wins ✅ Business Impact ✅ Rolling Risk Summary ✅ Owner-Friendly Summary ✅ Loom video walkthrough ✅ Review call invite Here’s what to take out: ❌ Ticket logs ❌ Tech metrics with no business context ❌ Anything you couldn’t explain in 60 seconds ❌ “FYI” noise You’re not just showing data. You’re showing leadership. And that’s what clients stay for. I built a free community for MSPs filled with resources and strategies to help you with challenges just like this... And a whole lot more! Comment 'community' or DM me to apply!

Your data may not be trustworthy, but it’s ALWAYS accurate. The next time someone tells you the data you’ve pulled from a Salesforce report is “wrong,” there’s probably a very good reason why. But that reason is not accuracy. Unless there’s a bug in the system you’re filtering against, that data set is going to be accurate. 100% of the time.  Rather, what you’re looking at is a data trustworthiness problem — for one reason or another, your report isn’t passing the sniff test. So, what must be true for data to be considered trustworthy?  Four things: → 1. The filters in your reports must be accurate. → 2. The right architecture must first be in place. You have to be capturing data in the right format (picklist vs text, for example). → 3. The people who are capturing that data must be doing what’s expected of them (i.e., they have to be inputting the data properly). → 4. The processes people are following are well thought out and clearly documented. Report building is just the tip of the iceberg. There are SO many dependencies under the surface. This is actually where we got our name (Iceberg RevOps) from. So no, your data isn’t “wrong”... It just isn’t trustworthy. And it’s high time you get your architecture and enablement in order. #saas #revops #sales #operations #startups #gtm