Why trust can't be built on a timeline

People don’t trust your words. They trust your patterns. You can promise change. You can talk about doing good. But if your past actions show the opposite, people will remember that first. That’s the reality in life. And it’s the same in design. A product doesn’t earn trust with a shiny new update. It earns trust through consistent experiences over time. Think about it: If an app keeps crashing, will one bug fix rebuild confidence? If a brand keeps overpromising, will one new feature restore loyalty? No. Trust isn’t built overnight. It’s built in patterns, not promises. This is a principle I emphasize when I speak with students and professionals: Consistency is the real credibility. Because in careers, in design, in leadership — people don’t remember what you said. They remember what you repeatedly did.

63% of B2B buyers say that brand reputation is what gets you onto the shortlist — before they ever click, scroll, download, or take the meeting. Not because of the funnel. Not because of the perfectly timed ad. And not because of that one whitepaper you promoted last week. But because of how often they saw you before they even needed you. And yet — if you look at how most companies operate — their entire demand strategy is built around capturing people when they’re ready to buy, instead of earning a place in their minds before they’re even in market. Campaigns start when pipeline shrinks. Content goes out when urgency spikes. Brand becomes a priority when Sales says “people don’t know who we are.” and then eveeeeeeeeryone runs in a panic to build a story that should have existed months ago. This is the fatal flaw: We try to build trust on a deadline. But trust doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t show up in the same quarter you launch a new campaign. It doesn’t respond to urgency. It responds to repetition, clarity, and consistency — none of which can be rushed. If you’re only showing up when you have something to sell, people notice. If you’re only visible when you’re behind on targets, people sense it. Aaaaaaaand if you disappear when things are going well, people forget you the second they see a louder competitor. The brands that win in B2B — especially in high-ACV, long-cycle, trust-first environments — are not the ones with the best targeting or the most aggressive follow-up. They’re the ones that showed up when no one else did. They’re the ones who were there early — when the buyer was just starting to feel a problem but wasn’t ready to solve it. And they’re the ones who invested in mental real estate long before the RFP ever got created. So if you’re wondering where to invest this week — don’t just optimize your outreach or pump more into ads. Ask a harder question! → What are we doing to be remembered by the people who won’t need us for another 6 months? Because in B2B, the most valuable pipeline doesn’t come from who you convert — it comes from who already trusts you when the time is right.

Some teams struggle because of poor communication. But most struggle because they don’t trust each other’s work. Ever been there? Waiting on a deliverable. Deadline passes.You check in. "Oh, I didn’t know you needed that today." Frustrating? Yes. A workflow issue? No. This happened at the highest levels of military operations. General Stanley McChrystal was leading Joint Special Operations Command. Multiple teams, different branches, intelligence agencies—all working toward the same goal. At least, that’s how it looked on paper. Then one day, he toured an airbase and opened a storage closet. Inside? Garbage bags full of unprocessed intelligence. Weeks’ worth of mission-critical data. Just sitting there. Why? Because the people collecting intelligence had no system to pass it. And the people who needed it? They had no idea it existed. So McChrystal didn’t add more meetings. He embedded people. →  An intelligence officer with Special Forces. →  A Navy SEAL inside an embassy. → A Marine with Army Rangers. Not to oversee. Not to report back. To work alongside each other long enough to build trust. And suddenly, everything changed. Because now, when a soldier in the field complained about bureaucrats at the embassy, there was someone who could say: "I worked with them. I know what they do. They’re on mission too." That’s how real trust is built. Not through status updates. Not through better workflows. Through shared experience. Because when people understand each other’s work, they stop making assumptions. And that’s when teams stop falling apart and start winning together.

One thing I’ve learned the hard way. You can’t shortcut trust. After reading The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey, years ago, one idea stuck with me: organizations and missions move at the speed of trust. That’s exactly what we’ve seen in our work at LIFT Orlando. As we enter our next phase, we’re building tools to scale impact through multiplication. The goal is simple: help others do more, better, faster than what took us 10 years. We’re sharing: • How to cast a compelling vision • How to raise capital to do the work • How to structure partnerships • How to leverage Tax Credits But when I recently shared the story of our early days, working to earn trust in a neighborhood that had every reason to be skeptical, someone asked me: “Can you help others skip that part?” I said, No. I can help you build relationships I can help you raise money. I can help you close a deal. But I can’t help you shortcut trust. Because trust doesn’t just take time. It takes intention. And it never stops being the work. As Covey writes, “The ability to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust is the key professional and personal competency of our time.” If we want lasting impact, we have to lead at the speed of trust, and keep earning it every step of the way.