Your expertise is brilliant. YOUR client relationships shouldn't be this hard. 

Your clients don't trust you the way they should. And it's costing you everything.

I've been in those rooms, watching brilliant minds get treated like vendors instead of advisors. The uncomfortable silence when you make a recommendation. Clients who nod politely but ask for "a few more options." Getting called in after the important decisions are made, not before.

I've watched accountants with decades of experience get their invoices questioned line by line. Engineers who could solve problems most people can't even understand get asked to justify every hour they bill. Tech experts who are genuinely trying to save their clients from costly mistakes get met with skepticism instead of gratitude.

Here's what that lack of trust is actually costing you:

Smaller projects because they see you as tactical, not strategic. Flat rates because you're competing on price, not insight. Constantly defending recommendations instead of being asked for opinions. Invoices that take forever to get paid. Working twice as hard for half the respect.

I'll be honest—I had an advantage. High emotional intelligence came naturally to me, so reading people and building connections felt intuitive. But even with that gift, I still had to discover there was an actual system underneath it all. A repeatable framework that creates trust.

The breakthrough: Trust isn't just about EQ—it's about understanding the formula.

The most successful people in your field aren't necessarily the smartest or the most naturally gifted with people skills. They're the ones who've learned the systematic approach to building trust. And once you see the pattern, everything changes.

You have the expertise. You deliver results. You shouldn't have to fight for basic respect or justify your value in every conversation. The formula exists, and it's completely learnable—even if reading people doesn't come as naturally to you as it did to me.

The question is: 

how much longer will you let brilliant work be undervalued by people who should be coming to you for answers?