Most of the significant transactions I have been involved in over the course of my career did not begin as transactions. They began as conversations — sometimes years earlier — that had no immediate commercial purpose. A connection made at a conference, a referral from a mutual contact, a conversation that went long because it turned out we were thinking about the same problem from different angles. The transaction, when it eventually materialised, was a consequence of the relationship rather than its origin.
This is how most consequential business actually works, and it is badly underrepresented in the way advisory and capital markets work is typically described. The emphasis tends to be on deal-making — on the pitch, the process, the close. But in my experience, the deal is almost always the smallest part of the story.
Trust is built in small moments
"Trust is built when you tell a client something they do not want to hear because it is the right thing to tell them. It is built when you decline to take a fee for something that was not in their interest, even when they would not have known the difference."
These are not dramatic gestures. They accumulate quietly, and their cumulative effect is the thing that determines whether someone will come back to you when the stakes are genuinely high. The inverse is also true. Trust is lost quickly and asymmetrically. A single episode of prioritising your own interest over the client's — even a small one, even in a grey area — can undo a significant amount of accumulated goodwill.
The long view as competitive advantage
The trade-off, when you strip it back, is simple: you can optimise for the short term and extract as much value as possible from every interaction, or you can optimise for the long term and build the kind of relationships where the other party genuinely wants to see you succeed. The second approach is slower. It requires more patience and more restraint. In my experience, it is also considerably more reliable — and more satisfying — than the alternative.
This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.