Trust Training for Professional Services
About Scott
If you've heard the book title and wondered who it was named after, yeah, that was me.
I spent my career in professional services (account guy, agency owner, CEO), and for too much of it I was confidently in the wrong conversation. The smartest person in too many rooms. The one with the answer before anyone finished asking the question.
Clients put up with me because the work was good.
Then quietly, sometimes, they'd choose someone else next time.
The shift came through specific moments. Meetings I lost because I had won the argument. Deals I should have closed but didn't, because the client never quite trusted me with the question, only with the answer. So I started studying trust as a practical skill. Maister, Duhigg, Voss, Frei, Grant. The ones who treat trust as a craft, not a personality trait. And then I practiced.
I still run that business. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Brainrider, and for more than 20 years I've practiced this work inside a client-services company and taught it to our teams. This isn't a theory I retired to write about. It's what I do on Tuesday at 2pm.
From Asshole to Ally is the field guide for what I learned. The Win The Question Method is how I teach it. Win The Question is the platform that brings the work into firms. Trustcraft Press is where the books live.
If you've ever been the smartest person in the room and still lost the meeting, this work is for you.
Tell me about the meeting you're trying to win.
Don't pitch me. Just tell me what you're working on, who's in the room, and what would make the meeting different.