Learn to optimise your LinkedIn presence and gain more clients by better portraying yourself and building trust with prospects.

1. part of the Asia Pacific mext/duxton group
mext professional
services practice:
DOES YOUR CV AND
LINKEDIN PROFILE BUILD
TRUSTAT FIRST
SIGHT?

2. In first
impressions
trust is more
important than
competence,
finds Amy
Cuddy, Harvard
Psychology
Professor and
author of
‘Presence’.
Harvard Professor Amy Cuddy has made a living out
of telling people how to act in front of others.
Indeed, she’s become so popular at it that her Ted
talk on the subject is the second most viewed video
on Ted.com, with almost 40 million views
Harvard Professor Amy Cuddy has made a living out
of telling people how to act in front of others.
Indeed, she’s become so popular at it that her Ted
talk on the subject is the second most viewed video
on Ted.com, with almost 40 million views

3. In first
impressions
trust is more
important than
competence,
finds Amy
Cuddy, Harvard
Psychology
Professor and
author of
‘Presence’.
In her recent book, Presence, Ms Cuddy explains
how you can make yourself feel more powerful
and important ahead of an important interview or
key meeting.

4. During her research Ms Cuddy found that self assurance
and competence were the devices which helped people to
engage the most with others – to win deals and get the best
jobs. But, above all, she found that trust was key from the
beginning, without it everything else tended to lose value.
Interestingly, she even puts this down to the evolution of
humans – who you could trust around the camp fire back in
the day when Stonehenge was breaking new ground as
architecture for sunworshippers. “It makes sense
when you consider that in cavemen
days it was more important to figure
out if your fellow man was going to
murder you and steal all your
possessions than if he was
competent enough to build a good
fire” says Cuddy.

5. Recently, I’ve been reviewing hundreds of CVs and LinkedIn
profiles from men and women in the professional services
industries, and the observation I arrived at was that none of
those professionals had been able to convey real trust. All
those CVs and LinkedIn profiles focused almost wholly on
demonstrating levels of competence rather than trust. Power
posing rather than meaningful engagement.
So what’s wrong with that?

6. Apart from your house, spouse, children and car (never in that
order), LinkedIn is possibly your greatest asset as a
professional.
Recent studies have shown that
of prospective clients and contacts –
regardless of your industry – look at your
LinkedIn profile after they meet you for the
first time.
Crucially, they also do this before checking you and your
company out on your website.
Most CVs and LinkedIn profiles convey only stability and
competence as a trust factor, but it is the other trust categories
that really matter to trust at first sight – back to the cavemen
days. Exploring the staff and firm’s trust drivers; mixing and
focusing them correctly maximises trust in the partner and the
firm.
‘Recently, I’ve been reviewing hundreds
of CVs and LinkedIn profiles in
professional services, and none of those
professionals had been able to convey
real trust.’
Andrew Chilvers, mext UK lead and social media
expert
LinkedIn
CV

7. Most professionals have a LinkedIn presence explaining their
competence and rock solid stability, but without any of the core trust
values such as relationships, vision, benefits for clients… and a large
number have no LinkedIn presence at all.
So, in short, most CVs and LinkedIn profiles have very little information
for a prospect or client to see other than current status and
background.
Instead, a well designed LinkedIn profile needs to build
various levels of trust the moment the page emerges. It
builds on relationships, benefits for clients’ businesses, a vision
supporting business development, client and stakeholder management
and cross selling.
So how long does trust take to build?
Trust consists of 6 distinct
categories. All CVs and
LinkedIn Profiles analysed only
focus on competence – the
dimension Cuddy proved to be
less important in first
impressions.

8. Not long, actually.
It only takes a few minutes to feel you trust
someone, if they appear trustworthy.
At mext we’ve found that we can determine almost
exact levels of trust immediately. And improving that
level of trust is our speciality.
Having developed the HuTrust® approach with
Professor W Salber, we analyse different ideas
around trust building every day. From energy
companies and investment fund pitches to
professional services firms, we’ve worked with a
host of clients to build trust that develops into more
sales and more effective trust between professional
within the company.

9. How do we do it?
HuTrust®
The hutrust model, its six facets of trust and the trust driver game are copyright and trademark mext/Ifm/Stefan Grafe
and may only be used and replicated with express permission off-the-wall copyright holder.

10. HuTrust®
This knowledge enables us to assess how well any CV,
LinkedIn profile or content piece delivers against the
right trust categories – then explore the trust drivers
with the partner and translate this back into powerful
trust building work.
And that doesn’t stop at the CV and LinkedIn profile, but
helps us determine with the partners, business
development professionals and marketing what kind of
topics, focusing on which trust category, need to be
developed and how all this needs to be written.
Not just a one piece content level, but strategically over
time, across partners and the firm – and engaging the right
clients, their influencers and prospects.
Next time you’re warming yourself around a camp fire, take
a closer look at the people around you. I’ll wager you’ll
soon recognise – even unconsciously – which of the story
tellers you can trust and which are simply power posing.

11. About mext and the author
Mext are experts in helping clients globally
build trust through their brands, services,
communications and people to improve their
performance.
www.mextconsulting.com
Irina.vishnina@mextconsulting.com
(+61) 401 969 533
HuTrust® is the psychologically correct
understanding of how trust works in our
minds. It is scientifically correct, statistically
validated and measurable, and practically
proven with clients from Australia to Qatar and
Airlines to Yogurt. www.hutrust.com
Andrew Chilvers is mexts’s UK lead and a
passionate driver of effective social media and
communications solutions. Recently he has
worked with organisations including UK police
departments and leading global professional
services firms.
Andrew.Chilvers@mextconsulting.com
+44 779 614 7030
grow with
vision, precision
and certainty®