The Trust Dividend: Build Trust and Reputation in Your Industry

The Trust Dividend: Build Trust and Reputation in Your Industry Enterprise procurement involves severe information asymmetry and extremely costly failure. Decision-makers rank information clearly: vendor publicity below analyst reports, analyst reports below public peer cases, and public peer cases below private peer recommendations. The highest priority—‘Someone I know used it, says it really works, and strongly recommends it’—converts far more effectively than other approaches. FDE is well suited to generating such privately shared references: ‘You deliver not only software results, but an assessment a customer executive can share at an industry dinner: they truly understand this industry.’ Develop this endorsement resource at three levels. First, turn delivery results into a story people can tell. Customer executives will spread results when they become a story that enhances their standing. Three narrative elements help: A specific number: ‘Chemical use fell 70%’ or ‘Anti-money-laundering investigations fell from hours to minutes.’ A specific person: ‘Our agronomists worked alongside their team in the fields.’ A specific contrast: ‘What used to take three months took five days.’ At delivery, FDE teams should proactively equip internal champions with a one-page summary, three supporting graphics, and a thirty-second version. Careful preparation determines whether retellings distort the information. Second, turn customers’ business success into professional standing they can use. Walgreens’ Palantir-supported rollout across 4,000 stores became a prominent conference case. After joining Palantir’s AIP bootcamp, market-research company J.D. Power began running bootcamps for its own customers. This is ideal: ‘Customers present your methodology as their own industry leadership. Their attitude shifts from thanking a supplier to taking pride in using the solution.’ Third, beware of endorsement backlash. Enterprise markets have long memories. A failed delivery for a high-profile customer spreads faster than several successful projects because failure stories travel easily. The biggest risk is not failing to find a reference customer, but failing that customer and having the industry hear about it. #Forward-deployed engineering (FDE)