Dealing with some people is like chewing broken glass – they’re prickly or bombastic or energy vampires or just very dull – like the blinds on the window of their eyes are part-way closed and there’s no way of knowing what’s inside – or indeed, if it’s worth finding out.

Other people are like a cool breeze on a scorching day. They’re engaging, strangely familiar, and a joy to be around. Being interested and very present makes them charismatic, which makes them magnetic.

I met a woman at a website design course, and we hit it off so well that walking home together afterward, when I reached the corner where I should have turned toward my partner and dinner, I kept going instead – talking with her the whole way until we ended up at her house, where she invited me in.

Lest you think I’m some kind of weirdo (I am), these magical mergings of the mind aren’t an everyday occurrence – some people are just easy to like. In business, this makes all the difference.

How much is being “likeable” worth?

Evidence shows that individuals with high emotional intelligence (EQ) and strong social skills earn an average of $29,000 more a year than those with lower scores, according to extensive workplace data analysed by TalentSmart. Being perceived to be easy to deal with gives you a distinct advantage over competitors with low EQ.

Whatever the industry, whatever the business model, almost all businesses are in the business of people. I know a client’s having a hard time when they start talking about alternate business ideas that don’t involve peopling. We all don’t want to people sometimes.

With the best marketing to pull in our ideal clients {LINK}, good gatekeeping in the sales process to weed out unqualified or bad-fit people, and earnest attention to thoughtful details, some interactions with energy vampires, askholes or baby adults are still unavoidable. We can minimise these, but we can’t eliminate them.

Interpersonal skills – listening, empathy, rapport building, communication, persuasion, creativity – are only going to become more valuable as technical skills are increasingly subsumed by AI.

Can social skills be taught? Are we able to “get better with people”?

And, as owners seeking to grow our professional reputation while building our leadership, resilience, and resourceful, is our character something that’s innate and unchangeable? Or can character be developed?

Getting people to trust you: the trust equation

For any business to occur, trust is critical. Without it, we have a recipe for disaster. So, what is trust and how do you cultivate trustworthiness?

Turns out, there’s a formula – the Trust Equation, popularised by The Trusted Advisor authors David Maister, Charles H. Green, and Robert Galford:

Trustworthiness is:

Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy, divided by Self-Orientation

Too often, owners chase trustworthiness by focusing on their credibility. They fixate on qualifications and accolades – busy proving their worth instead of communicating value – and neglect two simpler things: the reliability that comes from doing what you say you’ll do, and the intimacy gained by being real with people.

I often teach and talk about character in my trainings, which might seem unusual for a business coach. But character underpins so much of our business, including our credibility, reliability and self-orientation. Having a strong character makes these pieces easy – largely thanks to your mental and moral congruence. No need for pretention or social masks, which means less stress, and less need for recovery.

Having a strong character makes trustworthiness far easier, because you know who you are so, with nothing to prove, it’s easier to take the focus off yourself. Which means, it’s easier to be present and interested in the other person (hence, increasing your magnetism and charisma).

Generosity as a business strategy

The best way to grow a community around your business is to teach more and share more than anyone else in your space. Being generous with your expertise online – educating your audience rather than just selling to them – is content marketing, the dominant approach today. It’s been the prevailing approach for 25 years, since Seth Godin’s seminal book Permission Marketing.

Being trustworthy and naturally interested in people makes it easier to build a community around our business, which makes marketing and sales far easier and reduces our risk in the process. Being generous with our ideas and expertise, through content marketing, is part-and-parcel of this.

But content is only half the story. To grow a reputation in the media, it helps to be personable, communicative, articulate, warm. While I don’t recommend marketing your likeability, to grow your professional reputation among your peers, being “a good person” has far more merit than many people acknowledge. ‘The word on the street’ is worth a lot in business, and bad behaviour comes at a cost.

I would sincerely love to exhort about the value of your body of work over the personality of the owner – after all, this would be easier, wouldn’t it? Humans are innately complex (and sometimes maddening), which means communication is not a formula; it’s a complicated art. We all want to be seen, heard, and understood. We have a fundamental need to be amongst each other. Being in (good) company feels safe. Being good at keeping others’ company is the best business strategy.

Our character doesn’t just help inspire trustworthiness from others, which means our sales conversions improve, having good character means mental and moral congruence, which also reduces our stress. Developing our emotional intelligence and people skills is excellent for our wellbeing, and hence our sustainability in business. As much as we may wish to hide from the world, finding comfort in each other is an affirmation of our humanity, with hormonal, mental and emotional benefits.

Because in the end, says Maya Angelou, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”