The One Thing That Makes Clients (and Everyone Else) Believe You
Jul 15, 2026Have you ever listened to someone speak and felt, almost instantly, that you could believe them? And have you ever listened to someone else, saying much the same thing, and felt your guard go up?
What causes that difference? What is the one thing that happens inside us that suddenly makes us feel we're prepared to believe a person?
I certainly have an answer to this. I'm not sure it's the only answer, but it's one that has worked for me for more than 30 years, and it has worked for the coaches, consultants, speakers, trainers and accountants I've shared it with ever since.
In this article, I want to share that idea with you, tell you the story of how I stumbled across it, show you the science that backs it up, and give you practical ways to use it in your own business. Shall we get started?
In this article:
The question behind believability
My first corporate sales course
The seven words that changed the room
What Robert Cialdini calls admitting a failing
Tell them what you can't do first
Putting this to work in your business
The question behind believability
You and I make believability judgements every single day. We make them about the people we meet, the videos we watch, the emails we read and the sales conversations we sit through.
And here's the interesting part. Those judgements happen fast. Long before we've weighed up the evidence, something inside us has already decided whether this person is worth listening to.
For those of us in the helping industry, that early moment matters enormously. If a prospect doesn't believe you, it doesn't matter how good your programme is, how sharp your frameworks are, or how many results you've produced for other clients. The door is already closing.
So the question becomes: what can we do, honestly and with complete integrity, to help people believe us at the very start of a relationship?
Let me tell you how I found my answer.
My first corporate sales course
More than 30 years ago, after I'd sold my business, I was preparing to deliver the first sales training I'd ever run for a corporate client.
I was thinking hard about my opening. Because I knew exactly what was going to happen in that room.
A lot of those salespeople were going to be sent on the course. Not choosing to come. Sent. And some of them would be sitting there with their arms folded, thinking, "Why on earth am I on this course?"
I knew that in the first few moments I had to establish my authority. I had to establish my knowledge base. I had to give them a reason to believe me.
How was I going to do that? I racked my brains until I came up with an idea that, at first glance, looks like the very opposite of establishing authority.
The seven words that changed the room
I did my introduction. "Hello, my name's Peter Thomson..." and all the rest of it. And then I said this one thing:
"Before we get going, there's one thing I have to tell you. I don't have all the answers."
I went on to explain. I'd been in business a good number of years. I'd had some wonderful successes, and yes, some fantastic failures too. And despite everything I was learning, and I'm a lifelong learner, I still didn't have all the answers.
However, what I did have was some great questions. And I knew that together, we'd be able to answer them.
Then I went around the room and asked each person how many years they'd been in selling. I added it all up. Three or four hundred years of combined sales experience sitting in that one room, against my 20 or so years in business.
How could I possibly stand there and claim to have all the answers? But together? Together we could find them.
The effect was remarkable. On one course up in Lancaster, a delegate came up to me afterwards and said, "I was hating coming on this course. I didn't want to come. I was forced to come. And the moment you said that, I relaxed."
One sentence. One admission. And the resistance in the room melted away.
What Robert Cialdini calls admitting a failing
Some years later, I read Influence: Science and Practice by Professor Robert Cialdini, the world's leading authority on the art and science of persuasion. I've since read his other books, met him, and had the pleasure of interviewing him when he visited London.
Beyond his famous six (now seven) principles of persuasion, there was another idea tucked inside his work that stopped me in my tracks: admitting a failing.
And I realised, because this was after I'd designed my opening, that this was exactly what I'd been doing all along.
Notice the distinction. I wasn't admitting a failure, although that can work too. I was admitting a failing. A limitation. Something I couldn't do.
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The principle in one line: when we admit a genuine limitation before we make our claims, everything we say afterwards becomes more believable. |
Why does it work? Because it's the opposite of what people brace themselves for. Your prospect expects polish. They expect claims. They expect the highlight reel. When you open with an honest limitation instead, their defences have nothing to push against.
Tell them what you can't do first
Here's the way I've come to express the idea:
When we tell people what we can't do before we tell them what we can do, we become far more believable.
Now, an important word of caution. This can't be a technique. It can't be an underhand way of manufacturing trust. It has to be integrity laden, hasn't it?
The limitation you share must be real. The failing must be genuine. If there's something you can't do, or a failing you're able to talk about openly, sharing it first is a major way of helping people believe you.
And when they believe your honest admission, they extend that belief to everything else you say. Your claims about what you can do suddenly carry far more weight, because you've already proven you'll tell the truth even when it doesn't flatter you.
Think about your own buying experiences for a moment. When did you last hear a supplier say, "We're not the right fit for that, but here's what we do brilliantly"? And how did it make you feel about them? I'd wager it made you trust them more, not less.
The tugboat and the liner
Let me give you another example of this idea in action.
A couple of friends of mine were in the gym business, and they were going after an in-house contract with a big American company based here in the UK. They knew about this principle because I'd explained it to them.
So when they went in to pitch, they didn't pretend to be something they weren't. They used the image of a massive ocean liner compared to a tugboat.
"We're a tugboat in business," they said, "not a liner." They openly admitted they were the small player in the room.
But because they were a tugboat, they could turn quickly. They could change direction. And a tugboat, as you know, is exactly the vessel that pulls the liner along.
You can see how the metaphor works. They led with the apparent weakness, being small, and turned it into the very reason the client should choose them. Honest, memorable, and believable.
Putting this to work in your business
So how do you and I use this idea in practice? Here are the places where admitting a failing works beautifully for coaches, consultants, speakers, trainers and accountants:
- Your videos and content. Open with what your idea won't fix before you explain what it will. Watch how much harder your audience listens.
- Your sales conversations. Early in the meeting, tell your prospect who you're not right for. It positions everything that follows as honest counsel rather than a pitch.
- Your proposals. Include a short section on the limits of your service. One honest boundary makes every promise around it more credible.
- Your speaking. If you're presenting to a room with hundreds of years of combined experience, say so. Then position yourself as the person with the great questions.
- Your website and about page. A line about what you don't do sharpens your positioning and builds trust before you've said a word about what you do.
One simple exercise: write down the three claims you most often make to prospects. Then, next to each one, write the honest limitation that sits beside it. Now practise saying the limitation first. That's the whole method.
You'll find this sits perfectly alongside the four questions every prospect is silently asking: Why you? Why me? Why this? Why now? Admitting a failing is one of the most powerful answers to "Why you?" that I know.
Considered, never calculated
I want to return to the point about integrity, because it matters more than anything else in this article.
When I designed that course opening all those years ago, it wasn't meant in a calculated way. It was meant in a considered way. There was no manipulative intent. I genuinely didn't have all the answers, and I genuinely believed the room and I could find them together.
That's the standard to hold yourself to. Persuasion, done properly, is simply helping people make decisions that are right for them. As I often say, we need to learn how to sell, stop selling, and allow people to buy.
Admitting a failing isn't a trick to win trust. It's a decision to be truthful earlier in the conversation than most people dare to be. The believability that follows is simply the natural reward for honesty.
Your next step
So here's my question for you. When you're communicating with your videos, your content, your clients and your prospects, is there a way you can start by telling them what you can't do before you tell them what you can do?
I'm sure there is. And I'd encourage you to try it this week, in your very next conversation, and notice what happens to the atmosphere in the room.
If you'd like to go deeper into the art and science of ethical persuasion, I've written a complete book on it, and you can get it free. The Persuasion Book gives you the ideas, the language and the methods I've developed over 50 years in business, all designed to help you win more clients without ever having to feel pushy or salesy.
Claim your free copy at: https://www.peterthomson.com/the-Persuasion-Book and start putting these ideas to work in your business today.
I hope you've enjoyed this. I've certainly enjoyed sharing it with you, and I wish you every success in all your adventures in life.
Until the next one...
Peter
Peter Thomson | "The UK's Most Prolific Business Development Author"
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