The trust you don't have to earn [TGS 2/5]

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⚠️ Demo note: Arrives the following morning. The reply invitation at the foot of this email is the first moment a real conversation can begin – in the live version, replies go directly to Horacio.
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You can’t manufacture trust quickly. It takes time, shared experience, watching someone handle difficult situations with integrity.

But here’s the thing about a network like ours: the trust has already been built – just not with you yet.

When I introduce you to a colleague in another country, I’m not passing along a name from a directory. I’m lending you my trust. Trust I’ve built over years of working alongside that person – referring clients back and forth, calling each other at odd hours to sense-check something, sitting in the same conference room watching how they handle a difficult question.

That’s not the same thing as a recommendation. It’s something more valuable.

Think about what that means in practice. Your question comes up – something specific about a country where neither of us is the expert. I don’t spend hours searching online, trying to piece together whether the source is reliable. I pick up the phone. I call someone I know. Not because I’m paying for premium access, but because that’s what colleagues do.

That colleague doesn’t send back a generic answer. They ask questions first. They want to understand your specific situation – because their reputation with me, and through me with you, depends on giving advice that actually works. Not advice that sounds good. Advice that holds up.

Twice a year, the whole network comes together – from São Paulo to Singapore, London to Lagos. We sit in the same rooms. We argue about technical problems over dinner. We find out who thinks carefully about which topics. By the time I introduce you to someone, I already know the answer to the question you haven’t thought to ask yet: can I trust this person when it really matters?

See how this worked for one client →

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Here’s where you come in:

The most useful thing you can do right now – before anything else – is tell me what you’re actually worried about.

Not the polished version. The 3am version. Is it employing people in a country you don’t understand? Buying property? Expanding into a market where you don’t know who to trust? Not knowing what you don’t know?

Hit reply and tell me. One sentence is enough. In the live version of this series, that reply goes directly to Horacio – and he reads it.

Tomorrow: the mistakes we see most often. The ones that were all avoidable, and all happened anyway.

Horacio Rocha San Miguel
Managing Partner, TGS Mexico