HUMAN REACH (pt 3 / Zev Asch)- Earning Trust in Business Relationships

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Trust is Earned: Rebuilding the Human Reach in Business

A BeMore Publishing Interview with Zev Asch

In a recent interview for BeMore Publishing, business transformation coach, entrepreneur, author, and educator Zev Asch explored a challenge that has become increasingly important to contemporary business: although professionals possess more mechanisms for connecting with one another than at any previous time, establishing genuine human relationships has arguably become more difficult. Asch brings approximately three decades of small-business experience to this discussion, followed by more than fourteen years devoted to coaching entrepreneurs and business owners. He is also the host of The Entrepreneur Next Door, a program focused largely on the experiences of working entrepreneurs rather than celebrity business personalities. Across these roles, his work reflects a continuing interest in business transformation, human behavior, leadership, marketing, and the relationships that enable enterprises and the people behind them to grow.

Trust occupies a particularly important place within that philosophy. For Asch, business development cannot be reduced to lead generation, visibility, networking, or the accumulation of contacts. These activities may create access to people, but access is only the beginning of a much more consequential process. A lead must become a conversation; a conversation may develop into a relationship; and only through experience, observation, and demonstrated behavior does a relationship have the potential to become one grounded in trust. This progression has become more important as technology increasingly permits businesses to bypass many of the human interactions through which credibility was traditionally established.

The distinction is consistent with the broader philosophy behind BeMore. To “Be More” in business does not simply mean working more, selling more, or becoming more visible. It suggests the need for continuing professional and personal evolution. Businesses routinely upgrade technology, websites, marketing systems, equipment, software, and operating procedures, yet the individual responsible for leading the enterprise must also undergo periodic upgrading. Judgment must mature, skills must expand, assumptions must be reconsidered, and professional relationships must evolve. The business leader who expects the organization to change while remaining personally unchanged eventually creates a limitation on the very transformation being pursued.

Asch’s philosophy of continuous improvement is particularly relevant here. His earlier professional experience in precision medical-device manufacturing exposed him to environments in which quality control and continuous improvement were fundamental operating principles. He subsequently carried that philosophy into business coaching and even into his approach to athletics. The objective is not perfection, but a disciplined willingness to identify what can be improved and then work deliberately on that area. Applied to entrepreneurship, this means that the business owner periodically examines not only the organization, but also the individual operating it. The appropriate questions become increasingly personal: What does the leader need to understand that was previously unnecessary? Which habits have become obsolete? Which relationships encourage growth, and which merely reinforce familiar thinking? What kind of person must the entrepreneur become to lead the next version of the business?

Connectivity and the Problem of Human Reach

The contemporary business environment complicates this process because connectivity has become remarkably easy. Email, LinkedIn, social media, automated customer-management systems, video conferencing, text messaging, and artificial intelligence permit professionals to identify and contact people on a scale that would have been unimaginable only a generation ago. Asch does not reject these technologies; indeed, he recognizes their considerable value. His concern is that the efficiency of communication can easily be mistaken for the quality of communication.

A LinkedIn connection, for example, establishes a technological connection between two accounts. It says very little about the relationship between the two people behind those accounts. Similarly, an automated prospecting system may generate hundreds of leads, but the quantity of names gathered does not establish the quality of the relationships that may eventually emerge from them. Artificial intelligence can research an individual, summarize a company, prepare an introductory message, and suggest an approach to a prospective client. It cannot independently establish the human confidence upon which a meaningful relationship depends.

This is where Asch’s concept of the Human Reach becomes especially relevant. The challenge is no longer simply reaching another person technologically; it is reaching that person sufficiently well to establish recognition, familiarity, credibility, and eventually trust. In this respect, the increased sophistication of technology may actually increase the value of genuine human engagement. As automated communication becomes commonplace, people may become more discerning about the difference between being contacted and being understood.

Trust Is Not the Same as Being Liked

Asch is particularly careful about a familiar expression in business that suggests people prefer to work with individuals they “know, like, and trust.” He regards the combination of liking and trusting as potentially misleading because the two are not equivalent. As he observed during the BeMore interview, “Liking is not trusting, and trusting is something that has to be earned.”

The distinction is important because likability can develop quickly. Trust generally cannot. A person may be personable, articulate, impressive, or professionally accomplished, but these characteristics provide limited evidence about how that individual will behave when confronted with responsibility, disagreement, pressure, or adversity. Trust develops from accumulated evidence. People learn whether another person follows through, honors commitments, listens carefully, accepts responsibility, handles criticism constructively, and behaves consistently when there is no immediate advantage in doing so.

Asch summarized this requirement simply: “You have to prove yourself. There has to be some form of human interaction between us.” In this context, proof does not mean performing for another person's approval. It means allowing sufficient interaction for credibility to become observable. Trust is therefore less a statement about what one person promises than a conclusion another person gradually reaches.

- TO BE CONTINUED

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THE HUMAN REACH Building Genuine Relationships in an Age of Digital Noise By: Lennard M. Gettz, Ed.D / Bobbi Kline, MD - and Foreword by: Zev Asch Whether you're searching for a primary care physician or a cosmetic specialist, shopping for any doctor can be quite a challenge. Ingredients for finding a professional that you can trust with your life rely heaviest on their reputation, expertise and qualifications found under smart research methods. Launched in July 2026 by BeMore Advisory LLC and published by Overture Press, The Human Reach and its companion The Human Reach Workshop explore one of the defining paradoxes of modern professional life: we have never had more ways to reach people, yet meaningful human connection has become increasingly difficult to establish. The Human Reach, by Lennard M. Goetze, Ed.D., and Bobbi Kline, MD, examines how trust, credibility, thoughtful communication, and genuine relationships can distinguish professionals in a world increasingly shaped by digital noise, automation, social media, and artificial intelligence. It challenges readers to move beyond simply accumulating contacts and instead cultivate relationships that create lasting personal and professional value. The Human Reach Workshop transforms these principles into an engaging educational experience, encouraging participants to examine how they connect, contribute, collaborate, and build stronger professional communities. Together, the books advance a distinctly human proposition: technology may expand our reach, but people give that reach meaning.

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(Continued- Rebuilding the Human Reach in Business)

The Importance of Vetting Relationships

This process also requires an idea that can sometimes appear uncomfortable in discussions of networking: people should vet their relationships. Vetting need not imply suspicion or cynicism. In healthy professional relationships, it is better understood as discernment. Business owners routinely conduct due diligence before making financial commitments, yet they may devote surprisingly little attention to evaluating the people with whom they intend to build important professional relationships.

A trusting relationship should permit both parties to learn about one another. Does the person behave consistently? Is there evidence of competence behind the presentation? Does the individual acknowledge limitations? Is the relationship reciprocal, or does one person appear primarily interested in extracting contacts, business, information, or opportunity? Perhaps most importantly, what happens when there is disagreement or when circumstances become inconvenient?

Such questions are relevant not only to customers and prospective partners but also to employees, advisors, consultants, vendors, collaborators, and members of one's professional network. In Asch’s view, the objective should not be indiscriminate networking. It should be the gradual formation of a professional community populated by people whose character and capabilities have been demonstrated.

Reputation as a Form of Business Capital

Asch illustrates this point through the traditional business culture of New York City’s Diamond District, where valuable transactions historically depended heavily upon personal reputation. The familiar handshake carried significance because it represented more than agreement on a transaction. It reflected an established understanding that each party would fulfill an obligation and that violating that confidence could damage a reputation accumulated over many years.

The contemporary business world obviously requires contracts, documentation, regulatory safeguards, and formal agreements. Asch’s example does not suggest returning to an informal commercial system. Rather, it illustrates that contractual protection and human trust perform different functions. A contract defines obligations; trust influences whether people want to enter into the relationship in the first place and whether they wish to continue it.

Reputation, in this sense, becomes a form of business capital. It develops slowly through repeated behavior and can travel beyond an individual transaction. A trusted professional may be recommended to another trusted professional, thereby extending the relationship through an existing chain of credibility. This is fundamentally different from conventional lead generation because the introduction carries human context. Someone is not merely supplying a name; that person is placing some portion of his or her own reputation behind the introduction.

Upgrading the Professional Circle

The concept of upgrading oneself therefore extends naturally to the people with whom one chooses to associate. A business owner may modernize every technological component of an enterprise while continuing to operate within a professional circle that no longer challenges existing assumptions or contributes new expertise. Genuine transformation requires periodically examining the quality of the relationships surrounding the enterprise.

Asch invokes an old Jewish proverb to make this point: “Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.” The principle has considerable relevance to professional life. The people surrounding an entrepreneur influence standards, expectations, knowledge, judgment, ambition, and behavior. A strong professional network should therefore include people who possess different forms of expertise, who are capable of constructive disagreement, and who can contribute perspectives that the entrepreneur does not already possess.

This also requires humility. Asch has emphasized the importance of not attempting to become the smartest person in every room. Leadership is strengthened when an individual recognizes the value of other people's knowledge and creates an environment in which that knowledge can be contributed. The evolution from an “I” orientation toward a “we” orientation is consequently more than a collaborative ideal; it is an important element of business maturity.

Within the BeMore philosophy, this represents one of the most meaningful forms of professional upgrading. The objective is not simply to expand the number of people one knows, but to improve the quality, diversity, reliability, and intellectual value of the relationships surrounding the business.

Trust as the Objective of Human Connectivity

Asch’s argument ultimately returns to the purpose of connectivity itself. Businesses will continue to require lead generation. Entrepreneurs need customers, referrals, partners, employees, advisors, and opportunities. Digital technology and artificial intelligence will become increasingly important in identifying and reaching these individuals. There is no reason to retreat from those capabilities.

The greater challenge is determining what happens after the connection has been made.

If contemporary business becomes preoccupied with generating contacts without developing relationships, it risks producing enormous networks with remarkably little human substance. The more sustainable approach is to regard connectivity as an entry point into a longer process of engagement, evaluation, contribution, and trust. Relationships should be given enough time to demonstrate whether they possess genuine value, and individuals should recognize that they themselves are being evaluated through precisely the same process.

This is where the Human Reach and the concept of BeMore converge. To upgrade oneself professionally is not merely to acquire another skill or adopt another technology. It is to become more discerning about relationships, more capable of contributing to them, more willing to collaborate, and more dependable when another person places confidence in one's judgment or character.

Asch offered perhaps the clearest standard when describing the people who eventually become part of a trusted circle: “The people in your circle that eventually you feel confident and comfortable trusting are those that would genuinely guide you because they have your best interest.”

That observation moves the discussion considerably beyond networking. It suggests that one of the most valuable outcomes of professional development is the creation of relationships in which competence, character, reciprocity, and genuine concern have been demonstrated over time.

In an increasingly automated business environment, the ability to locate another person will continue to become easier. Determining whom to trust—and becoming someone worthy of another person's trust—will remain considerably more difficult. That may be precisely why the Human Reach matters now more than ever. The next meaningful upgrade in business will not be technological alone. It will also require improving the human judgment, relationships, and behaviors through which trust is earned.