How does a business network actually measure whether someone is trustworthy?

Scott Cundill · 2026-09-21 · Edmonton

It counts what they have done for other people, and it only counts things other people had to take part in. That is the short answer, and most of this article is about why the second half matters more than the first.

Almost every networking group says it is built on trust. Very few can tell you, for any given member, whether that member has ever actually helped anybody. They know who turns up. They know who pays. They do not know who delivers.

Why is "trusted" usually just a word?

Because nothing is being measured. A member directory lists names and job titles. A badge says someone paid. A long tenure says someone did not leave. None of those tell you whether the person across the table has ever made a useful introduction for somebody like you.

So people fall back on instinct, which is fine in a room of twelve and useless in a network of thousands. At that size you need something that reflects behaviour, and you need it to be hard to fake.

What does the Trust-O-Meter measure?

The Trust-O-Meter on My Most Trusted measures three kinds of behaviour.

The first is trusted connections. These are people a member has added one at a time, confirming each time that they genuinely know that person. The platform will not accept the addition without that confirmation, and there is no way to import a contact list in bulk.

The second is introductions. The meter counts introductions a member has made for others, and introductions made for them.

The third is Golden Recommendations. A Golden Recommendation is an endorsement one member gives another from inside the network. It is counted both ways, given and received.

What are the levels, and what does it take to move?

There are five ranks, shown as words rather than numbers. In order, from the bottom: Newbie, Junior Networker, Senior Networker, Super Connector, Trusted Advocate.

The first step is deliberately small. To move from Newbie to Junior Networker, a member needs to make one introduction, give one Golden Recommendation, and have five trusted connections. The product teaches it exactly that way, three things, done once.

Every rank above that asks for more of the same three things. Here is the full ladder.

Read the columns in pairs. From Senior Networker upward, every level asks for things given and things received, and the received column is the one a member cannot supply for themselves.

Why can the score not simply be bought or inflated?

Because half of it is other people's decision.

A member can add connections, but only people they confirm they know, and only one at a time. A member can give introductions, and that counts. But recommendations received and introductions received have to come from other members, who are themselves on the ladder and have their own standing to protect. The code describing the meter puts it plainly: you do not climb off Newbie without introductions and Golden Recommendations from people who are themselves in the network.

So a person who only asks, and never gives, stays low. Visibly. That is the point. Every network has takers, and most of them are invisible until you have wasted a month on one.

What does a member actually see?

A coloured word. The colours run from blue for a Newbie at the bottom to red for a Trusted Advocate at the top.

One thing trips people up, so it is worth saying clearly. Red is the top of the scale. It is not a warning.

The word is always shown beside the colour, and if the platform does not know someone's rank, it shows nothing at all. It does not quietly display them as a Newbie. Being unknown and being new are different facts, and the product refuses to confuse them.

What is the ranking used for?

Three practical things.

When a member wants an introduction to somebody they do not know, the platform has to choose who to ask. It ranks the people who could make that introduction by Trust-O-Meter standing first, then by how many trusted connections they have. The most proven person is asked first.

When the platform checks whether a member has been vouched for, a rank of Junior Networker or above counts. Newbie does not. It fails closed.

And it shows up on people's cards, so anybody deciding whether to accept an introduction can see, at a glance, whether the person making it has a record.

What it does not do is lock anyone out of the core product. Standing is a signal, not a gate.

Is a trust score the same thing as being verified?

No, and the difference is worth taking seriously.

The platform knows two facts about identity. Either a person has an account, or they are fully verified with credentials on the platform. There is no middle step. The product's own rule is that calling anything in between "Verified" would be a claim it cannot support, so it does not.

A trust score is a different kind of fact altogether. Verification says a person is who they claim to be. The Trust-O-Meter says what they have done for others. A perfectly genuine person can have done nothing yet. A network that treats those as the same thing is telling its members something that is not true.

What should you do with this if you run a group?

Start measuring the thing you say you value.

If your group says it runs on trust, ask what would happen if a member gave nothing for a year. If the answer is that nobody would notice, the trust is decorative. It lives in the welcome speech and nowhere else.

The fix is not a points system for its own sake. It is making the giving visible, making the receiving depend on other people, and refusing to let anyone claim standing they have not earned. Everything else is a nicer badge.

Where does Edmonton fit into this?

The Edmonton Business Circle lists its connectors by name, with their rank beside them. Every one of them is a Trusted Advocate or a Super Connector, which means every one of them has given, and been given, introductions and recommendations many times over.

That is not a boast. It is simply the only kind of claim this article would let us make.