Focusing on "Know, Like & Trust" is Killing Your Business

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 133. Today it's just you and me talking all about why focusing on know like and trust is killing your business. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services, and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

What's up coach? Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson, and if this is the first time you're hanging out with me today, thank you so much, so much for pushing play. Today we're diving into an awesome episode all about why focusing on no like interest is potentially hurting your business. Now, every time I say this, and I've been saying this often recently in my coaching calls, in my teachings, and people often panic when they hear me say it. And it's not because I'm saying it to intentionally hurt other people to be right, but what I keep saying, seeing over and over and over again is a whole bunch of coaches who are feeling concerned and worried about sharing their message because either they don't want to make anyone mad or they don't want to purposely come off rude and purposely try to to hurt people's feelings, or they're spending so much time trying to build know like and trust that they're not putting their offers in front of their clients or potential clients and giving their clients the opportunity to say yes to themselves, join your program and then start generating revenue. Because if you want to make more money in 2022, which I can't believe it's already February. It feels like the I was literally putting dates into my calendar just the other day about with regards to March, April, starting to think about September time. It's a funny thing, it's both long and short at the same time. Anyways, sign tangent there for a second. But the point is that when people are spending so much time focusing on know like and trust, a couple of things tend to happen. Number one, people fall into the trap of trying to be the most popular on social media. And the truth of the matter is that popularity is not the same as profitability. Right now, if you're on TikTok or if you're hanging out on the ground, you're seeing a ton of content that's go viral. Seven seconds go viral, use this clip, do this and. And people are chasing the virality of their, their content getting shown to a bunch of people. And we had a client in accelerator who, who did a duet on, on a pose. Now luckily it was a duet that was in his genre, it's in his niche and in his. In, in and serving his type of people or serving his people. And it went viral and he got 800 followers overnight. There was another accelerator who was starting to do reels and she was starting to grow a thousand people per week. And so what happens is that it gets exciting because you think, oh, all this work and all this effort and then you start chasing the virality components and you neglect the back end of your business and really put together these irresistible offers that people can't say no to. You start to shift perspective. You start to do all the things that are actually going to move people through a customer journey. And if you miss that mark and you don't do that, then you end up not making revenue and not generating revenue in your business. And what happens, and it's happened to me and I've seen it happen to my clients is that people get into this feast and famine mentality where they're like, oh, I just need to build no like and trust. Build no like and trust. And then I'll. And then I'll do a launch and I'll launch my products and service and then they white knuckle it because they know if they don't generate x amount of money then they're not going to be able to pay their bills bills or grow their business or pay or pay their team or whatever the case may be. And then your launch ends up having so much pressure and that really can be so heavy on people's hearts. And so what happens is they end up focusing on no like and trust. Because I get why no one can buy from the Internet's best kept secret. So in order to buy from you, they have to know that your store exists. So I get where that concept comes from. They need to know that your story exists. But you, even if you're building a personal brand, you are not your business. I'm going to say that again because it's just so important that you hear this and it took me a while to figure this out, but you are not your business. And your worth is not determined by what your business does. Your business provides a service to your people who are struggling and who have a problem. And Your business provides a transformation for your people. Whether the transformation is, I'm dolled up and now I have a necklace, I have earrings, or your business is, oh, I have the best protein supplement to go along with my workouts. Right? It doesn't have to be this epic transformation. All it has to do is provide an outcome that is going to be the fastest outcome, the fastest way to the outcome for the person who has a problem. That's why businesses exist, because people have problems. Now, when I start talking against the, against the trend of know, like and trust, it can often seem like that must mean I don't care or that I don't, that I don't see people and that it couldn't be further from the truth. My clients will tell you that I go to bat for their business as if it were my business, but there has to be boundaries. But if your worth is wrapped up in, in the friends that you have in this space and whether or not your friends are going to buy for you from you, I tend to see people will struggle to present offers. And if they are struggling to present offers, then they tend to struggle in growing their business. So the know, like and trust factor when you focus on often tends to. People will chase virality because they're going for that dopamine hit of getting put in front of people. Or people will always be trying to be the most popular in social media and they try to grow a huge following and then they get nervous to sell to their friends essentially, and then they end their business, ends up struggling. And then lastly, it kills your business because people will get into that feast and famine mentality where they feel like, I need to just build all this know, like and trust and then wait for the launch. And then all this pressure goes on, goes into the launch, when it doesn't really, when it doesn't have to be like that. It's going to require you to shift your perspective on how you think, think about selling and presenting your offers. For me, when I keep seeing people not showing up for themselves, I think the commitment, there's not enough of an emotional commitment for them, otherwise they would be showing up. Because the truth is that people don't need accountability. They need support. My children need accountability. My children need help. But your clients are grown adults. They need support, they need a strategy. They need to be empowered and they need support to help them remove roadblocks and to help them stay consistent. The accountability portion is going to come from within that your support that you provide is going to be what helps them so if clients aren't showing up for themselves, in my mind I'm thinking, well then there's not enough of an emotional level. There's not enough of an emotional investment on their end. So presenting your offers, selling your offers is a service to your client and it has nothing to do with you being greedy or awful. There is plenty for everyone to live in the way that they want to live. And so by you presenting offers, this is going to be of service to your clients. But if you're always focusing on building know, like and trust, then I'm willing to bet there is some work to do around your relationship to money and to your relate and your relationship to selling. Because the last thing I want you to do is to get into that feast or famine mode. It puts too much pressure on the connections and community that is required for purchases. So that's the main reason why I go against know, like and trust is because when I find people really focusing on tends to be they, they don't present their offers enough. And then the other thing that really, really grinds my gears is that when I'm looking at their content because they're trying to build know, like and trust, they're often sharing, sharing content that doesn't pertain to the client. They think to themselves, oh, I just need to, you know, be relatable and be personal because people need to like me. But that's chasing popularity. And think about it and think about your own buying behaviors. If, if did you know? Because I didn't. And when I asked my clients this, they're like, oh, I didn't know either. Not all of them, but some of them is that, you know, I have an iPhone and I didn't know who the CEO was of that company at the time. I know who Steve Jobs is, of course, and I now know who Tim Cook is. But that did not influence my buying behavior. It wasn't because I liked the CEO and what he does on a Sunday or Saturday doesn't influence my buying behavior. And now, of course, this goes without saying, we're not actively supporting companies out there that are purposefully putting out hate material, but that we see and it comes through in their messaging and in their products and services. So again, it doesn't come down to who these people are. Usually that is automatically going to come through in their mission, in their values and what it is that they stand for, what it is they, they create and who for. For better, for worse. That's really not how the brain works. And human psychology has shown us time and time again that we do not make buying behaviors or we do not purchase. But the truth of the matter is that's not really how people are deciding whether or not to buy or not. That does not typically influence their behavior. Not always, but not often. Even when it comes to personal training. Because think about it, if you've been in a gym or worked in a gym for any amount of time, how many times were you given a client at point of sale that was actually sold by someone else? The buying behavior, the decision wasn't made on who the trainer was going to be. It was made on the promise of the outcome. But the no component is really coming from this idea, this concept, this place of understanding, understanding that no one can purchase from the Internet's best kept secret. They have to know who you are. But the thing is, is the like factor, right? It's actually not even about necessarily liking you. Like, there's gonna be some things where people don't jive with you, they don't resonate with you. Maybe they can't even explain it. It could be an energetic thing and it's not a bad thing or wrong thing, right? It could just be there's some type of unspoken clash. So I'm not saying that that doesn't exist. Of course it exists. But it's not a high level contributing factor to whether or not someone purchases or not. And even if later down the road, isn't it more important to get your clients the results and outcomes that they wanted so they continue to purchase from you and work with you because it's working versus them continuing to work with you just because they like you? If you're anything like me, then you're probably focused on actually getting your clients results because that's what you want to do, because that's why they came to you. And so when you're focusing on trying to be liked, imagine how much more powerful and connected and more sought out you will be when you focus on the what and the deliverables of your program and get people results. Now, I'm saying this also with the caveat to remember to remind you that you cannot eat or do the work for your clients. Your clients need to be empowered and they need to be able to feel like they can do it and stay committed. No one's coming to save you. They're doing the work. You're there to provide support and the strategy. Now, the trust factor, right? So here's the thing. I call the trust factor. Believability in you and your offer. So I Talk about the ladder of believability and looking at a customer journey. They need to go from never hearing of you before to believing in you, believing in your offer, believing in themselves that they can do it and believing that they need it now. That's what's going to carry them from never hearing of you before to becoming a customer. So the thing with that believability in you and believability in your offer, that is the trust factor. But here's the thing. When people hear, oh, they need to trust me, they're typically focused so much on no and like, and they kind of hear trust as part of that triad that I'd be curious to know whether or not you fully understand the trust factor and what it means for someone to trust you. Because the truth of the matter is that that trust doesn't have to be built from your content and who you and what your house looks like and what you eat for breakfast. That trust factor comes from do they believe that your process is going to get them the outcome and that believability can be borrowed? And what do I mean by that? You can have borrowed authority in terms of, oh, Sally said you were the best, or how many times even as a physical therapist you've been recommended by a doctor or someone literally just went into their online and said, oh, my insurance covers this person. There is a automatic sense of authority and believability in you. So that is the trust factor. But it often gets lumped in with the triad, no like and trust, no like and trust. So I call it more believability in you. So yes, you can say that that's the trust factor. It's just oftentimes most people are focused on knowing and liking and building a whole and building a community of friends, and then it prevents them from putting out their offers. That's why I dive into the ladder of believability. Because every time I hear people say to me, oh, I can't sell anything right now because I'm building no like and trust, it kills me because I don't want anybody living in that beast or famine and I don't want anyone thinking that presenting their offer feels like it's somehow, it's somehow not a service or I don't want anyone feeling like presenting their offer feels somehow feels like a burden or somehow feels like they have to apologetically present their offer when the truth of the matter is presenting their offer is an invitation for people to show up for themselves. Because if you were to look in your trash can right now I would guarantee you that everything inside of there was once bought purchased by if not you, someone else in your household or it was gifted to you. Regardless, it was a bot. But I'm also willing to bet that you have more value, more commitment to the products and services that you pay for rather than the free downloads and the PDF graveyard that you're waiting to get to. So that's why I am always saying focusing on know like and trust is killing your business. So if you like this episode and you want to hear more and you have some questions, please feel free to tag take a screenshot of this episode, share it to your social media and tag me at Besus and Fitness. I would love to have a conversation about this and to go deeper. And if you want to hear more about how I help people really grow, start and grow their online business and really leverage their time, then check out the show notes because there is a free instant access training that is really in depth and join me in this training simple selling and really unlock the complete blueprint to consistent 10k months. Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. I'll catch you on the next episode.

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