The Collapse of the Funnel: How Trust Now Drives Every Purchase

We are talking about the collapsing of the customer journey. What has happened that causes the traditional four stages of the buying process to collapse into one? And last episode we talked about identity trust. We went through several examples and things like that. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Business Lunch podcast with you, your co hosts, Ryan Deiss and myself, Roland Frazier. We are talking about the collapsing of the customer journey. What has happened that causes the traditional four stages of the buying process to collapse into one. And last episode we talked about identity trust. We went through several examples and things like that. I want to start off today first asking my wonderful co host, Ryan, how you doing?

Oh man, I'm fantabulous. How about you?

Nice. Nice. I like that, I like that.

But I'm curious, do you think if somebody just picked up right here on this episode, maybe it's the first time they listen to it, if, you know, friend forward it to them, should they go back and listen to the previous one?

I don't think they need to. I think that it's like, I think you can get enough out of it. What are your thoughts?

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I mean, the, the, the basic concept, it is just this. Consumers are no longer, buyers are no longer just going through this like perfect, step by step funnel anymore. I think a better way to think about the buying process, it's not a funnel, it's a popcorn popper.

Okay?

Everybody's in there, they're all their popcorn kernels and they're getting heated up at different times and they're going to pop when they pop. And your job is just to be there and to be ready and to have the lid on so that when they pop, they pop in your pot. And so how do you do that? You gotta make sure that you're creating trust. And there's a number of different ways to do that, but that is the lid that stays on. And so if you think about all the different media channels that are out there, whether you're primarily on Instagram or TikTok, from a consumer perspective, maybe it's YouTube, maybe it's LinkedIn. Wherever you are, that is the pot, your audience, they're the kernels, you know, going around. And the content that you and also your competitors are putting out there, that's heating them up. It is the trust that's the lid that's going to cause them to pop for you. And so that's what we're talking about. So we talked about one of the ways to create trust in the previous episode. Definitely go and listen to that. But I do see these as standing alone. And if you can do all of them, they compound. But it's not one of these things where it's a sequential funnel so you don't have to go and listen to it for this to make sense.

So, yeah, and last time we talked about identity trust and the identity was that you see yourself in the person who is speaking on behalf of the other company. That's that trust agent. And we talked about the shortcut way to memorize it was Mirror Micro and Media. So mirror, can you see yourself in the person who is representing the company when you do get that person ideally to be a micro influencer so that they have a following that will see and already trust that person and then media amplify that message. Outside the media that is owned the followers of the micro influencer here we're talking about competence trust. So rather than.

Real quick, I just want to say, because this is, this is demonstrable. So we do want them to go and listen to that previous episode after. And then after that they listen to all the other business, specifically the embedded influencer episode that they did. Because if we can get them to listen to three episodes in a row, there's some content binging going on here. It's kind of like we're demonstrating what we're going to encourage, you know, them to do so. Exactly. Just wanted to point that out. That's what we're about.

I like it. I like it. So, so just to kind of draw the distinction. I think that's great to draw the distinction. And it doesn't serve us at all. The, the last time we were talking about the mirror of like, hey, I, I relate to the person, I relate to the company. And this one is the brand gets me. So, so competence here is that the brand. The brand gets me is what the competence means. Right. So like what Nike is. Nike is a global sportswear brand. Hopefully everybody knows that their old tagline was just do it. It was a command. It was like, you know, the brand is a drill sergeant, just do it, get it done, you know, suck it up kind of thing. And the new branding is why do it? So I, you know, I have kind of, maybe I'm like most people, I naturally don't like changes to ads and things like this. And I, I question everything and I'm like, you know, well, what do you mean, why do it? You know, just, just do it, you know, but, but that's what I got branded with. Just do it. Now the question is the brand as an empathetic partner. Nike goes from just do it to why do it. Why is a question more powerful than a command?

Well, I think it invites a conversation. And anytime you can have a conversation you're now we're building a relationship. It's a back and forth whereas a command, they either do it or they don't but either way they're moving away from you.

And so, but it harmonizes much more with the zeitgeist of what's going on right now.

Right.

It's all very, you know, lovey dovey, you know, let's, let's all get along Kumbaya. Not you know, just suck it up and do it as a different generation now it's like, but why? You know, which is a fair question.

And they didn't need the old people like you know, the Usins. We were kind of already for Nike. Like we grew up, you know, we're, we're buying Nike because you know, Michael Jordan told us to.

Right.

Like who the people that they're missing are the, the Gen Z and younger that and so for them that this messaging makes sense. So it does go back to kind of what we said before. And now we're talking about the messaging being clear on who it is that you're talking to is very, very, very important. And I think it's interesting I haven't seen this messaging, right. So what that tells me is it's not showing up in the channels where I hang out. So they're not, they're not necessarily showing this to the old folks with the gray hairs.

And you're not a sneaker head. You're not like shopping for the latest Travis Scott release or anything like that. So. So you're definitely not going to see them. What I like about it and why we call it competence is that Nike is the brand is competent in identifying with you and showing that it gets you. So it's showing that it understands the inner drive of Gen Z and the anxieties that they've got now. It's like well what do you mean? Just do it. Why am I doing it? And then they're like yeah, we get that. We're going to help you see why to do it so that you will then just do it. Which I think is, is kind of interesting. And the proof is personalization with these types of ads. Lifted AOV average order value by 15%, retention by 25%, loyalty by 30%. Another kind of mini case would be Sephora. Sephora does these tutorials and so it's video content and how to demos which directly drove basket sizes to increase by 13%. When buyers engage first because they were like Sephora gets me. Sephora's competent at understanding who I am and I relate to it. Now we use the negative example of Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney for, for Identity Trust. The negative example here was peloton holiday. So this was an ad in 2019 where a husband gifts his wife a peloton and she nervously films herself and says a year ago I didn't know how much this would change me. So shockingly, the guy giving his wife for Christmas a device that will make her fat self be skinny and beautiful, finally, for once, I'm obviously hyperbolizing here. Was seen as sexist and tone deaf. Can you imagine that that was the case?

Yeah, can't even imagine. Especially at that time and especially since as I recall from the commercial, she was already lovely. I mean and quite fit. I mean like you. It was, it was, yeah, it was awful. On, on all accounts, they stock dropped.

15% in three days. $1.5 billion loss. Isn't it amazing how poor decisions in the marketing department by a hundred to two hundred thousand dollars a year person can cause billions of dollars of damage?

Yeah. And it shows up. I mean we get to see it with public companies. I mean because it's, it's there for everybody to see. But don't think that this can't impact your brand similarly. Just because it doesn't show up on a stock chart. Yeah, just because. Not on a ticker. Right. It absolutely can happen to you as well. And it, and it is exactly what, what you said. You know, their average person that is thinking like, yeah, I mean I definitely do want to get in shape and there's a lot of shame. There's. And so if you really understand where your person is right now, if you understand their before state and you understand what that means and what their emotional state is, you have to know that shame is a big part of that. And so the last thing that you want to do is to rub their frickin nose in it. Which is exactly what that ad did. So completely tone deaf shows a complete lack of competence.

Yeah, for sure. So let's kind of break this down into an action plan like, like we did before. So the how to would be script myth busting or demo shorts. Publish them as reels or TikToks or shorts on YouTube. Link directly to an offer. So that link directly to an offer is the collapsing of the customer journey. We're looking for the shortcut framework we're describing here is basically why, what, where the why is. Start with why it matters, like why do it for Nike, right? What is the myth that we're going to bust? What is the pain point that the customer has that we're going to solve? What is the motivation to validate? This is our competence. This is why we are competent. Right now the what is showing what the person, the customer, that prospect is supposed to do and how our product or service works. In practice that's typically done as like a demo or a tear down or a tutorial or something like that. And then the where is the collapsing of the customer journey isn't going to happen if they can't buy it. So show them at the end where to get it. What's the direct cta, the call to action that links to your product, to your consult, to your offer. That's the step. Was that 1, 2, 3, 3 steps basically or the three things why, what, where, Any thoughts, tweaking plusing of that?

I like the myths. I think myths are good. Another thing that can work in there is also doing this on what are your unique points of view and stating it as we believe. Simon Sinek did the whole start with why thing. And so a lot of this is stating your why. So that was Nike's thing. Like what is your why? Telling people here's why we're doing it is fine, but that can also sound a bit strange. We've had a lot of success just saying here's what we believe, right? Here's some things that we believe. Because then the people who agree with that will go, oh, I believe that too. And so like, you know, one of the, I mean we got lists of these things. So I think one of the best things that a brand can do and one of the first things that we do is, you know, sit down with a brand and make a list of what are all your unique points of view that make you you. And if you can just simply, you can create carousels for these, you can have the influencers go out and just state them, you can create campaigns around them. But getting out your unique points of view and your beliefs is another thing. In addition to the myth busting, I like it.

So let's give an example for a tax advisory firm that also kind of goes to identity. If the company is speaking there, it kind of compresses the identity and competence trust. Right. Because it's where the we are the influencer that's speaking there about that. We get You. So it's probably most competence, but it's also a bit of identity trust too.

Yeah, yeah. I mean there's some overlap for sure.

So let's say that we're a tax advisory firm and we want to raise our average order value. So step one, we would script a 30 second video that busts a common myth, like why writing off your car lease doesn't work the way you think. Then step two, we'd film it in a conversational, not highly produced, kind of informal style that would be very authentic, ideally with the founder or a relatable staffer. And staffers can be really good here. Step three, we would post the video on LinkedIn and TikTok Instagram Reels. Step four, we would include a direct link or link in bio to the, in the description at the end to book a free consult. That would be our call to action. And then we track step five, we track which leads came from the video. Step six, measure our average order value on those leads and we would be expecting a 10 to 15% lift as the higher quality customers respond to the expertise, the anything on those steps that you would adjust.

I think the steps are, I think the steps are fine. What I'll say, like the beauty of something like this to a sales process is very often when, when leads come in to, to a sales pipeline, especially in B2B, they don't know what their actual problem is and they don't know what they want and they don't know how to articulate it. So when you start putting out this type of information, one of the best things that it accomplishes is you're naming their pain. And so when you give a name to somebody's pain, that is the ultimate way to demonstrate competence is it's what doctors do. And so when you name the pain, then when you talk to them, they say, hey, I got one of these things. And you say, oh well, good news, we got a thing that happens to fix that thing. And it just makes the conversation so much easier to start as opposed to somebody coming in and they're saying, well it just hurts over here. And you're having to start from the very beginning and it just takes a really long time and folks get frustrated. So having this type of content that helps people to name their pain or get some coming in, in this case saying, I think I might have messed up in writing off my car lease, like can you, can you help me fix that? I like it, I think I might have screwed that up. That's why it works so well.

I like it. So from a KPI standpoint, we're thinking that competence trust raises AOV by proving value and expertise. It encourages bundles, it encourages upgrades. There was an article in Mediacat that talked about this as desirable friction. And I kind of like that. Like Nike's question makes the campaign more memorable in that collapsible journey, because frictionless is forgettable, but a desired kind of friction, like, well, why am I doing it? Questioning, thinking about it, you know, did I write my lease off wrong? That's. That's friction. But it's not like, you know, fingernails on a chalkboard. You know, like the. Maybe the Mulvaney thing was. Or the Kendall Jenner thing was that. I kind of like that. What do you think about that? Is there, like, a way to create desirable friction?

Well, I think there's always going to be friction in the sales process. And so the question is just where do you want to put it and how evenly do you want to space it out?

But this is a friction, not in the process. This is like a friction that you're creating in the mind of the customer that is positive and driving them to take the action you want to take.

Yeah, I would argue it's the same kind of thing, because in the sales process, what a good salesperson is doing is kind of walking somebody through this process over the phone or during, you know, during the process, and they're having to take this big leap. All we're doing here is allowing them to go through this process on their own so that they're going through their own state of awareness in their own time. Not burning up your sales reps time, you know, not burning up your time. And, and because they're coming to the conclusion on their own. And this is what I think makes it positive because they're coming up with their. Their own conclusion, they truly trust it. It's not. They haven't been convinced of it by somebody else. So that's the distinction. But it's. It's a distinction that still the overall process that's taking place is the same process that's always been.

Okay, that makes sense. Anything else that you can think of that might be good with respects to share with this competence trust concept, or we can go on to proximity trust.

I would just go back to. Because I think it's so important that I want to sort of hammer this. The ultimate way to demonstrate competence is to speak your prospect's problem better than they can. If you can describe your prospect's problem better than they can, then that is the ultimate signal of competence. And just think about every single person that you trust in your life. That's what they do. And so be that to them and you will demonstrate competence.

Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot.

And incidentally, a simple way to do that. If you just want a very tactical, please go to ChatGPT. Say you are insert the, you know, a description of your ideal client. Please list in your own words the top 10 problems, issues and challenges that you face when trying to. And then insert the thing that you know your ideal client or prospect is attempting to do. I like that. If they were to buy from you and it's shocking how the information that you get from that, then when you get 10, ask for 10 more. Ask for 10 more. When you get 30, that's where the gold is.

I like that a lot. So then that brings us to our third type of trust, which is proximity trust. And the idea here is that the people that are closest to you will sell the best for you. So a positive example is dsw. DSW is the Discount Shoe Warehouse, which I think DSW probably sounds better than that. So I think it's good they don't call it that right out shoe retailer Affordable fashion footwear. And what the ad said was let us surprise you. And the campaign reframed in store shopping as fun because, you know, going to a big shoe discount warehouse doesn't sound particularly fun, I don't think. But it featured AR augmented reality mirrors so that you could see the shoes that you were trying on with outfits that they were styled for you that went with the shoes, which is kind of interesting and risky but, but also fun because even a terrible outfit would be fun to like laugh and share with friends and you know, be like that looks terrible. Ha ha ha. So I think, I think that's really cool. The, the idea was basically try and then see what it looks like with your clothes and buy all in one step and that's in store. So the, you know, the method of buying immediately was, was in the store, but it kind of brought people into the store to have the experience of the fun. So, so I think that was kind of interesting. The proof was employee posts. Employee posts of that experience led to 561% more reach for the media that DSW was putting out. 70% of consumers tend to trust brands when employees share. So having the employee share was, was pretty cool. So I guess the, the. I've got two questions for you on that example. If I, if I have a service business, let's Say and there isn't really an augmented reality tech play or, or even, you know, I have a retail business. I, I think there is an easy.

Way to do it.

But let's say that you can't figure it out. How would you put proximity trust to work? Would it be like having your employees tell stories? Would it be having, you know, their families or the founder? What's the best way to do that, you think?

I mean the simplest thing that everybody should be doing because it's much easier now and very basic. But just accepting currency in somebody's, you know, preferred based on the country they're in. If you're an international business taking money from different countries, you should probably accept the currency there. Like that. That is a, that is a biggie. I mean we've seen upticks from, you know, UK when we accept the British pound. I mean it really is that that simple. I'm not saying it's, you know, depending on the locale it can be more complicated. But especially for service based businesses when the numbers are big, it could be important. Similarly having websites that are.co.uk and those kind of things so that you're looking more like you are there, that type of stuff can absolutely matter. It can affect. Now if you don't have an in store component. Cause that really does make it look that is your store. And so making your store look like it is at least in the region that that's helpful if you don't. Apart from the store though, let's think about your, your ads and your, and your visuals. I was watching this Nissan ad and I noticed it because the car that was in the ad is the same car that I bought my son. And, and I was like, oh cool. They filmed this ad in Austin because I could clearly see that it was the Austin Skyline. I was like, that's neat. They filmed it in Austin and it made me feel really good about the purchase that I made. And then a couple of weeks ago I happened to be in Denver. I saw the same freaking ad. And guess what? It was the Denver skyline. And what I realized is this is just AI.

That's pretty cool.

It's just AI, all of us could do this. So if you know that you're marketing to different cities, to different geographies, if you're marketing to colder climates, to mountainous regions and have mountains in the background, if it's a desert, then have a fricking desert. Make it feel like that your product works wherever they are. And then the third thing I would say going back to the micro influencers that we talked about in the previous episode that everybody should go listen to after this one. Finding micro influencers that are in different regions and just doing a quick search for what are our top cities or our top states and finding micro influencers who are in those areas. So you can say, hey, you know Janice here from, you know, Austin, you know, Frank here from San Diego. If there's a call out to somebody's city now, they're more likely to trust it because it worked for somebody in their area. Even things like accents matter. Right. If somebody hears somebody with a southern accent and they're Southern, well, that's going to sound good. Whereas southerners, if they hear somebody with a northern accent, they're like, well, this only works for fricking Yankees. Screw those guys. So three things that I think can help to localize and make your, your product and your business feel a lot closer than, than maybe it is.

Why do you think that the, like using employees versus say a micro influencer has as much as a 5 or 6x additional response or reach?

I just think we're. Most people are employees. Yeah, right. Most people are employees. Most people are not business owners and most people are not celebrities. And so. And they're not influencers. And so I think when you see an employee speaking, and I think most of us have worked at jobs that we actually liked and most of us have worked at jobs that we don't. And so when you see an employee who is willing to speak positively on behalf of the brand, that does speak volumes because I think that's it too. Behind the scenes.

Yeah. I think it's like you couldn't get your employees to do this if they didn't like you. So therefore you must treat them well. So I like you that you did that. And it's probably honest because as an employee myself, if my, you know, I would never do that ad. Right. Or I would do that ad. And so I think it just has such credibility.

Yeah. Especially if the ad can be one of the walk up ones. I've seen these before where, you know, it's somebody with a, with a phone and you see them walk up as though they're, you know, kind of surprising the employee and asking him a question. My guess is every single time they've told them that they're going to do that. Sure. If it has that idea that, that it's unprompted. Just that that visual I think adds a, an air of authenticity to it.

A couple of things to give you guys ideas Things that worked. Starbucks barista TikToks. So they would go up to basically different baristas at Starbucks and say, what are your secret menu hacks? Or show us your latte art. And that's really cool. 100 million plus views. Huge surges in orders. Also Apple retail. So whether specialists or geniuses cause at some point they change the geniuses to specialists. But Apple's frontline staff consistently drive top line loyalty. And Forrester ranked Apple retail number one for customer experience and retention impact. That's because when you go into an Apple store, you don't feel like you're going to have the typical experience of someone who doesn't even know where in the store the thing you're looking for is located. You actually feel like you can ask questions that are slightly technical and you'll get an answer and that just is so powerful that it helps sell the thing. And you also know that all those employees in the store are using Apple products. Right. And they're, you know, under 35 years old, most of them. So they can actually, you know, they know the latest. I think as we record here, we're on OS 26, you know, for iOS, so it's like they're not going to be living, you know, on a BlackBerry still.

Probably not. Yeah. Chipotle right now is running an ad series where it's employees that are, you know, making the guacamole. And then the whole thing is like, yep, we make, we really do make the guacamole fresh every day. And they're walking around in the back and it's, we don't have any freezers here. You know, everything does come in fresh every single day and it is more believable because it's an employee. But I'll tell you, I think the commercials look too professional. I think they'd be far more professional. I think they'd be far more effective if those ads look like they were shot on an iPhone. Even if it was a vertical video and had the black bands on the side. Yeah, you know, it looks ugly on a tv, but it would get noticed. Nobody in the brand department at Chipotle is going to let that go through because it's unprofessional. The only thing that would happen is it would get noticed.

Yeah. Now the negative side, probably the most memorable one was, I don't know if it was actual employees or if it was TSA or if it was private security of some other sort of. But in a few years back, United Airlines, there was a viral video of a Passenger being drug off a plane. They busted like, I think busted out two of their teeth. And like that kind of stuff is the opposite of proximate trust.

That is after United Airlines like busted up somebody's guitar.

Yeah, it was a bad, bad time.

Bad time. And that was absolutely.

And then as I recall, they bungled the apology too. It was like, we're sorry that your, you know, teeth hit our hands, hit our seat and fell out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, it was not a good look. Yeah, it was not. It was not a good look.

That was global outrage. There was a hashtag boycott United, which was trending. The stock fell 6% in just a few days. They lost a billion dollars in market cap. God knows how much they lost in, in, in trust, you know, and, and people that just were like, I'm, I'm scared to fly on there. So remember that that proximity trust cuts both ways. When the front line fails, the whole brand is, is definitely going to pay. So let's talk about an action play. We've been doing action plays on these. So I want to get your feedback on this. So let's. And, and from a how to standpoint, the goal is empowering your staff to share authentic demos to incentivize them to post. You track the conversions on those posts through the company and then repeat the shortcut. Framework here is People, place and proof. Maybe remember that our identity trust one I think was Mirror Micro and media. Our one for competence trust was what, when, where? I think right, probably something like that. And this one is people. This one is people, place and proof. So people put trusted insiders, employees, staff or happy customers at the center of your content. The place is show them in a real world context, the store floor on a job site in their own home to make the message feel lived in and authentic. And I love Ryan's ad there of do that in an authentic, informal, not professional video. The proof is the last part of People place and proof demonstrate tangible results in the moment. So try ons before or after live repair so that the buyer sees the evidence of the result that they're looking for immediately.

Or proof of work by the way, because maybe what you say is like we can't show the end result but proof of work. Again in the Chipotle ads they're just making the guacamole like you can see. You can see the woman because it, because it's.

Is it fresh made? Do they make it there? Yes, we do. Yeah, that's the proof.

Right. Paste the guacamole. But you can see you're making the freaking guacamole. Crushing up the avocados.

I like it. I like it. So a hypothetical example, a local plumbing company that wants to increase close rates. Step one would be to ask their technicians to record quick before and after TikToks at real job sites. Like clogged pipes, you know, equals a clear fix. Step two would be post them to the company's TikTok and Instagram accounts. Encourage technicians to share to their personal on their personal feeds as well. That's important, I think too. It's free additional reach. Step three, run a monthly contest. Whichever technicians video gets the most views or Leads wins $100 gift card. People love incentives like that. Step four, use simple tracking that would be UTM codes or lead forms to see which calls come from social so you can track back to the ads. Step five, over 30 days, compare the close rates on leads from these posts versus your typical close rate from traditional ads. And step six, you're going to expect that your lead conversions are going to increase between 15 and 20% and that your customer lifetime value will increase 10 to 15% as well. Because that proximity trust is going to drive repeat jobs. So thoughts on that?

Yeah, I love that. I would add one, I would, I would add one little layer to the incentive piece which is in addition to giving a prize to the person who drives the most results, however you're measuring those, I would also have a prize for the team as a whole if a certain number is hit and make it relatively low the first time. So you're like as a team, if we achieve this goal, then pizza and ice cream party, you know, or something like that. Right. It doesn't have to be anything that major. And then the person who contributes the most, they get like a really cool prize because a couple things are going to happen. One, you're going to get more people participating because they want to help at least get the team up to that prize. But then the next time around and you're also going to get people who they don't want to win the prize and do nothing to earn it. And that's especially going to be the case the next time around when you do it because everybody else is going to be like, you know, hey Frank, you know, we all contributed to this thing. Can help but notice that you ate the pizza. You know, next time if you're going to eat the freaking pizza, you better post the posts.

I like it. I like it. I like that a lot. The KPI tie in here is proximity Trust increases lifetime value by deepening loyalty and retention. So kind of wrapping up what we talked about in these two episodes, we had identity trust. That was. Some examples were Depop, the Hiram guy on Tick Tock that sold a bunch of skincare stuff, the pink sauce Poppy glossier. The downside, the Bud Light debacle, Competence trust. The upside was Nike Sephora. Downside, the Peloton ad that was tone deaf where the guy gives his wife a bike and says get in shape. Proximity trust. The upside, Discount shoe, Warehouse, dsw, Starbucks, Apple. Downside, United. Our frame here is celebrity can add fire to campaigns. The Sydney Sweeney ad we talked about. But there's a giant risk and it's not really a repeatable engine like the trusts that we're talking about building with these three things. You know, maybe your celebrity ad hits, but maybe you have the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad and, and it costs a lot of money to do that and it's outside the budget of a lot of businesses. One powerful thing that you can do here would be to run a 14 day proximal trust sprint. So day one, you would pick a product SKU or a service that you wanted to promote and then get your baseline customer acquisition cost and average order value. And then days two and three, recruit three customers and three insiders. And we didn't say recruit three influencers because that might take you more time. So just three of your customers that are happy. If they have followings, great. If they don't, no problem. And then 3 of the people that are insiders, you know, the com within the company, employees or something like that. Days four to seven, record shorts or reels or just short videos using the three frameworks that we talked about. That was the mirror, Micromedia, what, when, how, or whatever it was. And the last one. Then day eight, you're going to post them. Days nine through 12, allow, list or boost the top two of those, the ones that are performing the best. And then on days 13 and 14, go ahead and measure again. Customer acquisition cost and average order value from those leads and how they convert and compare those to your normal baseline. So Ryan, if somebody's only got 500 bucks and they're doing this 14 day kind of trust sprint we're talking about, which of the three trusts do you think they should test first and why?

I think it's the trust agent. I think the founder CEO is their own best trust agent.

Is that the identity one then?

Yep. And so I think they are their own best trust agent. I think it's about a Combination of what you believe, your unique point of view and delivering value in advance and you're putting it out on social. The stuff that gets any traction, that's what you're putting 50 bucks behind to give it, you know, some boosting. If you put out 30, 50 posts, hopefully at least 10 of them are going to get some traction. 10 posts, 50 bucks each. There's your 500. And assuming you get any ROI from any of those, which I'm confident that you will, that should be the machine that should just get it going. I love it.

Which of the three types of trust would you say is the most often overlooked post, but maybe the most powerful?

I think the third one, the, the proximity one. I agree. Yeah, yeah. I think everybody thinks about the first one. Everybody, everybody thinks about that. Everybody. Not everybody does it, but you know, most, you know, would.

It's the go to for sure.

That's, that's kind of where we are, you know, secondarily. Number two, I think they're, they're kind of in order of what is done the least and I, the, and I think the last one, proximity, is perhaps the most scalable out of all of them. So I think it's, I think that's going to be your opportunity. It is going to be the slowest to roll out though. Yeah. And I think that you want to sort of build a culture of it. And I also think it's a lot easier to ask your team to do it if you've gone first, if you can model it first and if you can be excited about it, then it's great. If you're sitting back and you're like, I don't want to do this, this sucks. And, but can you do it a little bit tougher? Right. So that's why I think the best possible solution is for you to start and for the people out there who say, but I don't want to do it. I hear you. I don't either. I just think that this is part of the job today.

I love it. So if you want to try to remember all this stuff, we have a mnemonic for you which is Map M A P. The M is, is for identity trust. It is Mirror Micro Media. The A is for competence trust. That's answer which is why, what, where? And then the P for proximity trust is people, place and proof. So I think we're thinking as AI becomes your customer's personal shopper, that what's really gonna matter is gonna be trust. The thing that's gonna break through all the Algorithms more than anything else. And so Sydney Sweeney sold jeans, Pink sauce sold neon goo, Poppy sold vinegar soda for 1.95, not $2 billion. Such a shame. The common denominator trust collapsed the funnel, trust collapsed the customer journey. And you can do the same without the budget or the backlash or even the blue jeans. Anything to sum up besides that, the.

Days of companies controlling the funnel in the sales pipeline are over. Consumers are going to buy the way that they want to buy. They've got the ability, they're going to take advantage of it. So you're going to lean into this or you're going to get forgotten. And the brands that do your competitors, whether they're here today or they arrive tomorrow, are going to be the ones that win. So I would heavily encourage you to lean into it.

Love it. Awesome. Hope you guys enjoyed these episodes. Definitely. If you have the ability, listen to this one, listen to the one that we did before this on Identity Trust and then go back to the influencer. What is it?

Embedded.

Embedded in Embedded influencer. Embedded influencer episode. And then listen to all the others. There's only like 400 or 500 of them. So I mean, how long could that take? All right, guys, we'll see you next time. If you enjoyed this, please share it with somebody. We'll talk to you next time on. Ever wondered how some people build real wealth through acquisitions while others just sit on the sidelines? Well, I'm here to tell you it's not about luck. It's about having the right system, the right deals, and the right guidance. And that's exactly what we give you in the EPIC Deal fast track. If you've been thinking about buying a business, but you keep getting stuck, whether it's finding the right deal, structuring the financing, or or negotiating with sellers, you are not alone. Too many people waste months, even years just thinking about acquiring a business while the real opportunities pass them by. The EPIC deal fast track is not another course. It's actually an implementation program. And it's designed to get you from the idea to the acquisition in just 16 weeks or less. We work with you one on one to help you find, fund and close your first or next deal. And once you do, we're gonna plug you into our elite EPIC board community so that you can keep scaling through acquisitions. We install three powerful systems in your business. The first is the deal flow engine so you always have high quality off market deals coming to you. Number two, we give you our offer and funding system so that you can structure offers that get accepted and fund them creatively many times with no money out of your own pocket. And number three are closing and integration systems so that you don't just buy a business, you actually successfully run and scale it once you have acquired it. Plus you'll have direct one on one support from an epic deal advisor every step of the way. And that's people that have actually come up through this system and done these deals themselves. That's the only way to become an epic deal advisor. And if you're serious about acquiring a business this year, don't just sit on the sidelines. Just text I'm in to 334-458-9034 and we'll get you in. So text I'm in to 334-458-9034 will get you in. No fluff, no wasted time, just real deal making from people that are actually out there doing deals right now. I'll see you there.