In this episode of the Content Amplification Podcast, Shaun Whynacht introduces the "12 stages of intimacy" framework and demonstrates how each stage mirrors a step in a marketing or sales funnel. He argues that successful lead nurturing requires moving prospects through these stages sequentially—starting with visual exposure (eye‑to‑body), then content consumption (eye‑to‑eye), small commitments like brief calls (voice‑to‑voice), tangible deliverables (hand‑to‑hand), and progressively deeper interactions (hand‑to‑shoulder, face‑to‑face, etc.) until a long‑term client relationship (project then retainer, likened to marriage). Shaun warns against skipping stages, as doing so can appear “creepy” and cause prospects to disengage. He provides tactical advice on structuring micro‑commitments, creating follow‑up assets (worksheets, videos, blog posts) to address objections, and using CRM data to personalize conversations. The episode also covers how to audit existing marketing touchpoints against the 12‑stage model, align offers with the prospect’s problem stage, and maintain empathy when prospects seek “exit doors.” The overall message is that a disciplined, sequential intimacy approach leads to higher conversion rates and more sustainable client relationships.
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That's right, we made it. It is 2020, and welcome to this episode of the Content Amplification Podcast. Welcome back, and hopefully you've been on this ride with us as we carry through these different topics from show to show on helping you amplify your efforts and your effects in making your content. In this episode, we're going to get pretty intimate. That's right. We're going to strip things down and we're going to be talking about the 12 stages of intimacy and how does that play out in your marketing. Well, we know it's all about a relationship. That relationship that you have with that lead, then that prospect, and then eventually that client. And I talked about it multiple times, and I will continue to talk about this, and I will continue to keep telling you this, that your marketing is very similar to entering into a relationship. A relationship in the way that you see someone that you like, Maybe you, you come up and you talk to them, you get in a conversation, you go out on a first date, maybe a second date, a third date, gets a little more serious, and then if you really like them, it will then progress even further. That same process, that same thought pattern is the way that your marketing happens, whether you like it or not, and whether you're sitting there listening to this going, I don't really get that connection. It is the connection that is happening. And there is a philosophy out there, there's actually 12 stages to this, and it's called 12 stages of intimacy. And I didn't make this up, you can Google it. Just Google 12 stages of intimacy. And it talks about how the human interaction happens between two people. And it starts from going from eye to body, eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, hand to shoulder, hand to waist, face to face, hand to head, hand to body, mouth to body, and then touching below the waist, and then the last one being obviously intercourse. Now, we're not here to talk about that type of relationship. We're here to talk about how you are potentially hurting your opportunity to get leads into your business by not following an exact sequence. When you don't follow a sequence in the way that you communicate, in the way that you attract your clients to your business or your content, and you jump from, let's say, stage 1, which is eye to body, when they first see you, they see you in social content, they see you out in the public, maybe speaking or presenting, and you jump right to a step 6, a hand to waist, where you're going to try to get real, you know, a little more touchy-feely and intimate, right from, hey, you saw me, you know who I am now, to, hey, let's sit down together for an hour. That's a big jump. That's a big ask. And that there alone is going to cause a lot of people to be like, whoa, hold up here. I didn't ask for this. Right? You're creepy. Don't jump that far. Right? That's what happens. We need to go in sequential order. Now, you can go through these steps, these different elements of that relationship at any speed. Right? This happens in relationships. I mean, it's a one-night stand, you go right from seeing somebody right through to step number 12. You do everything extremely fast, and there will be certain times when you will meet people and clients where they will go from, hey, you know what, I get this person, I like this person, hey, let's chat, what are we gonna do next, let's meet, let's go right through the whole process. And in a matter of even a day at the fastest, to even a couple of days, you can go from having no idea who this person is to having them being a full-fledged paying client. But there's also going to be those chances where a lot of the times the people that you work with, that you're nurturing, are going to take a lot longer than that. So you need to look at these 12 different stages and how they relate to what you're doing. So let's just take a look at a couple of them. We're not going to go through all 12, but for example, the first one The key one, eye to body. This is where people are seeing you. So a lot of times you're gonna be putting out a lot of organic content, whether you're doing Facebook Live, you're doing videos, you're putting out posts, you're writing blog posts, people are going to see you, right? And they're gonna see who you are. And the next step from that is eye to eye, right? That is when they're then going to actually start to consume that content. Because there is a step happening there. We look at the word conversion a lot of time in marketing, and don't get stuck up on the fact that the only time you have a conversion happening in your business, in your marketing, is when they go from not being a paid client to being a paid client. Because conversions happen all the time, from the moment somebody sees anything to when they click and watch, they click and listen, they click and read, that's a conversion, right? They're going from one stage to the next. So they see your content and then maybe they read it, right? We're considering that eye-to-eye. You've made this content for them, they're seeing it, it's eye-to-eye. And then we're going to look at voice-to-voice. And this is where, you know, in a lot of service-based businesses, ours included, You're going to want to try to get them to book a small commitment call with you, right? So that would be like a 15-minute consult or a, uh, you know, a 20-minute strategy session or whatever you want to call it, right? It's not an hour-long come sit down and meet with me at my office, right? Again, too big of a step, right? You want to take incremental steps going through this. Then from voice to voice, you're getting hand to hand. Just think about it. I mean, you're giving somebody guidance. So you come out of that call and you're going to want to give them something tangible, something they can go ahead and try or do, right? Maybe it's a worksheet or a task that you come out of it. You're like, you know, thanks for the call. You know, I think I can help you, but what I want you to do is I want you to try this one thing. Right, give them one thing. Don't say go back with these 12 things and do it. Give them one tangible thing that they can do. And for you as a professional, this is serving two purposes. One, it is illustrating that you are willing to help them by giving them something that they can do. And two, it's giving you a sense of are they going to actually do anything if you do start to work together. There are people out there who want all the help, but they're not willing to help themselves. You don't want those people to work with. And going from there, you've got things like hand to shoulder. They do that, now you're getting a little closer. I mean, just think about it. When you meet somebody the first time, you do a handshake, that's a hand to hand. You're giving each other that connection, that physical connection. As you lean in a step further and somebody puts a hand on the shoulder, that conversation gets a bit more intimate. You're talking specifically to them about their situation. And then we're going face-to-face, right? Right, this is where we're sitting down longer periods of time, just one-to-one, face-to-face. And you can even do that with technology using things like Zoom or Skype, right? You don't necessarily have to be in the same place. And the whole idea is you go through these different steps, you want to get to the point where you start to date that prospect, right? That dating is when you're getting to know them better. You don't just go on a date and you sit there at the restaurant, eat your meal, don't say anything, don't ask questions, right? That's really not the best date that you could ever have. Right? You want to get to know that other person, and that's how you get to know them— by asking questions. If you've got a CRM in place, you're able to send out other information to them, ask them questions along the way, segment their contact records so you start to know them a bit more. You want to give them the best possible options. One of the questions I ask all the time when I'm consulting a professional services client or prospect is, what is it that you're looking to get out of this? Are you looking to, to make more money? Are you looking to get more time? Or are you looking just to grow the business, right, in size? Each of those will have different steps along the way. There's different targets that you're going to get to. So in your business, there's going to be different things you need to know about that person going through. Once you come on board with them and they, they become an actual paying client of your business, right? Now there's two stages of that engagement. You know, there's a very specific model that we follow and that a lot of services, service providers follow as well. Is that initially, you're going to want to ask them for a proverbial engagement. By this is, hey, let's start with a project, right? Has a definitive start and end, right? We're gonna get engaged. This is before we actually get married. And then if everything goes well, then you may go into an ongoing relationship with them. A retainer model, right? That ultimately is going to be your marriage if you take in the sense of a physical relationship. So there's a lot more to just creating a lead magnet like a webinar and jumping right to that. Strongly suggest you never go right from cold to a webinar. Big commitment to ask somebody to join you for an hour of their time without having steps in between. Earlier today, actually before I recorded this, I was on a call with a prospect and I was talking to him about this whole process about follow-up and being aware of all the different exit doors that exist when you're talking to a potential client, right? If they're not 100% certain that the time is right for them to engage with you and actually go to the next step, They've already looked and identified all the different exits they could possibly take. These are all the objections that are happening in their brain that they're like, if I say this, I can get out of this and give myself some more time to think about it. And that's okay. A lot of times we're so oversold that when somebody asks you to make a commitment on the spot, we're not ready to do that. So we're looking for a way out, and you got to be okay with that. But the other side of that is you should have some content developed exactly for that specific situation. So do some homework and think about, when I'm talking to clients, what are the things, the hurdles, the walls, the objections, whatever you want to call them, that they could possibly put up? And then what can I do to be empathetic to them, understand that, give them more value and say, hey, you know what, here's some things to think about, right? Maybe here's a video I did about this, right? Here's a blog post I wrote about it, or whatever that case may be. But you want to stay in front of them, right? Never pressure them because they're ultimately going to, to not do it, or they're going to be pushed into do it not being ready, and it's going to be a real pain in the butt for you to actually service them and provide them value. Right, so you want to make sure that you completely understand who it is that you want to do business with. That's the targeting. And then at what stage in their problem, in their journey, is the most ideal time to do the work you do with them. They're going to be excited, they're going to be engaged, and they're going to love the outcome of it. That's the ideal situation. So that's the 12 stages of intimacy. Like I said, Google that, read about it, and it has a very parallel correlation to marketing and the different steps. So think about that. Look at all those different steps, write them down on a piece of paper, put a dash and connect to something that you can create, something that you already have, the different stages that are in there. Because I guarantee that if you really look at the finite details of your sales process, of your marketing journey, there are at least 12 steps. They don't have to be big steps, but there are 12 steps that you have. Even if you've got 3 or 4 calls that you have, those are different calls. You might get a little more in depth. You're getting to know them a bit more. You can connect those to those 12 different steps. Hopefully that was helpful. And if you like this, you got any questions, hey, you know what, wherever you're seeing this, comment, subscribe, share this, help us out, help spread this word. We're putting this podcast together because I absolutely love sharing this content with you. And I love seeing when people grasp this, create amazing content that helps others. Thanks for listening.
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