SPI 926: Take This Test to Beat the Trust Recession and Win Big

SPI 926: Take This Test to Beat the Trust Recession and Win Big

Pat Flynn: What if I told you that right now, as you are listening to this, your potential customers, your subscribers, your followers, they’re actively looking for reasons not to trust you. Here’s a crazy stat that should be a little worrisome, especially if you have a running business already, and that is according to 2024’s Edelman Trust Barometer, only 32 percent of people trust businesses to do what’s right, and that is down from 58 percent just five years ago.

It is going down. But here’s what’s even more shocking, and this is something I discovered in my own business recently after speaking with a few people. Your audience is spending more time researching whether they can trust you than they are consuming your actual content. Unless they are actively involved in your community, and they’ve gotten over that trust hump, if you want to call it that they’re looking for reasons not to trust you.

They’re not just deciding if your product is good, they’re deciding if you are real. And when it comes to top of funnel having yourself be introduced to people for the first time, this is really important to understand, this is where a lot of growth doesn’t happen because we’re not thinking about this.

I recently ran a live event and this was a smaller live event. It wasn’t for Card Party or anything like that. So this is still business related and it was for a small group of people. And we sent some emails out to specific groups of people on our email list, people who were even already subscribed, right?

And one of those people told me that because they were fairly new to my brand at the time. That they had spent over three hours diving into my older content, my social media, uh, looking to see reviews about working with me and other live events that I’ve hosted before yeah. That is crazy, right? They spent three hours to decide if they could trust me.

And here’s the thing, I’ve been doing this for 18 years, I have millions of followers, thousands of testimonials out there, and a track record that speaks for itself, yet I was still being scrutinized. So if somebody like me is being scrutinized that intensely, what does that mean for you? We’re living in what I’ve once heard called a trust recession.

And if you don’t understand what’s happening and more importantly, how to navigate it, your business, what you are creating could be in serious trouble, but there is good news here. And that’s why we’re talking about this today. While everyone else is struggling to build a trust, while trust goes down because of AI, because of experiences other people have had because of other people who are taking advantage of those who are just getting online for the first time. This is not good. There are people out there who are going to dominate, and I want that to be you. You’re going to win customers, build communities, and create businesses that are virtually recession proof. And I want you to win in this trust recession that we are in, and I’m going to show you how to do that.

So before we dive deep into what’s happening and how to fix it, I want you to do something with me right now. I want you to take what I call the trust audit. And there are five questions I want you to honestly ask yourself, and you don’t need to know the answers right now. I want this to be more contemplative.

Perhaps even pause after these questions to think truly about what these answers might be. And some of the answers that you might come up with could scare you, but these are all for good reasons, right? We’re trying to understand how much our audience can and does trust us. So just let them marinate in your mind as we go through this episode.

So here is question one of five. If a stranger found your content today, how long would it take them to figure out who you really are as a person? Not just what you do and what you have to offer, but how long would it take them to find out who you really are as a human being? A stranger. That’s question number one.

Number two. When was the last time you shared something that made you feel vulnerable or a little exposed? Something that showed you’re human?

Question number three. Can someone easily find evidence that you’ve actually done what you’re teaching? Not that you know it, right? Not just like a really nice sales page that says nice words that are relatable and they do speak to the person who’s there reading that. Can somebody find evidence outside of your ecosystem, for example, that you’ve actually done what you are teaching, right? But that you’ve lived it.

Question number four, if someone wanted to verify your claims or your results, how easy would it be for them to do that?

And number five, when you look at your content from the past, let’s just say month, whatever content that might be your own podcast episodes, blog posts, videos, long form, short form, how much of that could have been written by AI versus something that could only come from you? That’s a big one. So hold on to those questions. We’re gonna come back to them. I’ll reiterate them one more time really quickly here so that you don’t have to skip back.

Uh, but question one, if a stranger found your content today, how long would it take them to figure out who you really are as a person, not just what you do. Question number two, when was the last time you shared something that made you feel vulnerable or exposed? Something that showed that you are human. Question number three, can someone easily find evidence that you’ve actually done what you’re teaching? Not just that you know it, but that you’ve lived it. Question four, if someone wanted to verify your claims or results, how easy would it be for them to do that? And question number five, when you look at your content for the past month, how much of it could have been written by AI versus something that could only come from you?

So what exactly is the trust recession?

It’s not just that people are kind of skeptical, right? They’ve always been skeptical. It’s that we’ve reached a tipping point where the default assumption is distrust. So here’s what’s happened. First, number one, we’ve been flooded with fake everything, right? Fake reviews, fake testimonials, fake success stories, fake gurus.

People have been burned so many times that they now assume everything is fake until proven otherwise. Second, AI, as I mentioned earlier, has made it impossible to tell what is real. When anyone can generate a professional looking website, a really good copy, and even fake testimonials in minutes, authenticity becomes truly the scarcest resource.

Third, the barrier to entry to becoming an expert has disappeared. Anyone can start a course, launch a coaching program, or call themselves an influencer or a guru, right? The market is flooded with these kinds of people who are teaching things they’ve never actually done. They’re just regurgitating what other people are saying.

And that’s kind of where AI comes in as well, because AI is just regurgitating what other people is saying as well. And fourth, and this is the big one, social media has trained us to perform rather than be authentic. Everyone’s just showing their highlight reel, their best moments, their perfect lies, but people are craving real connection with real humans. This is why I think my Should I Open It Or Should I Keep It Sealed series has done so well. It’s because when I open a pack of Pokemon and it’s a regular card, not anything shiny, I didn’t get the rare that everybody was looking for, that’s more relatable. I’m sharing my failures and in fact I do that more than actually pulling a card that I want.

It’s more relatable. People understand that. They see me losing money, and this is something that people enjoy. Not me losing money, although maybe there is a certain percentage of people who do see that. But it’s seeing the fact that these pack openings are real. When I pull a good hit, it feels even better for all of us, not just for me, but for the viewers, because they feel a sense of relief, just like we do in real life.

They know that the pack openings are real, whether I get a good card or not. We see this in the business space when I’ve shared that I’ve made mistakes and I’ve failed and have learned from them and I’ve shared those publicly. Those always get amazing responses. That actually builds more trust. It’s like that hotel survey that was done where people trust a hotel more when they’ve made a mistake but then made up for it, right?

They came back and actually corrected that wrong rather than a hotel that just where everything kind of worked out perfectly. They rate the hotels higher when there is a mistake that is made up for. Think about that. So, those questions I presented earlier are very, very important to consider here.

Last year, I was at a conference and I met an entrepreneur who had built what looked like a successful business, right?

Everything on paper looked amazing. Great website, professional photos, thousands of followers. But when I asked him, about his actual results and ask them to give me some stories of some potential customers that that’s a great litmus test to know whether an entrepreneur is being real, uh, or at least doing things for the right reasons.

In my opinion, this is just my opinion, but if they can’t share stories of their successful students, of their customers, if they can’t name people and do this immediately, then there’s a little problem, right? So when I asked this person about their actual results and their customers and their names of the customers and what their stories were, his actual experience, I mean, it just fell apart.

You could tell he was just making, making things up. He was cosplaying as a successful entrepreneur. Can you imagine? He was cosplaying. That’s what a lot of. And here’s the scary part. He was getting away with it. People were buying from him, right? But it was all built on a foundation of sand. And eventually, I would imagine that this business is going to crumble or it’s, at the very least, not fulfilling.

And something that his customers won’t take and pass on and, you know, you get that sort of marketing flywheel when you create those amazing experiences when you know who your customers are and they start sharing that business for you on your behalf without you even asking. That’s how you can get over the trust recession that we’re in because people are sharing through the experiences that they’ve had with you.

So this whole thing that we’re talking about here, this is the trust recession in action. It’s not just people are lying. It’s that the systems we’ve built make it easy to fake success. And the consequences of this are terrible, right? So this is what this means, this trust recession. Longer sales cycles, right?

What used to take days, now takes weeks or sometimes months, because people are doing more research. They’re hesitant to make that final purchase. They’re asking more questions, demanding more proof, and rightfully so, they should be! Higher customer acquisition costs, right? When the trusts are low, you need more touch points, which means more content, which means more time, which means more social proof to convince someone to buy, which means perhaps if you’re spending money on ads, more money spent on ads.

There is an increased refund rate. When people don’t fully trust you before they buy, they’re more likely to have buyer’s remorse and ask for their money back. Or consider things like guarantees. You know, 30 day money back guarantees. They see these as trials, like, oh, it has a 30 day money back guarantee, I don’t trust this, but I’m gonna see, and then they go in there and they actually look for proof, confirmation bias, that this thing that they’re getting involved with isn’t going to help them, even though it potentially could, and they are looking for the one little thing that is off or wrong or something that’s just not there that they think should be there.

And then they’re out, right? And then you’re getting refunds. And it’s harder to scale. Word of mouth marketing, the most powerful form of marketing, breaks down when people don’t trust enough to recommend you to their friends, like I was saying earlier. And here’s what’s really happening. The entrepreneurs who are still trying to fake it, who are still using old playbooks of manufactured authority and borrowed credibility, they are struggling more than ever.

What’s crazy to say, and I’m going to say it, it’s just, it’s great to see. Because those who build real relationships, who show up, who do everything in their power to serve their audience, right, whether it’s connecting with the right people or going full in they’re the ones that are going to win, right?

The ones who are doubling down on authenticity, transparency, and real value. Those are the people that are, that are thriving right now. And that brings us to the opportunity that’s in front of you. See, while everybody else is panicking about the trust recession, I’ve seen a ton of content about this trust recession out there.

Um, I see it as the greatest opportunity for authentic entrepreneurs in decades. And here’s why. When trust is scarce, it becomes valuable. When everyone is fake, being real makes you stand out. And when everyone is performing, being vulnerable creates connection. And let me share with you a personal example.

I, I, I’ve shared this story time and time again and every time I share it on stage or in person or here on the podcast or on a YouTube video, people reach out to me and say, thank you for sharing it. It’s when I built a failed software company, right? I got so jaded by the potential revenue dollars coming in.

This was back, way back in 2011, 2012. I had a couple friends who had built software businesses, WordPress plugins to be specific, each doing it in their own way. They didn’t know each other, but they both happened to come out with their own premium WordPress plugins within the span of about a month of each other, and each made six figures, and their audiences weren’t even nearly the size of mine.

So I saw dollar signs. I said, I am going to launch a WordPress plugin. So I found a developer, within a week we were already working together, and a project that was supposed to take six Weeks and $6,000, that was my budget, ended up taking six months and about $16,000, was a little over $15,000. And there was wasted time.

A lot of it was my own fault because I rushed into it. I didn’t even know exactly what I wanted to be built. And I was going back and forth between certain things, which was not helping the, the developer at all. And finally, when we had an iteration of this budget, WordPress plugin, which was a sort of fancy hire and contact form that collected data at the same time.

Um, I shared it with a bunch of people finally. ’cause I kept this thing in secret and when I shared it, people were like, meh. Or, oh, it’s kind of like this product, but I like this pro this other product better. Or, what if it did this? What if it did that? And I didn’t have any more budget to do those things that were suggested.

And so I learned a lot. That was a $15,000 lesson. And when I’ve shared that, and people see that, they’re like, Pat, you are kind of an idiot. You were you were so focused on the potential revenue that you could make that you didn’t even make something that was worthwhile making. And, and you should have lost money.

And I did. And That builds trust. That shows that what I was building was done for the wrong reasons and I passed on that lesson and people trust me more because of that, right? It was worth it to be stupid back then because I learned my lesson and I was able to, yes, pay that lesson forward, but also I think that story builds trust.

It has people have told me straight up, right? Case studies about that. I’ve written that, uh, about that story in books and it does nothing but help solidify the case that I have made those mistakes. I’ve gone through, uh, the ups and downs of business. That was one of the many downs and I’ve learned from it.

And it worked because it was real. It was vulnerable. It is something that only I could share. Yes, people have gone through similar stories, but this was my experience that nobody else could have. And here’s what happens when I share this often. People start trusting me more, not less.

People have seen me more as human, right? And somebody that’s like relatable in that way. And someone who’s trying to get things done and sometimes fails. And that is sometimes inspirational for people. And that’s the opportunity. In a world full of fake experts and manufactured success stories, being genuinely authentic, including about your failures, makes you magnetic. That is how you stand out. That is something that I’ve been trying to beat into you for so long here on the show. And I think now is more important than ever to understand that. So how do you actually build trust, right? Yes, that’s one example, sharing your failures, but I’m going to share with you seven different strategies that are working right now, right?

Approaches that you can take with content and showing up and how you present yourself, et cetera. So here is strategy number one. The behind the scenes approach. Stop just showing the highlight reel, show the process, show the mistakes, show the real work. I started doing this with my Pokemon channel, right?

I wasn’t able to position myself as an expert because I was not. I was not able to position myself as somebody who had a big collection because I didn’t have any. But I positioned myself as somebody who was learning about Pokemon, this is in 2021 when I started the channel applying what I learned from business into the Pokemon space, sharing what I was learning and sharing that I didn’t know all the Pokemon names, sharing that I needed help from the audience, and that helped build more trust.

I was sharing the behind the scenes approach, the behind the scenes approach that we took when selling the SwitchPod, right? From the moment we started to put it together and invent it and patent it, sell it. We’ve shared that story. And then recently you’ve heard me on the podcast talk about the sale of that company with Caleb.

And we went from start to finish with the behind the seeds approach there. And that’s worked very well. Right? People connect with that more than they connect with a polished final product.

Strategy two, the receipts method, receipts, show them receipts, right? Always be ready to show your work. If you claim that you made $100,000, show the screenshot, but even then the screenshot could be doctored. So what else could you share, right? You say you helped a thousand people. Show the testimonials. Share the stories. Bring particular names out. If you teach a strategy, show where you learned it and how you applied it, right? This isn’t about bragging.

It’s about verification. In the trust recession, claims without evidence are worthless.

Strategy, uh, strategy three. The vulnerability of ladder. There’s something I learned from Brene Brown’s work. A lot of you might know Brene Brown. She’s amazing. You don’t have to share your deepest secrets, but you do need to share something real.

You could start small. You could share a minor struggle, a small failure, just a failure that you had maybe today, not a life’s failure. A moment of doubt that you’ve had, perhaps. And you could see how your audience responds to that. And then you can gradually share more meaningful, deeper, more vulnerable content over time. The goal isn’t to, of course, to overshare. It’s to just show that you’re human. So that’s the vulnerability ladder.

Strategy four, the third party validation. Don’t just tell people you’re good, right? Let other people tell them you’re good. But here’s the key, make it easy to verify. Instead of just saying like, Hey, John from Texas says I changed his life. Say, John Smith from Austin, Texas, who you can find on LinkedIn says, I changed his life. That’s like level one, but level two would be inviting John on your podcast and have him tell the audience what the experience was like working with you. I did this back when I first sold online courses back in 2017. Of course, we don’t sell the online courses a la carte anymore. They’re all inside of the SPI community right now for you to get access to. Shout out to all the SPI Community members right now, by the way. But back when I first sold online courses sort of a la carte on their own, there was a podcasting course.

And to sell that course, I didn’t go on this podcast and say, hey everybody, buy my course. And I didn’t even just share testimonials from people. I brought the beta tester students onto the show and had them tell their stories. Like Dr. B, Dr. Shannon Irvine. Rob Stewart from Disney Travel Secrets whose business increased by 342 percent as a result of starting his podcast. He had to say no to clients for the first time as a result of showing up on a podcast. You see how these real stories and these real names already prove what I was sharing, what I was teaching was working? That one single podcast episode where I invited those three people. Shoutout to Dr. B, by the way. She was amazing. She told incredible stories about how she’s now helping people through living with ADHD all around the world, and she’s still continuing her show and her work today. This is over a decade later now. And she told stories about how she was scared of podcasting because of the technology, and being over 60, she was very scared that she wasn’t gonna be able to figure out, and without even prompting her, she was able to say how awesome power up podcasting was and how it wouldn’t have happened without me and without the course and the other students in there.

It was awesome. That one single podcast episode accounted for over $150,000 worth of sales of that course in that first year. That is how important this is, right? The third party validation.

Strategy number five, the process documentation. This is huge. Don’t just teach the what, teach the how and the why.

Show your thinking process, explain your decision making as it’s happening. This is exactly what I did with the niche site tool, building a website. It would have been very easy for me to do the whole experiment and then share the process as a case study. Here’s what I did for the last 73 days that got me to number one in Google.

Rather, on day one, I shared the idea, my thought process, what I was worried about. Day two, I shared the fact that I bought this domain name, how I decided that. Day three, I shared what tools I was using as a byproduct of that, also earning an affiliate commission. Right, I was teaching about building websites. And showing it as it was happening. And when it finally happened, when I finally hit number one in Google for the term security guard training, this was back in an older way of building businesses through keyword research and those kinds of things. After sharing this as it was happening on day 73, when I share that post of we’re number one in Google and look at the ad revenue starting to kick up.

People went ballistic. They’re like, this is a real case study. I got to know the ins and outs. I got to know why Pat made these decisions. And now I’m going to go through the same process myself, and I’m going to make sure to go through his affiliate links. That’s what happened. That’s how I made over six figures in affiliate commissions from a keyword research tool and domain and hosting providers. Because I shared the process. I documented that process. That’s strategy number five.

Number six, the consistency test. Your message, your values, and your approach should be consistent across all platforms and over time, right? People are checking. If you change your ways, and it’s not, I’m not saying that you can’t ever change how you do what you do, or your values, or what you believe in, all those kinds of things can and should likely change as you discover more things, as you become more yourself, sure, but if you change all the time, if you are selling this one thing, but then you take it back, and then you sell, like, and then you’re sharing these things, but then you say it’s good, and then you say it’s bad, right?

I’ve had the take before that short form video was a waste of time. But, I’ve decided that’s not true. Long form video is still where it’s at for me, but I’ve changed my tone and I’ve shared reasons why. I’ve proven it through my Should I Open It or Should I Keep It Sealed series now, over 600 days straight publishing short form video and generating over 6 figures with just YouTube Shorts.

Not to mention Instagram, Facebook, etc. So I’ve proven it. I’ve also documented those processes as well, but I’ve now changed my, changed my position and that’s again, okay. But ideally, you want to remain steadfast with what you say and how you say it. And although it might seem like you’re saying the same thing over and over and over again, remember, new people are finding you all the time who have never heard you say this before.

So those new people deserve the same kind of energy that the people who discovered you a year ago, five years ago had gotten when you first started.

Number seven, the community approach. This is what I talk about in my book Superfans, right? It’s not a one way conversation, it’s a many way conversation. Not you talking to your audience and your audience talking to you, but your audience talking to each other. And what people, when people see others having real conversations, sharing real results, and building real relationships around your brand, that is social proof that you cannot fake.

This is why we’ve been running our challenges publicly now, our short form video challenges, because people are seeing other people succeed, and it just heightens SPI, it’s the brand that has facilitated these moments. So let’s go back to those questions from the beginning, but let’s make them actionable.

So here is your Trust Recession Litmus Test. Test number one, have somebody who doesn’t know you look at your content for five minutes. Can they tell you apart from your competitors? Can they get a sense of who you are as a person? That is the stranger test. Stranger, not danger in this case.

Test number two, the verification test. Pick three claims you make about your business or results, and how easy is it for someone to verify those claims? If it takes more than two clicks. You’re failing the test.

Test number three, the AI test. Look at your last 10 pieces of content. How many of them could have been written by ChatGPT or Claude? It’s more than half, you have a problem. A big problem.

Test number four, the time machine test. If someone looked at your content from a year ago and compared it to today, would they see growth, evolution, or consistency? Or would they just see somebody chasing trends?

And test number five, the community test. Do your followers interact with each other or do they only interact with you? Real communities have conversations. Fake ones just have broadcasts.

So here’s what I want you to understand. The trust recession isn’t something that’s happening to you. It’s happening right now, but it’s something you can use to your advantage.

While the other people out there in your space, the other creators, your competitors, are trying to fake their way to success, you can build real authenticity. While they’re chasing vanity metrics, you can build genuine relationships. While they’re performing, you can be authentic.

And here’s the beautiful thing about trust. Once you build it, it compounds. Trusted brands don’t just survive recessions, they thrive during them. They win customers from competitors who lose credibility. They charge premium prices because people value reliability. They build communities that market for them. And again, I’ve been doing this for 18 years now, and I’ve seen a lot of changes.

But the one thing that has never changed is this. People want to do business with people who they trust. The trust recession isn’t making that less true. It’s making it more true.

So here is your homework. First, take the trust recession litmus test that I just gave you and be honest about where you stand.

Second, pick one of the seven strategies that I shared and implemented this week. Don’t try to do all of them. Pick one and do it well. Remember those strategies? The behind the scenes approach, the receipts method, the vulnerability ladder, the third party validation, process documentation, the consistency test, and the community approach.

Third, start documenting your process. Whatever you’re working on, whatever you’re learning, whatever you’re struggling with, share it. Show your work. That’s what social media and short form videos especially are great for. And finally, remember this. In a world full of fake experts, being genuinely helpful and authentically yourself isn’t just a nice to have.

It’s your competitive advantage, right? The trust recession is real, but for entrepreneurs who are willing to be real, it’s also the greatest opportunity of our lifetime. Thank you for listening to the SPI podcast. I’m Pat Flynn, as you know, and if this episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear what you think.

If you’re in the community, let’s talk about it there. If you are, follow me on social media. Let’s talk about it there as well. And I hope that you will take action on this. It’s very, very important, right?

Create some content about your own trust building journey, because here’s the thing. Talking about trust is good. Building trust is better. But inspiring others to build trust. That’s how we together can change the entire game. So I’ll see you in the next episode. Be sure to follow if you haven’t already. And remember, in a world where everyone is looking to try to be as successful as possible, the real winners are the ones brave enough to be human.

Keep building trust, one authentic moment at a time. I appreciate you. You got this.