The Counterintuitive Approach to “Building Trust” Through Your Content

INTRO: After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host, Kathryn Thompson, takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you're ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen, heard, and a sought after entrepreneur in your industry, without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you're in the right place. Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter one size fits all approach to marketing and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this. You can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life. Welcome to Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast. And here's your host, Kathryn Thompson.

Kathryn Thompson: Hey, hey, super stoked that you're tuning in to this week's episode. I cannot [00:01:00] wait to dive in today's topic because I want to share with you a question that two of my clients recently asked me. me that actually left me stumped. Um, and I want to share with you what the question is, obviously, and then also what my response sort of ended up being, because I think it's going to be really valid for you, especially if you are wanting to sort of build and cultivate trust in your content in the way in which you express yourself, because that was the question.

How can you so profoundly develop and cultivate Trust really quickly with your community to a point that they know you almost without having ever maybe had a conversation with you. And I was left stumped in that question because to me, cultivating trust isn't a trick that you master. It is. an embodiment of who you are and what you're expressing and how you're showing up.

It's a marriage between your words [00:02:00] and your action, making sure that those are congruent and in integrity. Now, I know we're all human and I know that not all always do we show up in the most perfect light? So to me, it's also acknowledging when we don't, that when we've made a mistake, when maybe we've gone against our better sort of judgment of what it is that we wanted to do in the first place, but didn't.

And I've been there, right? I've been there in business where I've operated out of integrity to who I was. So, Because I was trying to get it right, quote unquote, I really want to desperately for things to work and therefore outsourced my better judgment, my better knowing, my better instinct in terms of what it was that I wanted to create and how I wanted to create it.

And so when they asked me that question, I literally like. stopped dead in my tracks because I was like, I don't have a process. I don't have a formula. I don't have, you know, some sort of tips and tricks that I can share with [00:03:00] you to master this. This is something that has to be in full embodiment of who you are.

It's walking your talk, so to speak, and it's showing up in a way in this world that is truly authentic to who you are. And so My response was, I'm me, which seems very oversimplified because Saying something like, just be you and be authentic and just show up as yourself can feel really daunting when we've spent maybe many years of our lives not showing up as ourselves.

When we've spent many years of our lives believing we had to be a certain way in order to be liked, in order to be chosen. And so I get that that simplification can, you know, come off as, well, that's great for you. But it's really difficult for me to be me and to show up as me because of X, Y, and Z and that's to me a really great place to [00:04:00] start because that to me is the work, right?

If you're sitting there in a moment where you've maybe built a business and you've seen the success and yet you're still thinking, I've done this because I was chasing. maybe a level of success, maybe it was monetary, that actually doesn't really matter to me. Or I've created and cultivated a business that doesn't allow me to enjoy the life outside of the business, and therefore as a result, relationships are being sacrificed, and relationships are really important to me.

There's incongruency in that, and You can cultivate trust in your business and in your content and the way that you connect with people, not by being perfect. Right? So it's, it's acknowledging where there's incongruency. It's acknowledging maybe where you're evolving and changing. It's acknowledging that maybe you've had a perspective shift.

It's showing that you're human. that you don't have everything figured out. [00:05:00] So perfection in that doesn't equal truth. Because truth isn't perfection. Truth is, I'm a human, and sometimes my life might look messy and chaotic, and sometimes I might be scattered and all over the place, and sometimes I might be, you know, have my shit together and crushing life, and Sometimes I might be really, really happy and joyful and fulfilled, and other days I might not feel that way.

That, to me, is truth and transparency. It's not, look it, I've created all this success, and here's how I've done it, and it was all perfect, and roses and butterflies. That to me isn't truth. And so I'm sharing this with you because I think that when we put out content, it's really easy to have the highlight reel.

It's really easy to just show all of the good, because there might be a fear that if we don't show all of the good, then somewhere [00:06:00] along the way, people might perceive us as not being honest. as not an expert, as maybe weak, of making a poor decision. Like, how could you do that? Right? So the vulnerability of sharing when things aren't working or when things haven't worked, or when things have worked and you made a mistake in that because it wasn't in alignment, and so.

I don't want you to look at truth as being, well, I've got to tell the truth, and if I'm out of alignment, or I'm not congruent with my truth at all times, then I must be a liar, or I must be a fraud, or people aren't going to trust me. Actually, trust is built, one, For sure, when your words match your actions, absolutely.

But trust is also built when you can be vulnerable and open and share about the mistakes that you've made and acknowledge those. Trust is built when When you can speak transparently and [00:07:00] honestly and openly, even if it's difficult to do so, and that might be in relation to your own experience, but that also might be in relation to your clients, right?

When your clients come to you for input, insight, advice, whatever it might be, and you don't want to ruffle feathers so you don't actually tell them what you see, right? And that can be Not pointing out maybe where you spot incongruencies where you're like, huh? Wait a minute. You say you want this, but you're actually doing this and I'm seeing incongruencies.

Those are the hard conversations that you might have to have with people right within your client relations. So coming back to the whole truth telling, Truth telling isn't perfection painted on a canvas that's like my life is perfect and all is grand and here's how I done it. To me, that's more of that hierarchy, that guru, that I'm the expert [00:08:00] versus his pedarchy, which is more of this.

independence or co creation where everybody's input and insight sort of brought to the table to move things forward. And to me, we are moving and shifting away from that like hierarchy, more to the hierarchy, meaning that we're moving away from people looking up to like a guru or an expert to tell them what to do and how to do it.

And we're moving more to that interdependence, right? It's like I can make decisions for myself. I just might need guidance or mentorship to help reflect back to me maybe what I'm not seeing, or I'm looking for mentorship or guidance or an ally or a thought partner that can help draw out of me what's already like deep within me that might be lying dormant.

That might be my gifts, that might be the expression. through my words, all of those sorts of things. And that likely looks like unlearning all the things we were taught [00:09:00] we needed to do in order to be successful. And I want to share a story with you about what I really sort of mean by this when I talk about truth telling, and how trust, in my opinion, isn't something we architect.

It's not something we manufacture or engineer. It's not something that is even to be built, right? It's something that just exists in a relationship, in a partnership, because of the way that people are showing up in authenticity and in alignment with their values and that their words really do match their actions.

So I want to share a story with you because a couple years ago, and I've shared this before in pieces and in bits, but I think this will help really ground in that sort of truth telling and how that. becomes an embodiment to who you are and what you do. A few years ago, I hired a mentor who's absolutely amazing at what she does.

She's very analytical and strategic, and I am too, but she's very, very analytical and strategic. It's very [00:10:00] formulaic. It's like, do these things and you'll be successful. Sort of thing. And I just don't jive with that. I'm, I'm equal parts strategic and analytical with my intuition and I lead with my intuition and I lead with that creative expression that wants to flow through me and then I apply it to a strategy.

And then I use my strategy and analytics and data and all of that to help inform decisions within my business. But I'm always leading with that intuition, first and foremost. Now, I say always leading with it, it wasn't something that I always led with in my online business. It was something in my offline world I did without even thinking about it.

But when I stepped into the online world, I lost sight of that. And so I had hired a mentor who was very strategic and analytical and for 12 months her method in a lot of ways was you need to show up consistently on social and sell and you need to show up consistently in your [00:11:00] email or your inbox and sell.

Everything you put out needs to be a sales invitation. So I was posting five days a week on social media. And I was following these formulas, quote unquote, on how to bust beliefs and shift perspective, and how to do all of these things from a very psychological content creation perspective, which for me is insane.

counterintuitive to how I function. The minute I try to fit myself into a formula, I dilute my message almost instantaneously. And the result of that was that, I'm not saying that people didn't trust me because what I was selling and what I was putting out there was still congruent with what I could deliver, right?

So that's a whole other conversation. If you're offer around something that you aren't really confident in. Maybe you have a knowing in it, but you're not, you haven't yet mastered it. Meaning you've maybe created results for yourself once or [00:12:00] twice, but it's not something you've replicated. And then to go and teach that again to somebody else, there might be some incongruency there because you're not really fully embodied in the message that you're putting out there.

That's a whole other topic. conversation. What I'm talking about is, is that you're grounded in what you do. You're a master at what you do. You're brilliant at what you do. You've got these amazing gifts, but you're trying to employ a strategy that is incongruent with you, your values, how you show up, your zone of genius, all of that.

So when my clients asked me, how do I build trust? I was like, I don't, I don't know. I just show up as myself and I just talk and I just share and I don't filter what I'm talking about. Now, if I try to put myself into a formula, like, what hook do I write? What body of content do I need to write in order to hold someone's attention?

And then what call to action? Do I need to write in order [00:13:00] for my audience to know what action I want them to take is a formula, in my opinion. And then within that, there's a lot more sophisticated quote unquote formulas or frameworks that you can use to write stories that convert, to bust beliefs, right?

Like, speak to sort of the patterns that people have at the subconscious. Like, all of that feels very formulaic to me. And for me, I've never used it. And so when I teach copywriting, I don't actually teach copywriting from a formula perspective. There's no formulas to follow because in my world and the way that I exist in a lot of ways, if we are trying to fit ourselves into that box, that formula, We will die naturally dilute our message.

And that's what was happening. I was posting five days a week. I was emailing multiple times a week, and it was like I was being friend zoned, right? People would maybe say, Oh, I love what you're saying, or I love [00:14:00] your post or all those sorts of things. But there was really no momentum or movement because I was completely incongruent with the strategy.

The, the what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it and when I wanted to say it didn't fit the formula. And so within that, there is that friction that makes the truth telling not as potent because, It's not me. The message is diluted. And when I'm overthinking or having to think too much of what do I need to say in order to my, for my audience to take some type of action, I've already killed the message and creativity, which is the very thing, in my opinion, That creates that trust with people in my world very quickly because it's unfiltered.

I'm not holding back. I'm just talking. And that [00:15:00] is the essence of what I wanted to share on this episode with you here today because to me, Cultivating trust isn't something that we build. It's not tricks that we master. It's not a formula or a framework that we need to follow, like, do this and you'll miraculously have trust built.

It's how do you naturally build trust? Like, are the words you're putting out there in alignment with your actions? Is the strategy that you're using AKA posting on social every day, emailing your audience, selling every single day. Is that in alignment with your values? For me, a huge, huge, huge value of mine is integrity.

So I need to be in integrity in all aspects of my business and selling every single day without giving and sharing value and having that whole energy of reciprocity. is literally the [00:16:00] polar opposite of what I stand for. I am here to give without taking, right? I'm here to share my gifts and my insights and what I see without the expectation or attachment that you need to pay me for that service.

So to sell every day without sharing and expressing and being creative with how I share, completely dulls. everything about who I am and what I stand for and what I'm here to do on this planet in a lot of ways and who I am at the core of who I am, which is beyond the labels. It's beyond the I'm a marketing expert or conversion copywriter.

It's beyond what I, Do For Work. And therefore my content needs to have that interlaced in there, right? I want to be able to talk about leadership. I want to be able to use my own photos in my content. I want to be able to, you know, maybe write a poem. [00:17:00] And not it be, you know, just a pragmatic step by step sort of thing.

Like, how can I blend all of who I am into my content? That for me, again, is that sort of truth telling in what it is I'm doing because it's not an active, What do I need to do? It's just the way I'm being and how I'm showing up without it being a thinking process. It's just my natural, innate way, which is why one of the biggest questions I'll ask people is like, Do you like to write long form content?

Would you rather speak it out? Would you rather be on an interview? You know, does it, do you find it hard to sit and write at your computer? like, and just come up with content? Or is it easier when someone asks you questions and prompts you? This is, to me, getting to sort of the core of who you are and what you do and what's genuine.

If what you're putting out there isn't genuine, isn't natural, your audience is going to feel that. And I know that you know this already. I know that you know this. And so it's like chipping [00:18:00] away at maybe what isn't congruent right now and getting really honest about that and then speaking truth to that.

Because like I said, truth isn't perfection. Right? Truth isn't, I'm, I've got everything figured out. I'm the expert. I'm perfect at what I do. Truth is being able to speak honestly and openly and transparently about your experience as a human, as a business owner. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to show all facets of your life and you have to like, You know, splay your heart wide open for the internet to see, that's not what I'm saying, because I'm, my, my personal life is very sacred, and my, what I do outside of business and online is, is sacred, and so I don't document everything I do in my life, but I do showcase the ups, the downs, the sideways, where I've made mistakes, where I've probably screwed up and I share a lot about my journey about how I outsourced a lot of my authority to somebody else to [00:19:00] tell me what to do.

And again, no fault on that mentor because that's not her fault, but that's what I was doing, right? My job is to filter the advice, the input, and all of that through my own, my own system so that I can make decisions that are in alignment with me. And that's, I take ownership of that. And so, but showcasing that and being real about it is so important.

a natural way to sort of build trust. That's how people feel it, right? They feel it because they're like, wow, it's genuine. She's not scripted. She's not blowing smoke. You know, it's not all roses and butterflies. It's not all perfect. It's not all, I've got everything figured out. And I talk about That the fact that I've hired mentors and I talk about the fact that I have mentors in my corner all the time, you know, that I'm working with all the time.

Just because I'm a marketing expert, conversion copywriter, and you know, doing this within my business and supporting others doesn't mean that I don't seek support guidance. [00:20:00] outside of that. And I've often talked about, I love hiring copywriters to help me, right? Because it's just another set of eyes.

It's another level of creativity. I don't want to create in isolation. I want to create in response. And so that's my natural tendency. I don't sit in my house and come up with content that's like, I'm going to just sit here and brainstorm content ideas. I create it in response. Meaning, This podcast episode is being recorded because somebody asked me a question that I think is valid to share with y'all.

I didn't just sit here and go, so what should I write today on my podcast? If that's what I was sitting in, I would have creator, block, left, right, and center. I have a wide open head center. I have an open Ajna. I'm an open channel. like, to my throat, basically, if you're into human design. I don't do well. I have ideas flowing through me all the time.

Not all of them are for me. But I [00:21:00] do a lot better when I'm engaging with things outside of me, so to speak, in response to the life around me. If I can talk about the life around me, I can talk about the world around me. I can talk about what I see in business around me. That's where my content ideas come from.

They don't come from me sitting here and brainstorming, you know, based on content pillars. They don't come here, you know, I'm not brainstorming and batching content based on that. The content that I create is very fluid. I have an open G center. Go figure. Right. I'm very fluid in terms of what I like and how I like it, because it depends on the day.

It depends on the environment I'm in. It depends on the mood I'm in. It depends on who I'm around. That's what. sparks me and that's how I create content. And so if I had to talk about the same thing over and over every single day, and my message was very pigeonholed into just how to write copy, let's just say, I would [00:22:00] struggle big time.

I want the content and what I put out there, and I don't even really call it content. It's my expression. I want my expression to showcase the the multifacetedness of who I am, which is, I love photography. I love videography. I love storytelling. I love poetry. I love food and wine. I love to soak up life and drink it in.

I love to travel. I want that to be all encompassing in the content and the expression that I'm putting out in the world. And how is that interconnected with business and marketing? Well, it absolutely is, right? To me, Marketing is creativity. Business is innovation. Business is an expression in a lot of ways of who we are, specifically if you're a personal brand, right?

It is your expression. It's who you are. And so we have to innovate. We have to be creative in that expression. That is truth in and of itself. And so if we're not being creative, [00:23:00] expressive and creative, and we're not taking in the world around us and using that to convey the message. And we're just trying to come up with what we need to say to get somebody to do something.

It's going to totally kill the creativity. And if we're having to box ourselves into a box of, I can only talk about this one thing, and it has to be this specific, because if I don't, then people won't know what I do. They won't understand, they'll misinterpret all sorts of things that again will also kill the creativity, but it will be really difficult to build trust, because like I said, trust is the embodiment of who you are.

And so when you think about, How you build trust with people, right? How you're drawn to people and how you're captivated by people. It's not a coincidence. The reason you're captivated by them is likely because of the way that they're showing up, probably what they're expressing. And you could be connected to them via maybe the [00:24:00] story, the fact that they're a mom trying to build a business, or maybe It's another story that happened in their life that is congruent with something that's happened in your life.

Maybe you both traveled to Costa Rica around the same time and both had an amazing experience. Or maybe you both decided to become mums in the same year or whatever it might be. This is how we're drawn to people. It's not a coincidence. And so whenever I'm looking at somebody, I'm like, I'm really drawn to you.

I always unpack why am I drawn to you? Recently, I stumbled across a woman who I'm absolutely drawn to, and yet her expression, how she shows up is drastically different than the way that I would show up in my expression. But the reason I'm drawn to her is, is because of the way in which she expresses all the multi facetedness of who she is.

She's very vibrantly dressed. She's very, she talks about a bunch of different things in her business. I was like, she's a [00:25:00] Manny Jen for sure. And I could tell, and then sure enough, I stumbled across one of her posts and she talks about being a manifesting generator, right? So I'm drawn to that because I'm like, look at her.

It's the. full embodiment of a managen. She's not picking one thing to just talk about and hang her hat on. She's like, I could talk about a variety of different things. And she even has a post that's like, if you're coming here and you think I'm just going to talk about the same thing over and over and over again, I'm not.

I'm multifaceted, I'm a manifesting generator, and I've got a lot of things to say, and I want to share them all. And so she does. She talks about a relationship, she talks about traveling, she talks about astrology, she talks about politics, I mean, literally, this is so beautiful to see. And so that's why I was drawn to her, because I was like, wow, she's a full embodiment.

It's not necessarily because of what she's doing. It's not that I'm necessarily like, yes, I want to be what you are. It's that I'm like, I love when people show up in the most [00:26:00] genuine, authentic way, and that you can see how they're busting out of the box. Or it's a message that I'm like, wow, I really love the message that you're sharing.

It's something maybe that I've. I've been thinking or feeling, and I just haven't put words to it yet, or I wasn't sure how to put words to it. And you've really encompassed that in a way that is way better than I ever could have expressed it. And so I get, I, I'm, I gravitate towards that. And so where I'm going with this is that the people that you're drawn to unpack why, get curious about why you're drawn to that person.

Why? their message or the way they're showing up or what they're all of that why that's drawing you in because that is how you want to be in your own business because the reason they're drawing you in is likely because of something that you resonate with about their story. Maybe their clothing, maybe the way they look, I don't know, right?

But it's like I'm drawn to you for that reason and it's not a coincidence. [00:27:00] And that is trust being built without you having to convey it, right? To me, conveying trust. it or thinking about how to convey it to build trust is is that manufactured architecture way which to me only dilutes it or fractures it because people will feel it when you're trying to over process and overthink and you're trying to do versus be they will feel it instantaneously.

And so the more that you can express in an unfiltered sort of raw way that is like, I'm just going to say it how it is and I don't really care what and how it's received. I'm just going to share from that place of wanting to share out of excitement. This is something I'm really excited about talking about.

It's something that I think will be really valuable. There's no sort of attachment to it. I'm doing this to get people to do a certain thing that feels very manipulative to me. I have a whole other thing. I want to talk about calls to actions, but I'll do it in [00:28:00] another another time where We're writing things to get people to do something versus just writing or expressing without a call to action, without even expecting anybody to do anything, but they're moved by what you say because of what you say, not because you have a sentence or a hook that You know, call them in or whatnot.

So, and got them to do something. So anyways, back to the two, the question that I had that stumped me when my client said to me, how do you build trust instantaneously? Well, I want to reframe that. It's not about building it. Trust to me exists when people are transparent and honest, when they're showing up as their authentic self, and when they're honest with others about when they're not showing up as their authentic self, when they have made a mistake, when maybe they have evolved their perspective or changed the way they look at things.

That for me is just something that coexists. Like, you don't not trust somebody [00:29:00] Or at least I don't. I don't walk around going, I don't trust anybody and that you have to show me that I should trust you. That's not how I navigate relationships. I trust people until I have a reason not to trust them, right?

And the same for, at least is what I think, the same is true for content and expression, right? Why would somebody naturally not trust you? And if they do, that I would question sort of that perspective, because to me, walking around not trusting people is that lower vibrational, fear mongering, fearful sort of energy of like, I don't trust the world, I don't trust people, it's scarcity.

So that to me is, is sort of that energy and that for me is that perspective of like, okay, that's what that is, right? If somebody says to me, well, I hope you're not a scam, or I hope you're not a fraud, I already have that, um, in place where I'm like, we're probably not a really good fit to [00:30:00] work together.

Cause if that's what you're feeling that I might be a fraud or a scam, this will never work because building trust in partnership with your clients while they're working with you is very, very difficult for both parties. If someone's skeptical about you and then they decide to hire you and you accept that, You're going to spend the entire time working with them trying to cultivate trust, and that is a really tough place to be, and I've been there, and it's a place that I don't go anymore.

It's how I qualify people. I'm really looking at the language that people bring to me, right? It's, it's a two way street. I'll trust you until I have a reason not to trust you. And for me, there's a language patterns there that I sort of look for, and the way people sort of talk, and what they're saying.

Where I'm like, this probably isn't going to be a good fit because of X, Y, and Z. And if somebody considers me a scam or a fraud before we've ever worked together, and they're asking me that, [00:31:00] then we're, we're not a good fit. So with that, I really hope that this episode has sparked some insider ideas. for you on cultivating trust and building trust.

And I don't even like to say that because it really isn't about being your authentic self and showing up just as you are in the multifacetedness of you are in order to have your audience just naturally feel that trust within you and have that trust already built and there before. you ever even have a conversation with them and before they ever even work with you.

So with that, I'm going to leave you, but I hope you have a fab day. Cheers. Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can also find us on social media at creativelyowned and online at creativelyowned. com. Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic [00:32:00] self.