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Episode #19

Trust Is Built When You Are Not in the Room

Customers decide to trust you before the first call. Consistent visibility across every channel builds that trust before you ever speak.

7 min

Key takeaways

  • Recognize that trust is built before the call, not during it. Every piece of content you publish is a trust touchpoint that either confirms or contradicts your story.
  • Apply the Funnel of Trust: ask something small (a short assessment), give something big (a personalized report), and propose one clear next step. Hand over 85 percent and let the customer close the last 15.
  • Keep your message consistent across your website, social channels, and podcast. One contradiction resets the trust you have built and forces you to start over.
  • Answer the most-asked questions in your field, publicly and repeatedly. This builds trust with humans and makes AI systems more likely to cite and recommend you.
  • Reshare strong content regularly rather than producing new content constantly. Consistency over volume is what earns the 15-minute call that ends with: where can I pay?

Timestamps

00:00The decision is made before they call you
00:33Trust is built when you are not in the room
01:24Customer A vs Customer B - a real contrast
02:45Trust is just repeated confirmation
03:01The Funnel of Trust explained
03:45How the assessment and personalized report work
05:31Heavy sales calls are a trust problem, not a technique problem
06:19The practical steps: pin, reshare, answer questions

Read the blog article

Why Do Sales Calls Feel Heavy? It Is the Trust You Built Before the Call

Show notes

What This Episode Is About

Customers decide to trust you before you ever speak to them. By the time someone calls, they have already visited your website, found your social channels, read your content, and formed an opinion. Paul Veth explains why inconsistent messaging across those touchpoints destroys that trust and forces every sales call back to zero.

The Two-Customer Contrast

Paul describes two real customer types from his own business:

  • Customer A knew nothing upfront. The call took 90 minutes. Outcome: uncertain.
  • Customer B had seen the podcast, the blog, the reels, the framework. The call took 15 minutes. They asked: where can I pay?

The difference was not sales skill. Paul had won awards in sales. The difference was the trust built before the call happened.

The Funnel of Trust

The Funnel of Trust from Identity First Marketing runs in three moves:

  1. Ask something small - a short assessment that costs the prospect only a few minutes.
  2. Give something big - a hyper-personalized report with relevant podcast episodes, articles, and a personal voice note.
  3. Propose the next step - one clear action, nothing more.

Hand over 85 percent of the value. The customer closes the last 15. That is what makes it their decision.

Consistency Is the Mechanism

Trust is just repeated confirmation. When your website says one thing and your social channels say something slightly different, the trust resets. Consistency across every channel, over time, is what removes friction from every future conversation.

Paul's direct point: you do not need to post ten times a day. You need to show up consistently and answer the questions your audience is already asking. Those answers also feed AI findability - ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini cite experts who answer real questions clearly and repeatedly.

The Practical Move

  • Identify the most-asked questions in your field and answer them publicly.
  • Pin your best podcast episode or post so new visitors find it immediately.
  • Reshare the same strong content regularly - new followers have not seen it yet.

Topics

funnel of trusttrust before the sales callAI visibility for expertsconsistent content strategyentity buildinganswer engine optimizationidentity first marketingexpert visibilitysales trust framework

Full transcript

View full transcript
0:00
0Your customer decides to trust you before you ever talk to them. By the time they call you, their decision is already made. Think about this. The last time you purchased something. You did the research, right?
0:14
0You went to the website, maybe some other websites. You found some competitors. You found the founder. You found division. You went to their social channels and then when you call them, you already trust them because you know everything about them.
0:33
0Trust is built when you are not in the room. Trust is built on all the places you are when you are not in control at that moment because you control what you say and you control what you say on every place on your own domain, on your social channels. But it's important to understand that your potential customer can find trust. On all these places and what's one thing that's very important is when you say one thing on your web site, but a slightly different one on your social channels and then a few weeks later a slightly different thing on another social channel or on the same. The trust is gone and you have to rebuild the trust again.
1:24
0So picture this. I had this happening in my old business customer A. They called me and they started to ask me all kind of Tell me something about yourself, about your background, about why you do what you do. And then in the background, Okay, why why did you make these choices? Okay, tell me something about your services and your pricing and stuff like that.
1:50
0When I had these phone calls, I I almost always did phone calls at with this customer that took me like one and a half hours way too long. Even with my sales background, I had won awards in sales. I still had to talk to them for almost ninety minutes and then they will become customer or not. Then picture this customer B. That's amazing.
2:17
0They called me and they are like, oh, so great to talk to you. I saw you on the podcast. I saw your your blog article that that last reel of yours was really funny. I like the content in your voice. I like your service.
2:34
0I like the framework you you use. It's amazing on your website. It's it's very clear what you do and how you do it and your background story. It hits me all the time. Can I work with you?
2:45
0And these phone calls took me like fifteen minutes and then I had the customer. Which one do you prefer? And which one is possible for you at this moment? Trust is just repeated confirmation. It's important.
3:01
0That's why I use the funnel of trust. Ask something small, give something big, propose the next step. That's very easy because you as an entrepreneur for you, it's very important to be visible online. You don't have to be. The chowder you don't have to be online 10 times a day.
3:22
0Yes, that will work if you have the resources and the target audience for that. You can shout 10 times a day on Instagram Reels or TikTok if you want to. That's possible. I don't say it's not working, but for the most entrepreneurs it's not necessary. It's just you have to be visible online.
3:45
0Every day, every once in a day, that's enough, but you have to be consistent in what you share. That's why the funnel of trust is ask something small, give something big, propose the next step. How we do that is we ask first to do a little assessment, because if people give them. Give you their time in the form of an assessment, we give a report back. Especially personalized for that person and because we know a little bit about that person at that moment, we can give a lot of worth.
4:23
0So we give something big like, Okay, you're this kind of person here. You have these kind of podcasts. These are specially for you. Very good for you. This blog article is really going to help you.
4:37
0This infographic I always share a personal voice note that's amazing because it makes it more personal personal. But at that moment when you give something big, they are not going to binge your podcasts. Most of them. Most of the potential customers are not doing that. Some of them will, but most of them will.
4:59
0They will save the email and they will listen to your podcast to two of them or three of them in a week. So within one week or two weeks they you gain so much trust because they know everything about you because you told in this little package you give them your frameworks, how you work, why you do what you do, who you are for. And if you do that, they receive a lot of words. They can do it themselves, but they want to work with you. That's how it goes.
5:31
0So it's very simple. If every sales call you have feels like heavy. And tough and difficult. It's not about your sales technique. It's about the trust you gain upfront.
5:46
0It's just simple as that. You just have to be visible online. You have to answer the the most asked questions. That's very good for AI findability as well. So AI will cite you and even recommend you if you answer these questions.
6:04
0So think about what are the most asked questions. I've got a whole video about it. So. Ask this yourself. Give answer to these questions online.
6:19
0Make it visible. Pin the post or podcast on Instagram so people find it immediately. Make sure you share the same podcast over and over again. Maybe once a week, maybe once in two weeks. That same podcast for your new followers for the same followers so they start to understand who you are, who you are for, what you do, how you do it.
6:42
0And if you share that over and over again, every phone call you get from a potential customer, it's already settled. They call you and they say I love what you do. You have the right solution for my problem. I want to work with you. Where can I pay?
6:58
0That's it.

Frequently asked questions

Why do my sales calls take so long even though I have a strong track record?

Long calls are almost always a trust gap, not a technique gap. If a prospect arrives without having seen your content, your story, or your framework, you are rebuilding that trust live on the call. The fix is visibility before the conversation starts, not better closing lines.

What is the Funnel of Trust?

The Funnel of Trust is a three-move sequence from Identity First Marketing: ask something small (a short assessment), give something big (a hyper-personalized report with relevant content and a voice note), then propose one clear next step. Hand over 85 percent and let the prospect close the last 15.

How often do I need to post content to build this kind of trust?

Consistency matters more than volume. You do not need to post ten times a day. Showing up regularly with a clear, consistent message across your website, podcast, and social channels is what builds trust over time. Resharing strong existing content to new followers counts just as much as creating something new.

Does answering common questions actually help with AI visibility?

Yes. Paul makes this point directly in the episode. Answering the most-asked questions in your field, clearly and repeatedly, is one of the signals that AI systems use when deciding which experts to cite and recommend. It builds trust with humans and feeds AI findability at the same time.

What does 'where can I pay?' mean in this context?

It is Paul's shorthand for a prospect who arrives at the call already sold. They have read the content, heard the podcast, understood the framework, and decided to work with you before you ever speak. The call becomes a formality. That outcome is the result of trust built consistently over time, not sales technique applied in the moment.

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