Use Podcasting to Deal with the Trust Recession

[00:00:00] By the end of this episode, you’re going to learn how to earn a million dollars in your sleep. Wake up tomorrow looking 10 years younger and I’m even gonna throw in a brand new iPhone because I accidentally bought too many Plus, you are not gonna believe my grandmother’s secret. Super food that’ll give you six pack abs in under a week.

[00:00:18] Okay. Sound familiar? ’cause this is the type of stuff that we are bombarded with these days, and that’s not even the worst of it, as you know. And of course this is a big reason that there is a growing skepticism now toward coaches, experts, and authority figures. And with the explosion of ai, of further reason to question everything that we see online.

[00:00:40] And the examples I gave are kind of old school at this point.

[00:00:42] There are way more advanced scams and things to be skeptical of these days online, and this has resulted in something that people are calling the trust recession. Whether someone has been burned by a course which promised results that never came tricked by a prank video or something else, there is no shortage of reasons for people to be reluctant to trust both online and in real life as they are overwhelmed by noise and lies.

[00:01:11] Now that means if you’re a health entrepreneur trying to win clients online, it’s getting more and more challenging. Your potential clients are craving, authenticity, proof of expertise and outcome and real connection. And that is where podcasting can shine. So in this episode, we’re gonna explore how podcasting can help you build trust, showcase your knowledge, and turn listeners into loyal clients

[00:01:35] this is profits through podcasting. I’m your host, Joel Oliver.

[00:01:39] Yes, the trust recession. Surely we are all falling victim to it at this point. Being less and less trusting of everything online. And things that we used to trust. Now we are more wise to, and the scams continue to advance and it’s just a never ending loop.

[00:01:56] Even some emails, you know, uh, spam emails are not a new thing, but some of those have gotten more and more clever. And then we become more and more adept to picking those up and realizing, hey, this email is not actually being sincere. It’s just a blast to a whole bunch of people. But for a moment, you got tricked maybe a couple times, and then you become less and less trusting.

[00:02:17] And just as soon as something comes in, it’s just delete, delete. I don’t even care what it is. Uh, same with phone calls. You know, if it’s not a number, I know it’s not in my phone. Don’t care, not answering it. And it wasn’t always that way. You know, there used to be a time where we cared who was that, that, that number that we missed to better call that back and see who it was in case they’re trying to get ahold of me.

[00:02:37] Now it’s just don’t want to talk to anyone. Ignore everything. Delete every email. At least that’s the way I live. So that’s a great example of the, you know, the world as a whole and what we’re dealing with online. People are becoming increasingly skeptical of what they see online. And who they do business with, which means as an entrepreneur, you’ve gotta find ways to continue building trust and demonstrating authenticity so that people feel that they can indeed trust you and then ultimately do business with you.

[00:03:06] A good thing is that podcasting inherently has some great ways of making this happen.

[00:03:11] So podcasting in itself, how does it build trust? Well, first of all, the authenticity. It lets listeners hear the real you. Through your voice, the passion, how you talk about things, and your unfiltered thoughts. you’re sitting down for 15, 20, 30 minutes at an hour, people are hearing the real you. Over time, they come to understand and learn who exactly you are, and it’s hard not to build trust that way. As well, your expertise, if you’re doing solo episodes, especially, they allow you to share deep knowledge and insight and practical tips, people just start to really get to know you and see this person actually knows what they’re talking about. The consistency of podcasting as well. Putting out regular episodes helps with that. What we just talked about there, the familiarity and.

[00:04:00] Reliability. Not only do they see that you know what you’re talking about, but you are there week after week delivering that new fresh content and being yourself and being that trusted voice. And this, of course, helps to drive trust even further. It sets expectations and then meets them. And this kind, this concept has been around for a long, long time.

[00:04:19] It was in broadcasting as well. It was an important thing, just that setting of expectation. And then delivering on it. And brands as well. You know, if you go to a store, you expect consistent service. So you have that quality standard that you’ve come to know a place for, and every time you go back, you wanna be met with that same standard.

[00:04:37] Uh, hotels, you know, you can think of countless examples like this, so it has to be the same with your podcast. They start realizing that you are a dependable person. You don’t flake, you don’t, uh, do an episode here and there and disappear. You are there week after week on schedule. As well, the accessibility of podcasts.

[00:04:56] These are intimate things. Listeners feel like they’re in a one-on-one conversation. It feels like they’re chatting with a friend or listening to a friend because you are with them in all kinds of places, whether it’s in the car, the shower, at bed, they could be consuming podcasts and hearing your voice think about the podcasts that you listen to and when you listen to podcasts and the host, the connection that you feel with the host, you feel like you know them well and most likely you’ve never actually even met them in real life, but you trust that person. You feel like you actually have a connection there, and people will feel that with you as well.

[00:05:30] So those are some ways that podcasting can actually build trust. Now, how do we take this further? How do we leverage it? What strategies can we employ to make sure that we are getting the most trust building from all these podcast episodes that we’re creating? Well, let’s talk about that now. First of all, one, I already mentioned solo episodes.

[00:05:50] These help you share your expertise through actionable advice, personal stories, or lessons that you’ve learned. Interviews are great as well, and it’s typically ideal to do a mix of solo and interview episodes, but if you’re having a guest on. Typically the spotlight is on them versus you. But when you’re doing a solo episode that’s really intimate and personal and allows you to share whatever you want, and people can really get to know you that way and perhaps the way that they couldn’t if you were only doing interview episodes.

[00:06:18] So it’s great to do solo episodes and be that authentic. You share anecdotes and stories from your life and things that just display who you are and help people get to know you better. Storytelling and vulnerability in episodes like this in your solo episodes, create emotional connections.

[00:06:37] And it doesn’t have to be a whole episode about that. It could be, but even little comments I’ve heard from podcasters say like, wow, what a weekend. You know, I’m finally getting a chance to sit down and record this. It was insane Weekend with the kids. We went on this really fun trip, just little things like that that help people relate or see more of who you are doesn’t necessarily have to be like they’re exactly relatable to you. But if you are, say, in the demographic of people you’re trying to serve, then that often does help a lot as well.

[00:07:05] We of course, do a lot of work in the health and wellness space. And one example that comes to mind that is quite prominent is women who were giving out, uh, advice regarding hormones often talking about their own life experiences. Here is what happened with me, and here is what I did to resolve it.

[00:07:21] Here are the challenges I encountered, the questions that I had along the way, and ultimately figured out this was the solution. Right? So you can see a lot of benefits there.

[00:07:29] As well. When you are doing these episodes, do not script. The episode point form is perfectly fine. You want to have some kind of outline. Some points that you don’t wanna forget and make sure you kind of stay on track and cover all the, the key topics that you aim to talk about.

[00:07:44] But if you’re just scripting out a whole thing and reading it word for word that doesn’t sound sincere, it doesn’t sound authentic, it doesn’t sound natural, we don’t need to be doing that. So, point form is fine, but don’t script these episodes when you do them. And I have to mention this as well in the day of.

[00:08:00] Ai, don’t replace your voice with AI either, because it seems like that’s becoming a, a possibility in the podcast space. There are, of course, some completely automated podcasts out there that are using AI to fully like script and record a podcast, so a human isn’t even involved. That’s not your selling point, okay?

[00:08:20] Don’t get so carried away with AI and making your workflow efficient that you take the humanness out of what you’re doing. So show up yourself and let your personality shine.

[00:08:30] Next strategy here to think about, to help ensure that your podcast is building as much trust as possible for you with your audience, sharing client stories, case studies, questions, and testimonials. So these all serve as evidence that you are the real deal. As I mentioned in the beginning. Whether it’s solo episodes or interviews, being able to showcase to people that, Hey, I actually know what I’m talking about.

[00:08:55] There’s a reason I have this podcast. There’s a reason you should listen. I’ve got this knowledge. I’m not pretending it’s all out on the table here. So if you’re addressing a question from the audience or a question you’ve been getting a lot recently with your clients, it shows that you are actually doing the work.

[00:09:11] You’re actually involved. Working with clients, so that’s a great reason for them to trust you. It’s demonstrating your, your knowledge. You can invite clients as guests for authentic conversations that highlight your impact and your personality.

[00:09:25] So I see this quite a bit where podcast hosts will have their clients on and discuss their journey. What was your situation before? How did you come to find me? How has your life been since we started working together? What was that experience like? That can help a lot of people who are perhaps considering working with you, but

[00:09:44] they’re still on the fence about it and wondering, should I really do this? Can this really help? Should I make this investment? When you’re showing them this example of other people who have done that and are very glad for it, it’s really hard to beat that sort of testimonial in that long form podcast content and they can really hear the details and perhaps see in that guest themselves and their own, questions or doubts before starting the process of working with someone like you

[00:10:10] we had a client, Josh, who shared with me some stories of his clients. He had a podcast and. People listened to the podcast so much and heard him talking about what he does, showing off his expertise that when they came on a sales call, they weren’t there to be sold or learn anything else about what his offerings were.

[00:10:28] They already knew it. They knew his personality. They, they had come to trust him. They basically just wanted to give their credit card number and get to work. Together. So it’s another great thing about podcasting.

[00:10:39] The more of this stuff that you share, whether it’s from your clients or the type of work that you’re doing, testimonials, case studies where you don’t, don’t have to have a client on, but you highlight a story about them. Great way to build trust and really help people who are unsure about proceeding with the service, wondering if it’s right for them.

[00:11:00] See that, okay, this can actually help. It’s helped other people like me.

[00:11:05] Next thing to do to help your podcast establish more trust with your audience, repurpose the content, turn those podcasts into video clips, blog posts, shorter YouTube videos, social media snippets to reach broader audiences. This is just expanding on what you’ve got already, this is a no-brainer when it comes to podcasting because you can focus on getting that quality episode made.

[00:11:29] Whether it’s solo or interview, and then you’re just getting more mileage from it, you can have your team do all this repurposing, creating those other bits of content. You know, YouTube is talking about this a lot these days where, yes, you should put the full length episodes up, but you can reach whole different audiences on YouTubes by cutting those episodes into clips.

[00:11:49] Like taking one question from the episode and uploading that as a video, its own video with its own cover, art, and title. ’cause people will be searching for that and it’ll come up the shorts posts on YouTube with just texts or text and image. All these ways that you can repurpose the content doesn’t take any extra effort from you in terms of creating the episode, but you can reach a whole bunch more people and build further trust within your audience.

[00:12:15] So definitely be doing that if you’re not already. Uh, you’re, you’re missing out and if you are doing some repurposing, look at some other opportunities and how you can take that even further and get more from your episodes.

[00:12:27] Another way to be building trust. Using your podcast episodes make a strong first impression. People’s attention spans are shorter than ever. If you lose them from the start, they’re gone. So your intro to the podcast should be engaging. Should be concise. Let them know exactly what’s gonna be talked about in the episode.

[00:12:47] Make sure it sounds professional so it draws people in and keep it short. Welcome them in, set the expectations, here’s what you’re gonna get, and then get into the content. get them hooked right from the beginning. Otherwise, you will never actually have the opportunity to build any trust ’cause they won’t stick around.

[00:13:04] this goes back to the setting and meeting expectations by having a title and then an intro that’s in alignment. And then finally the podcast content that’s in alignment with all that, that is further creating and meeting expectations. ’cause you don’t want people getting sucked in with a title that really intrigues them.

[00:13:21] And then finding out, oh, this, uh, this was kind of misleading and the content in the episode didn’t really deliver on what the title said it was going to do. You want that all in alignment, and again, for over time people to realize that you deliver on your word, you always deliver high value episodes.

[00:13:37] And by having those titles and artworks perhaps on YouTube and the intros that really are intriguing and captivating. And then the, the content that matches it, you can do that. You can build that trust further. And sort of along the same lines, there is the next one. Consistency and quality. Maintain that regular publishing schedule, whatever it is, and that will help you build further trust. So whether it’s every week, every two weeks, find the schedule and show up. On time, every time people notice that they will come to like you and they’ll look forward to your content.

[00:14:12] And if they go to there to find you and you haven’t shown up and there’s no new episode, they’re gonna wonder where you’re, where you are. Be disappointed.

[00:14:19] And then of course that seeds a doubt in their mind. Is this person really a reliable person I would wanna work with? What if we have some coaching sessions together and you don’t even bother to show up to do the call with them? You know, that kind of thing. You’ve got to be demonstrating that you’ve got your ducks in a row.

[00:14:36] You are a trustworthy person, you are dependable, you’re reliable, and you can communicate that by publishing your podcast consistently as well. Worth noting here, having a professional sounding setup. So if you sound amateur, you’re not even using a proper microphone, then that’s gonna be a big turnoff to people as well.

[00:14:54] That there’s actually been studies that showed this, that there, the audience trusted the podcast host more when they had a professional sounding setup. So make that investment, it doesn’t have to cost a lot. If you don’t have a mic now. If you had a decent microphone, invest in proper editing, and that will help you build trust with the audience as well, as opposed to the opposite.

[00:15:15] If you’re putting out podcasts that don’t look or sound good, that’s going to have the opposite effect of the effect that you want and actually be turning people away, which is not our goal.

[00:15:25] Okay, so let’s briefly recap here. Some actionable steps, things that you can take away right now and implement in your podcast or consider if you’re starting a podcast.

[00:15:35] Uh, same thing. So what do we talk about the solo episodes? This can vary depending on the situation, but in most cases, I’ll say most it’s good to do a mix of solo and interview episodes. If you’re only doing interview, you could definitely be improving trust with your audience by taking some opportunities to do regular solo episodes as well.

[00:15:58] Next actionable step you can take reach out to a past client for either a testimonial or a guest appearance. Invite them onto your show and see if they’ll do a 30 or 60 minute interview with them. Or if not, do a a case study as well. It doesn’t have to talk anything about their identity or show who they are, but you can talk about their actual story and their experience so they could give you that information behind the scenes and you just use it anonymously if they’re not interested in actually being public on the episode.

[00:16:27] But that would definitely be great. See what you have available in terms of clients and if someone is willing to do that, and maybe you’ll even make it a regular thing if it works out. Well also record a 32nd intro. Try to make it as concise and engaging as possible. Record this for one of your episodes and get some feedback from some friends and see how it sounds and how intrigued they would be To tune in to the episode,

[00:16:52] so those are some things you can take away right now to implement in your podcast and start building further trust with your audience, which is a huge benefit of podcasting. We have this trust recession, it’s not going to get any better. If you’ve seen any of the AI video samples lately, the stuff that’s coming out is incredible.

[00:17:11] It’s getting really difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is not. Authenticity is more important than ever. People are going to be even more skeptical than ever.

[00:17:20] We need to continue showing up as ourselves, as trustworthy people, as trustworthy coaches and service providers, and let people know that we are human, we are here, and that we can be trusted and of course, ultimately can be trusted to do business with.