Top of Mind

by John Hall

  You can apply this basic methodology to every way you communicate with your audience. Whatever specific tactics you use to practice this, your goal should always be to educate and provide value first and close later.

  On Top of Many Minds

  Up to this point, I’ve focused primarily on You Marketing as a way to build connections with your audience. And indeed, the data on inbound and the rise of content marketing are indisputable evidence of the benefits of achieving top-of-mind status within your customer base. But what if your target audience isn’t your actual customer?

  The same principles are just as powerful when applied to any aspect of your business in which success depends on flourishing human relationships. I was recently at a CMO dinner hosted by my friend Pete Krainik. Pete asked the group how we felt about vendors, and angry murmurs rippled around the table.

  CMOs are influential people who have the power to make major decisions; one decision could mean millions of dollars spent somewhere else instead of with your company. (Believe me, I’ve seen it happen, and it sucks when you can’t save that situation because you haven’t built up enough trust.)

  If we take my fellow diners as a representative sample, then the state of CMO-vendor affairs is grim. Fortunately, inbound and You Marketing concepts offer a hopeful way forward for vendors to build trust with this critical audience.

  According to research by Forrester, buyers are often between 70 and 90 percent of the way through the sales process before they ever engage a vendor.7 That means your buyers are out there researching their problems and trying to identify potential solutions—and they’re learning about the most trustworthy companies that can help. You have to do everything you can to ensure they’re finding the right information to educate, engage, and attract them to you before you hop on a call.

  I don’t know a single person who starts his buying process by calling each salesperson he knows from all the companies he can think of and asking those salespeople how they can help him. That’s ridiculous. He’d start by searching online to learn more about his specific problem and what people have to say about it to arm himself with as much information as possible before ever talking to someone about buying solutions.

  Now consider that it takes between 7 and 13 “touches,” or interactions with your brand, for a lead to become sales-ready.8 By providing relevant, accessible content, you’re ensuring your audience has ample opportunity for the kind of interaction that leads them to your company.

  And when you do finally engage a lead in a sales capacity (in the remaining 20 or 30 percent of their journey), that lead will already feel a strong human connection to the people behind your brand because he’s interacted with you up to a dozen times already. He’s asked and answered many of his own questions by searching online, and because your brand’s content helped him during his journey, yours is the brand he’ll turn to when it is time to engage a salesperson. That’s how you achieve the best results and truly build relationships with the people who can help you succeed.

  The same is true for recruiting. In 2015, CareerBuilder found that more than three out of four employed workers are actively seeking new job opportunities. That’s a process that consists of some significant homework—the average candidate will consult 16 total resources throughout her job search.9

  CareerBuilder calls it the “candidate-powered economy,” which should strike a healthy bit of fear in the hearts of HR recruiters—the same kind of fear that initially struck salespeople when they realized their audiences were powering the conversations, too. So what does it take to entice talent from this hypermobile, well-researched talent pool?

  Interestingly, 77 percent of candidates would lower their salary expectations if an employer created a great impression before or during the hiring process. Even more compelling is that 83 percent would do the same to work with a company that has a reputation as a great employer.

  Therefore, it’s not enough to run the happiest, most fulfilling workplace in the world—you also have to facilitate an emotional connection between your company and the talent pool. And anything you do to communicate that can build a strong connection. From current and former employee reviews and workplace awards to a blog series on your company culture and an “About” page that highlights a positive environment, the content that’s out there about your company will affect the kinds of emotional connections prospective candidates form with you before ever walking into their first interview.

  Be warned, however, that talent will judge the quality of external communications, including your content, as a reflection of your quality as an employer. Pump out garbage, and you’ll come off as a terrible place to work. But craft content that is aimed directly at your ideal candidate—meaning that it’s relevant, compelling, and distributed through the right channels—and you’ll create an enticing glimpse into your culture, values, and vision. In time, you’ll find yourself on top of the minds of the people you want working with you.

  It’s easy to see that You Marketing and inbound principles can get you top of mind with any target audience, from consumers and talent to investors, partners, and media relations. In fact, you can apply these concepts to any relationship—even those outside your business life.

  Let’s return to the three basic steps of the top-of-mind approach: Listen to your target audience; engage and communicate with them in ways they find helpful and meaningful; and repeat. Listen, engage, and repeat.

  Now, I’m no couples counselor, so take this advice with a grain of salt: if you are constantly listening to and communicating with your partner, you’re doing it right. The same is true with family and friends.

  That’s not to say that you should approach your personal and business relationships in entirely the same way all the time. You absolutely should not. My point is that when you’re authentic, helpful, and respectful in all of your relationships, good things fall into place.

  Think about how you interact with people, both personally and professionally, and make it a habit to listen attentively, communicate and engage thoughtfully with them, and be consistent in your efforts.

  Listen. Engage. Repeat.

  2

  WHAT CONSUMERS ARE LOOKING FOR IN BRANDS THEY TRUST

  IT WASN’T LONG AGO that my company, Influence & Co., was a young startup. Those early days were a sleepless roller coaster of excitement and frustration. As a new entrepreneur, I remember being blindsided by the emotional intensity of it all. Thinking back, one memory sticks out as both a little traumatic and incredibly formative.

  We were struggling to make things work as a company. It was getting to me pretty bad, and I started to doubt not only the company but myself and my abilities, too.

  I was attending a networking session at one of my first conferences. I didn’t know a single person there. However, with my background in sales and experience in real estate, I thought I’d still have shot at schmoozing my way to some success.

  But something wasn’t working. I was getting stonewalled—not just by one or two people but by everyone. I couldn’t connect for the life of me. The sense of not being able to get through to a single person was overwhelming.

  All of a sudden, I felt the same defeated feeling you might have experienced in your middle school gym class playing dodgeball, when the team captains are down to two remaining options: you and another kid. You’re hoping the captain calls your name so you’re not left standing there alone and embarrassed, but he calls on the other kid instead. You immediately feel like an outcast, and you give up before the game even starts.

  That’s how I felt.

  Once I left the event, I called my wife. After a minute of doing my best to put a positive spin on what I’d just experienced, I broke down. I remember talking to her with tears in my eyes, struggling to be honest about how things weren’t going well. We had poured all of our energy and emotion into this company, only to discover that we’d launched in an industry devoid of opportunity. It was a hopeless, desperate feeling.
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  Now when I think about that phone call, I cringe a bit. Embarrassing, humiliating, kind of dramatic—not exactly feelings I like to relive. But I also feel a sense of gratitude. As awful as it was, that experience inspired me to look at opportunity from a completely different perspective.

  Why couldn’t I connect? Why was everyone so guarded? The answer was simple: because nobody trusted me. No one was even familiar with me. It wasn’t enough to be charming. I had walked into a roomful of strangers (most of whom already knew one another and had done business together) with nothing to show that I was worthy of their trust. I was just another random guy making a cold pitch—the human equivalent of a pop-up ad.

  As I thought more about it, I realized that my despair was misplaced. Our industry wasn’t some barren, opportunityless waste-land; there were too many success stories for that to be the case.

  The truth was that the field was brimming with endless opportunity—but all of it was locked up behind a giant wall of distrust.

  I learned that these walls of distrust—or trust barriers—exist everywhere. No matter what field or niche or position level or company size, trust barriers exist. And they’re the biggest factors that prevent you from building relationships with the audiences you’re trying to reach.

  My whole founding team at Influence & Co. dealt with similar situations, too. Brent Beshore, the CEO of our holding company, adventur.es, faced barriers when he had to earn the trust of the new companies he was prepared to invest in. My cofounder, Kelsey Meyer, struggled to be taken seriously as a young entrepreneur. Although she was probably brighter than most people 15 years her senior, she was still fresh out of college.

  When I talked to a friend of mine about the struggles he faced as an experienced salesperson switching industries, he told me about his troubles building a solid client list. Even though he had experience and knew what he was doing, no one in this new industry knew that about him. They weren’t familiar with him at all.

  My brother had the same problem: He started a law practice and was trying to attract the right partners. No one was beating down his office door demanding to work with him. He had to build trust with his audience before he could get anywhere.

  All this is to say that my situation at this conference was not unique. Everyone deals with trust barriers, not just my fellow marketing, branding, and PR peers.

  After we’d come to this revelation and while we were still scrambling to survive the launch stage, we began contemplating a set of questions that were as complex as they were simple:

  What is trust?

  What does it mean to be trustworthy?

  Why do people trust each other?

  Understanding Trust

  My first lesson was to stop thinking about trust as if it were an inanimate object that either exists or does not.

  Trust is a living, breathing, emotional bond that connects people to one another. It’s intimate, personal, and powerful. In a world where it seems like everyone is out to pitch, scam, or screw you, it is also a rare and precious commodity.

  Trust manifests itself on a spectrum. The degree to which you trust someone determines how far out you’ll stick your neck for her. Therefore, to overcome barriers of distrust, it’s not enough just to be a trustworthy person—you have to be a person who creates trust.

  Think of it like a campfire. To be trustworthy is to have your kindling, wood, tinder, and matches all set up and ready to go. But in the immortal words of rock icon and park ranger Bruce Springsteen, you can’t start a fire without a spark.

  As you’ll see, there are no shortcuts to gaining someone’s trust. It takes time to create an emotional bond and energy to bring it to life. If you don’t make a long-term commitment to keeping the fire going, it will quickly burn out.

  Trust Plus Consistency Equals Opportunity

  The deeper I delved into my exploration of trust, the clearer its relationship to opportunity became.

  Think of the people you trust most in the world. (For me, they are my wife and mother: two people who consistently help, educate, challenge, and make me better in every way.)

  How long did it take you to picture their faces? One second? Maybe two? And when was the last time you thought of these people? I’m going to guess that it hasn’t been longer than a week or two. Now make a mental list of the things you’d absolutely never ever do for these people if they were to ask you for help. Pretty short list, isn’t it?

  When you trust someone completely, you place that person directly at the topmost point of your mind. And so long as you trust that person, he or she will stay there. You’ll do whatever you can for him or her, seeking out and creating opportunities to make life better for him or her.

  This can all be distilled into a simple formula, shown in Figure 2.1. In other words, if you can consistently generate and sustain trust, you can create your own opportunity.

  Figure 2.1 Formula for Creating Opportunity

  Now I’m not saying you can be everyone’s wife or mother. (That’s just weird.) What you can do is hit enough trust touch points that you earn a place at the top of people’s minds so you’re the first person they think of when it’s time to make a decision. Think of it as a trust equity meter: each touch point helps you get another share of trust equity, and you’ll become a larger holder of their trust.

  When someone is looking to hire an attorney or work with a designer for her company’s website or developing partnerships for his next opportunity, the person who’s built trust, hit enough touch points, and earned top-of-mind status will get the first call.

  On the personal side, it could be that a friend of yours has an extra ticket to the Grammys and is looking for someone to go with. You want your name to be the first one that comes to mind. (I saw this happen. I knew someone who had an extra ticket to the Grammys, and you know what? The person who got the first call was one who had recently helped this friend move some furniture into his house. See? This mindset can apply to more than strictly professional opportunities.)

  It may sound intuitive (it is), and it may sound like alchemy (it’s not). Either way, this formula was the culmination of my studies in trust, and it hit me like a divine revelation. Since making it the central pillar of our business philosophy, Influence & Co. has grown substantially: we’ve had a revenue growth of 5,000 percent, earned a place on the Forbes “Most Promising Companies in America” list, received recognition by the United Nations with an Empact Award for Best Marketing and Advertising Company, and recently ranked on the Inc. 500. More important than accolades, though, is that we’re surrounded by constant opportunities for growth.

  But it’s easy to talk about how wonderful and important trust is in business and in life. The real question is, How do you make it happen?

  Touch Points for Creating Trust

  Trying to force another human being to trust you is both manipulative and counterproductive. You can’t make someone feel an emotion; you can only create the conditions for that emotion to emerge organically.

  The following touch points are ways to create these conditions. Because we’re dealing with complex human emotions, don’t think of this as a rigid checklist that will guarantee a specific set of results. Instead, think of it as a fluid set of guidelines for carrying yourself in a way that invites people to trust you.

  What follows is an overview; we’ll delve deeper into each touch point later in the book.

  Authenticity

  You cannot trust what you don’t believe to be real. And yet so many of us contort ourselves into some premade mold of what we think we’re supposed to be. The introverted entrepreneur strains to be the life of the party, and the fun-loving CEO forces a constant scowl to come off as a person of seriousness.

  What is true in your personal life is just as true in your professional one: bullshit derails relationships. When you pretend, not only are you putting distance between yourself and your next opportunity, you’re making yourself miserable as well.

  When I was
younger, I used to think it was cool to call my friends and share (or exaggerate) my successes. I felt a pressure to impress others, and as I got older, I realized I was actually hurting my relationships with my closest friends. I was acting like someone I wasn’t, and they could see right through it.

  In 2014, Target CMO Jeff Jones published a post on LinkedIn titled “The Truth Hurts.”1 The post came as Target was trying to rebuild after the news of a massive data breach, compounded by the sudden resignation of its CEO in the fallout. Rather than trying to spin the terrible news, Jones was completely up front—not only about the impact of the crisis on the business but also about the emotional toll it was taking on the team and on himself.

  Jones’s authenticity inspired me. I began to write more openly about the self-doubt I experience about my writing skills (a nerve-racking prospect for the head of a content marketing company). These articles were exercises in authenticity.

  The response was tremendous (and unexpected). Needless to say, given what my company does, this created quite a few new opportunities for us. The connections this sort of authenticity helped forge have been as vital for our business as they have been for my personal growth.

  Take a minute to evaluate your own authenticity. You’re reading a book. Nobody’s judging you. Be honest with yourself here.

  Years ago, if I had spent time thinking about my own authenticity and asking myself if I was truly authentic, it would have been a brief exercise in self-awareness. The answer would have been “Absolutely not.” It’s not like I was actively trying to be inauthentic, but as I said, I used to feel a constant pressure to impress others. And that sort of motivation doesn’t lend itself very well to developing or practicing authenticity.

  Since then, I’ve continued to make a conscious effort to challenge myself to become better, and I’ve been fortunate enough to surround myself with people who aren’t afraid to call me out when I need it. When you’ve got good intentions and you’re trying to become the best version of yourself, authenticity extends naturally from those efforts.