Your Marketing Minute Trust Ladder: Don’t Quit Before You Hit Gold

In the journey of building a successful service-based business, this thought holds true regardless of where you are in your business: consistency is key. Whether you're a seasoned freelancer or just starting out, maintaining momentum with intentional marketing efforts is essential for attracting valuable clients. Enter the concept of the Marketing Minute Trust Ladder, a fundamental tool that helps to guide your efforts and keep you persistent through the highs and lows of business growth.

Topics Covered In This Episode:

1. Consistency and momentum are key to achieving results in marketing efforts.
2. Different levels of the trust ladder determine the number of touchpoints required for landing clients.
3. Cold calling and cold emailing are at the lowest trust level, requiring larger numbers for potential results.
4. Cold messaging on social media provides slightly more trust, with the need for fewer contacts than cold calling/emails.
5. Responding to job opportunities in Facebook Groups has a higher trust level due to community connections.
6. Live events and networking offer face-to-face interaction, building significant trust and client acquisition potential.
7. Referrals and upgrading current clients represent the highest trust level, leading to the easiest sales.
8. Identifying your most effective marketing methods and sticking to the trust ladder can guide you on the amount of time needed for outreach.

Find the full show notes at:  https://brandimowles.com/244

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Additional Resources:

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Are you looking to find, pitch, and land high-paying clients? CLICK HERE for Booked & Banked, my step-by-step process to stand out in your marketing and find your next consistent client.

Check out some of our previous episodes to get started on landing consistent clients below!

The 4 Marketing Mistakes That Are Costing You Clients and Cash - LISTEN HERE

Fast-Track Your Clients: How To Get Quick Decisions Without High Pressure - LISTEN HERE

Standing Out in a Crowded Market: 5 Pitching Strategies to Land Your Dream Clients - LISTEN HERE

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Transcript

244: Your Marketing Minute Trust Ladder: Don’t Quit Before You Hit Gold

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Brandi: [00:00:00] Today I'm taking you behind the scenes to chat about something that I've only ever chatted about in strategist society. And that is your marketing minute trust ladder. And I'm going to break down why so many people stop too soon and how the trust ladder can really help you keep going with your marketing minutes even when you don't feel like they're working.

So if you've been putting in the time The effort, but you're not seeing results. Let's listen to this episode, dive into the trust ladder, identify where you're falling on that trust ladder and what that means in terms of how much marketing you actually need to do. So let's jump on into this week's episode.

Welcome, welcome back my friends to another episode of the serve scale soar podcast. My name is Brandi Mowles. I am your host and we are going [00:01:00] to do the dang thing. And if you are a first time listener, welcome back to the show. This is where I help you start, grow and scale your own ad management business, AKA running ads.

for other businesses. Or if you're a service provider, you're thinking about freelancing, this is also the perfect place for you. 90 percent of everything I talk about on here is applicable for all freelancing virtual assistant, one on one service based providers. So welcome my friend, you're in the right place.

And if you are a returning listener, I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for showing up each and every single week. We've been doing the podcast now for Five years, over 200 and some episodes, and I'm all about providing value and no fluff. And we're going to do the exact same thing today as we break down the Marketing Minute Trust Ladder.

And the Trust Ladder is so important, and I don't know why I haven't talked about it even in conversions for [00:02:00] clients, but it is something that I've talked about. In strategist society, because in strategist society, when I'm working with my clients one on one through Voxer and coaching, I really get to know their business and I really get to know the ins and outs of what they're doing and one thing I noticed is.

So many of us get to the point with our marketing where we stop right when we're about to hit the gold. And if you've ever read the book three feet from gold or seen that image of the miner who's like mining and digging and digging and he gives up right before he strikes gold. It's that whole concept of sometimes we're so close to our wins and our success, but we stop right before we get there.

And that's usually what I see with marketing minutes is that we get. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in a minute, but for now, I'm going to talk a little bit [00:03:00] more about how you can get started with marketing and how you can And I'm going to talk a little bit more about how you can get started with marketing and What do you already have established?

So if you already have a freelance business and you're pivoting into ad management, you could probably get a client quicker, like within the 30 day time range quicker than someone who's starting from scratch. Of course, whenever we're starting from scratch, it's going to take a little bit more time. You have more assets to build out.

And so those people are closer to 60 days and then people come to me. In 60 days and be like I haven't got a client yet. I'm like great Tell me what you've been doing for your marketing minutes And then when they tell me I'm like mom I know exactly why you haven't played the numbers. You haven't been consistent You're not following the trust ladder so when we know what the Trust Ladder is we can 1 keep going even when it feels like it's not working [00:04:00] because we can play the numbers and Two we know exactly how much it's gonna take to get a client But the big thing, no matter what, is you have to be consistent.

If you're not consistent with your marketing, you just won't find clients. Like it is just part of sales. Even with someone who runs ads, who runs courses, programs, you have to be consistent. I consistently have to be running. ads if I want to fill my pipeline for my business. If I want one on one clients, I'm constantly doing stuff to put myself in rooms with those people that can afford 10, 000 a month packages.

We have to think about our consistency as the number one thing, and then we follow the trust ladder. So I'm going to break down each rung of the trust ladder for you. And you can identify where you are in your marketing with The lower you are, the more connection points, the more marketing minutes you're [00:05:00] going to need.

The higher up the trust ladder, the less time it takes, but the intent is so much bigger. So at the very bottom of the trust ladder, this is where cold calling and cold emails come in. This is the lowest level of trust. How many of you see, look at your phone, you see a like number that you don't know and you just send it to voicemail?

Me, I do this every single night. I feel like I get calls and I'm like, Nope, don't know you. And I hang up. Now, sometimes if it's the same area code that I'm living in, I'll pick it up because I'm like, Oh, that's a local call. But for the most part, I'm not picking up calls that I don't know. Now, if you have a business like plumbers, construction, real estate agents, those, they're going to be more likely to pick up the phone, but the trust still isn't as high as it would be if they met you in person.

So cold email is probably lowest level of trust. Lowest level of trust right there. So when we think about that, it's not saying that that's a bad [00:06:00] method. We have people in conversions for clients who are absolutely crushing it with cold calling and cold email. It is not something that I've ever wanted to do in this business because I spent eight years doing cold email and cold calling.

And it's just not how I wanted to run this business, but I know how to get results in that area. And I know the numbers that it takes. So, but it doesn't mean it's wrong, especially if you're working nine to five and things like that. Sometimes it's a really good method. Also, if you're working with certain industries, it's a really good method.

So, but the thing is, we have to talk about, we have zero trust with these people. They don't know us. We're just another cold robocall spammer to them, cold emailer. We're a stranger interrupting someone's day. Now, that interruption could be a good thing, it could be a bad thing, we don't know, but at the end of the day, we're interrupting someone's day, if it's in their inbox or in their phone.

So, when we think about that, we have to work the numbers. You should expect, with a hundred people, if [00:07:00] you were to cold call or cold email, a hundred people to possibly get one message. Sales call one discovery call booked. So let's play in the numbers and then with those hundreds You're probably gonna need to follow up with them three times to get a response on average So with cold calling cold emailing follow up is the name of the game like you have to be willing to follow up You're gonna need about a hundred contacts to get one to two sales calls and you're gonna need to finesse it and we're gonna need about a 30 percent open rate on those emails and you probably I don't know the exact stat of what you need for someone to answer, but either way, it's a follow up game.

We need three more emails, maybe five follow up emails and three follow up calls. So with knowing that it's just a numbers game. You play the number. Okay. For every hundred calls or a hundred leads I have, I should expect one discovery call. Great. If you need three discovery calls this month, you need 300 [00:08:00] leads.

And so with that, we'll also link up an Episode that we did with Ashley Monk who does a lot of cold calling in her business with her boutique agency And so we'll make sure to link that episode up in the show notes for you Now that's the lowest level of trust. We got to play the numbers Most people come to me and they're like brandy.

My emails aren't working. I'm like, how many did you send out? They're like 20. I say, okay great come back to me when we're at 100 You have to play the numbers three feet from gold. Don't stop at 90 Okay. So then number two is cold messaging on social media. So maybe this is Instagram DMs, LinkedIn, Facebook, but we're doing cold outreach on social media platform.

We go up one rung a little bit more because people can at least see mutual connections. They can see your profile. And so there is a higher level of trust when they can see that than just straight cold calling or cold email where there's no way that they can see who you are. There's no social proof.

There's none of [00:09:00] that. So, with cold messaging and social media, we want to at least connect with people who maybe have some mutual followers. Maybe we have some similarities. Maybe we're in the same industry. On LinkedIn we have mutual connections. And in that, You're going to need, you have a slightly advantage, more of an advantage as long as your profiles are optimized.

But we got to make sure we're not sending scammy stuff like hey girl messages or any of the stuff that's so broad in general. There's an art to DMing and we teach this inside of conversions for clients. But you really, really, really have to be careful with the messages you're sending. But also there is a higher level of trust.

So maybe you don't need 100, maybe you need 75 DMs instead of 100 to get one call. And then it's all about the follow up once again. Sales is follow up. Like you don't get sales without follow up. And if you are getting sales without follow up, there will come [00:10:00] a time where that stops. All sales come with follow up.

Chances are you don't go purchase a 1, 500 Item. The first time you see it, there's usually some research that happens and things like that. It's the same thing with working with us. The minimum a new ad manager should be charging is 1500, and then it's usually a three month contract, . So then we're getting into, actually it's a $4,500.

investment that someone's making. How many of you go out without doing any research, nothing? You're just walking the Costco aisles and you're like, hmm, that's 4, 500. That's what I want. No, probably not. It's the same thing as us with service. We have to have multiple touch points and we have to show them that we can really help and serve them.

Okay. So and we have to build trust. Trust is massive. So lowest rung, cold calling, cold emails. Second We're getting a little bit more [00:11:00] trust, cold messaging on social media. So we need more than a hundred less than a hundred, but we still need to play the numbers and follow up still the name of the game.

The third one is responding to Facebook group job ops. Some people are like, Facebook groups are dead. I am going to challenge you on that all day long because every group I'm in, I see I'm looking for an ad manager. I'm looking for an ad manager. I'm looking for an ad manager. And so people need you.

And I also predict that in 2025, there's going to be a resurgence of Facebook groups being really popular because some of the new policies, I do think some people are going to move away from the platform. I think they'll be back. It's just, No matter how much you hate Facebook, like, you'll be back. And I think it's a great place for people to connect and in the online course space.

I've seen a lot of people leaving school to come back onto Facebook because they're saying it's really hard to move people off of a platform. That's pretty much like a utility at this point. Like, we don't live without [00:12:00] electricity. People don't live without Facebook. It just is what it is. And there's a Facebook group for everything.

We're traveling a lot this year. I'm in Costa Rican travel Facebook groups. I mean, I'm in local community Facebook groups where I see job ops all the time. I'm in course creator paid and free communities like Facebook groups. I do think are going to be back on a rise this year. And I think that there's going to be a lot more people posting because they're not afraid of getting things shut down.

So with that being said Facebook groups are not dead. They're a great place for job ops. And so when we're part of that community and we can build trust, we can show value and people are actually asking for job ops, then there's this higher level. They already know that they need an ad manager.

They can see your profiles optimized. They can see if you've provided any value in the group. They're searchable. So it goes to a higher level of trust. Now, how do we stand out? We can post [00:13:00] videos of ourselves responding to the job ops. That's one of the things that we teach inside of conversions for clients.

We can also provide value each week in the group. So when they see our name pop up, we're a familiar face. So there's a higher level of trust. So maybe you only need to respond to 10 job ops, five job ops to get a client. Maybe it's 20. You'll have to figure out your number, but how can we provide value?

And you'll have to go through, we teach this in conversions for clients, different methods of organizing Facebook groups, because you'll find some that are complete duds and then some that are gold mines. And so you just need to be able to tap into that and track it once again. You and I think it'll be so much easier and more accurate to include a current events number at all and then put that three feet from gold, don't stop before you know your numbers.

And then track those numbers. Okay. So number four is live events and networking. This can be face to face or it could be in communities that literally do like those coffee chats, [00:14:00] round table discussions. I'm always gonna prefer live events like in person over jumping on a bunch of coffee chats. It's just not my thing I know some people have success in it But I truly believe that people who are gonna hire you for their services Aren't always gonna be, have enough time to jump on a bunch of calls.

And now I could be totally wrong. I know some, I was just listening to a podcast the other day and she said that She hired this person and they met through a coffee chat. So it does happen I'm not saying it doesn't but I do think that there's power in live networking whether that's masterminding whether that's events whether that's just local business meetups.

Things like that that human connection face to face is one of the highest levels of trust. There's only one that's actually higher than that but people getting to know you they you can provide value you can do like pop up trainings for [00:15:00] people like when you provide value So I'm going to walk through some of the stuff that I do.

So first of all, people want to give you money. That's why we teach the risk reversal method. Because when you provide people, people value, they want to give you money. They can see that you're an expert. And there's something so amazing about, about live events. Every time I go to a live event, I get a one on one client.

This live event that I went to this last time, ended up giving me over 20, 000 in one on one contracts. And these are one off projects. And so, There's so much power in that when you share the value that you have and you can see, someone can see that you're a real person. People are craving real people more now than ever.

A lot of people have been burned by agencies because they seal the deal and then they pass them off to someone in another country that doesn't speak English. And that's not that person's fault in the other country. The thing is with ads you have to be able to To write copy [00:16:00] and the copy should be effective and then you want to have people in your time zone, but also like I'm not judging anyone that hires anyone from a different country.

I'm just saying this is the biggest pain points that people I hear is like they hired an agency and then they just get shafted to a junior ad manager that doesn't know what they're doing. So, people want to know that they're working with the people that they see, and one of the easiest ways to do that is in person.

I love in person events, live events, networking, face to face, and like I said, it doesn't have to be local to you, it can be like a networking event online. I prefer in person, but like you got to do what you got to do. If you're a busy mom, you may not be able to get out there. And so live events and networking, especially if you have higher ticket programs, like in conversions for, or I'm sorry, in strategist society, we teach the three strategist packages that everyone should have.

And one of those is a consulting package. That's a high ticket package. The easiest [00:17:00] way to sell those packages is by in networking and referrals, which brings us to the next rung. The highest rung. And referrals and upgrading current clients to a bigger package. And so with referrals, this is where know, like, and trust is already built in.

So when someone refers you, there's a really high level of trust that you can't get from anywhere else. It's I trust this person. They gave me their word. Now they buy it. I. I joke all the time that I should be an influencer because I can sell people on anything Like a friend came over and I was like, oh my gosh This back massager is so amazing.

It was on oprah's best selling list. We've been using it. It got all the knots out She was like send me the link And she purchased two other friends. I was like, yeah, we use butcher box. It's really saved me time on the weekends. I don't have to worry about it. It saved us money as a family. I know that all my [00:18:00] stuff is hormone free, organic, like grass bed and.

And both of them are like semi year length. So the thing is we're doing selling every single day, but the referral, these people have seen ButcherBox ads all the time and they've never purchased it. That's like the cold calls, cold emails. Ads are the cold calls and cold emails. There's no level of trust built there.

But they hear me say, Oh my gosh, I love this. This is how it's changed my life. Then they go and purchase it. So the referral is the highest trust level. Upgrading current clients, it's the highest trust level. So maybe this is why in strategist society, we teach the strategist. trifecta where we say like done with you.

Packages are really great because you build a level of trust and then you upgrade them into retainer. And so that's the same thing. Referrals and upgrades highest level of trust, they already have the trust that passes on to [00:19:00] you just because their word or you've already gotten them results. So I'm going to go ahead and click on that and I'm going to go ahead and click on the truss level.

We know that referrals are going to bring in probably the easiest sales, but they're going to be the shortest to come by, and we don't have a ton of control over those referrals. Yes, we can ask for referrals, but at the end of the day, they come to us, but there's nothing, it's not really in our control.

Live events, you're going to need fewer of those. Maybe you attend a live event each week, once a month, and you could hit your client goal just based on that. If you're good at networking and following up. Following up is always the name of the game. Then we have responding to Facebook groups. Maybe you only need to respond to 20 to get [00:20:00] that.

But those aren't going to pop up as much. Like you're not going to see 20 a day in a Facebook group. Maybe, but probably not. Then cold messaging. You are in direct control of how many of those messages you send a day. But you are going to have to send more. Same thing with cold emails and cold calling at the bottom of the rung.

We need more, but it's in our control. So with each of these trust ladder, as we move up, the less we're in control of them, but the, the lower amount we need to hit our goals at the bottom of the trust ladder, we're more in control of our actions, but we need more of them. So when you go into your marketing, I really want you to think like, Where, like, what do I want to do?

How many people do I need to reach out to based on this? How many people need to, what do I need my schedule to look like? And so when we think about that, we can really play the numbers. So let's say cold calling, we need a [00:21:00] hundred people to book one sales call. Cold social messaging, maybe we need 50.

Then we need about 20 responses in the Facebook groups and then a live networking event. We need 10 good conversations and then referrals, one out of three, we'll book a call. So you see how like the numbers shrink as we go up, but we have more control at the bottom. So whatever method you decide, put that on the trust ladder.

And then you'll know exactly how many people you need to be reaching out to. Now, let's say you get to a hundred emails and no, like you haven't had any responses. Now let's refine that. Let's say, okay, is it your open rate? Is it the message? Can we change that? Do we need to send some followups? Like, what does that look like?

We don't quit just because we haven't hit these numbers. We need to find out what is the numbers. for us. And it takes tweaking and pivoting and consistency. Consistency is the name of the game. [00:22:00] So I hope this helps you keep going. Don't quit before you strike gold because too many people are one, not consistent in their marketing minutes and two, they quit right before they strike the gold.

So, I'm cheering you on as you go land clients. I'm a big fan of people getting clients. It's one of my superpowers is helping people land their first and next and many clients. But we have to take all of this into consideration when it comes to our marketing minutes. And if I have any piece of advice, it's just be consistent.

So we have tons of resources for finding clients. This podcast we have booked and banked, we have some live trainings, and so we'll link up those for you in the show notes so you have access to everything you need to go out and land some clients, make your money, hit your goals. So go out, serve your clients, scale your business, and soar into the success you [00:23:00] deserve.