Authentic Communication: The Key to Trust & Connection

In this engaging episode of How to Talk to Humans, communications expert Larry Wilson explores the power of authenticity and why being genuine is essential for meaningful connection.

Through real-world insights and practical examples, Larry explains how authentic communication builds trust, strengthens relationships, and improves the way we interact both personally and professionally. He highlights the difference between simply “saying the right thing” and truly connecting with others by being real, honest, and present.

This episode dives into how authenticity impacts leadership, conversations, and everyday interactions—showing that people respond more to sincerity than perfection.

If you’re interested in communication skills, leadership, personal development, and building stronger relationships, this episode offers valuable takeaways you can apply immediately.

Hosted by Larry Wilson
Produced by: Verbal Ninja Productions
Producer: R. Scott Edwards
Sponsored by: The Wilson Method

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Transcript

Larry Wilson 0:00

Hi, this is Larry Wilson, and this is How to Talk to Humans. This is the podcast that shows you how to improve your communication skills. Are you looking to get a better job? Are you looking to find a relationship? Are you trying to do things in your life that have frustrated you and eluded you so far? I can show you so easily how to change that. Now, I can only do it with humans. If you're looking to deal with vampires or zombies extraterrestrials, this is not the joke. But if you're really looking to improve your communication skills, I can show you what I've learned for 40 years in the show business working with the biggest celebrities and superstars in the world. And their secrets are unbelievable. What I'm going to be teaching you during the course of this podcast every week are tools that you can use to communicate toward success. Hi, thanks for joining me again for another episode of How to Talk to Humans. I wanted to talk today about the power of authenticity. I was going to frame it in even larger terms of the real world versus the digital world. That may be too big to start with, so let me try to focus in a little bit. Many of you know I frequently have spoken about the power of authenticity, have heard me talk about the three C's, that is, to connect, convey, and create. And that third C is to create authentic bonds with people. I'm not just asking you to connect with them. I want them to feel something genuine when you do. And when you do, you will find that those bonds, when they're authentic, last a lifetime. I've regaled you with tales here, so many stories of events that have happened all throughout my life with people that really created a powerful, authentic bond. I remember them to this day. I'm sharing them with you. But I know that if you think about your own personal experiences, you know there's things that have happened to you with people and communication, and maybe maybe could be fleeting. It might not be a big involved relationship with someone. It might be something fleeting. I just popped in my mind. An example yesterday in Costco, I thought, oh, I'll get a soft drink here as I'm going through. And the young guy behind the counter said, It's on the house. And I said, Really? Why is it on the house? He said, Well, he said, you know, if you buy the hot dog and drink, uh, you get a drink with your hot dog, but sometimes people don't want to drink. He said, so I just set those cups aside and I give them out randomly to people. And not only did I find that so charming, but also it had such a great feeling of generosity and benevolence. His name was Ryan. I can tell you, check back with me a year from now, I'll still remember this kid's name, Ryan, saying, your soft drink is on the house. Uh, you know, so it doesn't have to be a gigantic, huge event in your life for it to create an authentic bond with you. With this in mind, I know that many of you listening to this podcast, watching this podcast, or involved in business, whether it's a side hustle, whether you're an entrepreneur, you're just a one-person operation, or maybe a very small operation, two or three people, something, something you've created. This is something foundational that could change the outcome of your business. And it's very simple. Very simple. I don't think that's I think we are inclined to lean towards things that make sense to us or appeal to us, or have something about it that we are attracted to. I think that may be all it is. But in this current world we find ourselves in, there's a lot of digital business that goes on that is devoid of any human qualities. I don't mean, again, I want to make this clear, I don't mean they're purposely trying to be devoid of those qualities. I just mean that the way the internet works, some of the marketing, some of the sales techniques, the people who are implementing them do not give a moment's consideration to anything human. They're looking at numbers. That's it. That's all it is. Just numbers. And they may be thinking, well, you know, if I can reach 1.6 million people, then I can get a click-through rate of half of 1%. And of that half of 1%, I can get a conversion rate of 1.5%. That's all they're looking at. Now, I I must confess I have a bias because that's so different than my life experience that it's a little hard for me to wrap my head around that. Uh I realize it's effective. I've seen people build multi-million dollar, billion-dollar companies. I have a good friend who built a multi-million-dollar company. We using that exact mindset, that it was just about the numbers. We're going to do this, we're going to try and hit this, we're going to try and market this. We don't care if we offend people, we don't care if we alienate people, we don't care if we confuse people. Doesn't matter. Now, uh hopefully you're you're not doing something that's evil. I'm hoping you're not doing something that's aimed at hurting people or making their lives worse. I'm hoping that you're involved in a business that means something to you and that you have a product or a service that brings real value to people. It doesn't have to be everyone. It doesn't mean it has to be the universal panacea for the world. It just means that, you know, somebody, maybe it's people who love gladiolas. Maybe you have some way to raise them indoors, or I don't know. But I would caution you about a very simple mistake you can sidestep in your digital marketing. And of course, it speaks to authenticity. Do not say, write, suggest anything that is not true. Now I know there's people out there who immediately say, what about when they say new luxe dish soap is, you know, twice as much cleaning power and they know it's not really twice as much. Well, I don't know anything about that. I don't care what other people do. I know that people make all kinds of promises. They offer opportunities or bargains or special deals that they have no intention of honoring. I'm talking about you and how you can be more effective, be more successful. The sobriquette of this show is communicating towards success. It's not just a log line, it's a real mindset communicating toward success. Perhaps if I give a more concrete example. Like all of you, my email is clogged all the time with offers and bizarre come-ons and all kinds of things. And I've gotten to the point where I can scan them pretty quickly. I can sometimes just tell by a misspelling. If someone purports to be from Amazon, but there's a misspelling in the log line, I know it's not really from Amazon. Amazon's not going to send that out with a typo in it. So it's some kind of fake thing coming from someone. So I'm delete, delete, delete, delete. Um, I saw something recently when I was deleting something about with my email address. Didn't actually have my name, just had my email address, and it said something about your data account is going to be deleted or something. And so the first time I didn't open anything. I never opened anything like that, but I looked at what it was, and it was about something to do with storing data, and I thought, this has nothing to do with me. This is some kind of phishing attempt to get me to click on this, just deleted it. Well, subsequently, I've seen it come up several times. I immediately delete, immediately delete. This morning, there were four different emails from the same address, and they came about two hours apart, each one. And they said, Warning, this is your last chance to do something with my data account that I whatever it was. And I thought, wow, this is so self-defeating. I mean, I'm not rooting for the scam artists, I'm not on their side, but I can't help but look at stuff through the lens of communication. I'm looking at what works, what doesn't work. If I see scammers doing something that works and it's just technical, I'll think, oh, that's really good. Now, if it's unethical or illegal or something, I don't want any part of that. But I thought, maybe it's someone who doesn't speak English as their first language. I don't know. But if you send me multiple emails that say this is your last chance, well the evidence clearly states it is not my last chance. Ergo, this must all be fictitious. I never want anyone to think that about you. If you say, for example, if you're offering something and you're offering a special sale, it could be for any reason. Maybe it's a product that you have a lot of back stock on that you have more than you want to have, or maybe it's a a service that you have, and you have certain people who work for you and you want to get them working, just to have them working right at this, it could be anything. There's nothing wrong with saying, oh, I have a special opportunity for you, or I have a special deal, or a special offer, um, I have a gift for you, whatever it may be that you're offering. But if you say anything in that offering that is demonstrably untrue, you've violated that covenant that was implied with the person who received your message. And once you violate that covenant, they're done with you. I mean, maybe, maybe there's some marketer out there who's so brilliant, you can insult and offend and alienate customers, and they'll still buy from you. Whoever that is, I salute you. What powerful marketing that must be. I can't picture it. I've never seen it. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I've never seen that. You can think of very obvious examples of the opposite, where somebody makes some promise and then fulfills it. And you remember that. You go, wow, it's really I mean uh on this podcast, you may frequently hear me talk about Costco. You can return anything that you purchased at Costco and get a full refund. Now, with dish show, with uh tomatoes, with garden tools, whatever it is, they will take it and refund your money. And they don't ask, I mean, they may ask you uh conversationally, but they do not insist on you justifying your desire to return anything. This policy of theirs, which I have never seen them fail to honor, never seen them. Now, that authenticity, that they've promised something and they honor it. If any communication from you is demonstrably false, it's a disaster, as far as I'm concerned, in your communication. People they may not understand it consciously. Someone getting repeated notices from you that this is their very last chance to take advantage of your sale that you're having on something. Well, how many times do you think can be their very last chance? There should only be one very last chance. And once they fail to do that, you must exclude them from the opportunity to purchase things. Now it doesn't mean they can't receive something else, doesn't mean you can't have another thing, doesn't mean you couldn't come up with an idea for people who wanted to take advantage of the sale but were too busy and weren't able to. This is a special second chance. Well, I'm making it up, I don't know. I'm not a marketer, but you can't say stuff that they can see is false. Because that's where your strength lies in saying things that are clearly true. That's what builds a powerful, a powerful, authentic connection. And I say this only because I know how some of you feel. You've got bills to pay, you've got mortgages, you've got kids who need orthodontra, you've all these things. We all need to make money. And you may be thinking, I need to make it now. I need to make well, I understand that. But following the tenants of Wilson method, I can't guarantee that you'll make money right this second. But I promise you, from my own personal life experience, those authentic connections, they last a lifetime, and they will come back at some point. It may not be today, may not be next month, might not even be next year. But I know from my own personal experience, I've had people come back a year later, two years later. Now somebody's saying, that's too long a sales cycle. Well, I guess it is. But I consider any sale better than no sale. And like I said, I'm not a marketing person, so maybe your marketing people can figure out a way to harness this and use it. But I do know that I'm constantly surprised when someone will come back six months or a year later and say, you know, I really appreciated the way uh you presented such and such to me. I wondered, is that still something I could take advantage of? And of course I'm happy to say, if it is, say, sure, let's do it by all means. Uh it's happened more than once in my two-day boot camp. More than once I've had people who said, Well, uh, I can't really afford to do it right now. And I'm always quick to point out, I say, you know, well, I have a payment program. If that's what you like, it's no problem. But if that's still not convenient for you, uh let me know whenever you'd like to do it. And I've had people come back to me a couple years afterwards and say, I'm in a better position right now, and I'm doing stuff with my own company, and I realize how crucial good communication is. We have a great product, but I can see how if we communicated better, and if I communicated better with the people in my company, we'd be more successful. We'd make more money. And so I guarantee you, authentic communication yields authentic connections, and those will last you a lifetime. Thanks for joining me again. I look forward to seeing you next week on how to talk to humans. This has been Larry Wilson. I want to thank you for spending this time with me, and I hope you found this information useful. If you're looking for more, you can find it at thewilsonmethod.com. There's a ton of stuff there. If you want, you can even speak to me because I'm human. Send me an email at info at WilsonMethod.com because I read every single one. I hope that you'll join us next week in this continuing journey. And you'll be with me for the next episode of How to Talk to Human.