8. Building “know, like and trust” without oversharing

Yes, building "know, like, and trust" matters in marketing... 

,,, but you don't need to be overly personal, pretend to be everyone's BFF, or spill your deepest secrets!

Listen to hear more about:

• How "know, like, and trust" is actually created in both consumer products and personal services
• When you actually need to build relationships, as opposed to having a product that sells itself
• The difference between authenticity and "performing intimacy"
• Why it's worth it to build relationships with people who care about YOU, beyond the transaction

Transcript

Hello friends, you are listening to Liberatory Business and I'm your host, Simone Seol. Thank you so, so much for listening.

Today let's tackle something that I think a lot of people get confused about, which is this idea of building "know, like, and trust." You've probably heard that in the marketing world, that you have to build know, like, and trust. Do I agree with that? Yes, I absolutely agree. You need these three elements for someone to buy from you.

But what it doesn't necessarily mean — which is the area where people get confused — is that this is not the same thing as being everyone's BFF or airing out all of your most vulnerable, intimate thoughts with your audience.

You know what I'm talking about—those posts where somebody's spilling their guts about their darkest moment or something they're going through personally that's really intense. And you're like, "Uh, this doesn't feel right to me." When you think that's what you need to do in order for people to pay attention to you and resonate with you, you are not actually building know, like, or trust. You are performing. It's a performance of authenticity and intimacy to try to get them to like you. That is entirely the wrong way of looking at it, and it won't create the outcomes that you're looking for.

So if it's not about spilling your guts to your audience all the time and being super personal and super personable, then what is it? What actually helps the right people come towards you in aligned ways?

I wanna break this down a little bit by starting from a different place. Imagine you are selling water in a desert. You're in the middle of the desert, selling water, and you're the only person who has it. No one else is selling it. You've got the monopoly on the water market.

If that's the case, you don't actually need the know, like, and trust at all. Nobody needs, nobody has to give a shit about you. They're like, "Oh my God, you have water? I want some!"

The thing is, most of us are not selling the only water in the desert. If you're listening to this, I'm assuming you're a creative entrepreneur. You are most likely not the only game in town for something that people direly need to survive. So then you need the know, like, and trust factor.

Think about your own buying habits for a moment. For example, I'm like most people—I'm a very average person. If I'm buying dish soap and I see a brand that I've seen my whole life and used many times, and it's on the shelf next to a brand I've never seen before, I'm buying the one I know.

There are exceptions, but by and large, this is how people behave statistically. This is exactly why massive companies like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble spend enormous amounts of money on ads just to familiarize our eyeballs with their logos. Because if we're buying a beverage or dish soap, we don't care about the CEO's life story or their emotional journey—unless it's an eco-conscious brand or they're trying to appeal to your values in some way, but those tend to be niche products, not mainstream consumer goods.

If you're Coca-Cola, all you need to do is stand out in a giant sea of consumer products. They do a good job of standing out, but they have to keep standing out so that when you see their stuff on the shelf, you think, "Oh yeah, I know that brand. I'm familiar with that brand. I like their brand. I have no reason to not have good feelings about this, and I trust them." When I buy a Coke, I know it's going to taste good and be what it says it is. It's not going to be arsenic. I'm going to get what was promised. That's know, like, and trust in its most basic form.

Here's where a lot of people in marketing get confused: know, like, and trust is not about being their BFF or sharing your most intimate, vulnerable secrets.

Think about this: Let's say you know someone on a relatively surface level. You're not having heart-to-hearts with them. Maybe you have a neighbor you borrowed sugar from once and they have a really cute dog. When you run into them, you say hi to them and the dog. They have good vibes, and you know them, you like them, and you trust them as a human being—and you've never had a deep conversation with them.

Or let's say there's a parent at your kid's school that you keep running into, but every time, they're brain-dumping their innermost vulnerable thoughts about their divorce to you. Every time you see them, you think, "This is a little TMI. Why are you telling me this?" You instinctively feel something is off, and you don't really trust or like them.

This brings us to the critical concept: know, like, and trust isn't necessarily about depth or performance of intimacy. It's about familiarity and congruence.

As long as you're not the water monopoly in the desert (where your thing sells itself), you need familiarity and congruence.

Familiarity is straightforward. It's like what I said about Coca-Cola spending billions to put their logo in front of our eyeballs all the time. You see something enough and you think, "Oh yeah, I know what that is. I feel safe with that." Our primitive brains instantly link familiarity with safety. The more you see something, the more you feel safe with it. This is a protective evolutionary impulse because in caveman days, it genuinely was dangerous if you suddenly saw something you'd never seen before.

Congruence is an energy that people feel instinctively, unconsciously. It's when your spidey senses can tell you that you can trust someone because what they're saying matches their body language, facial expression, and energy. You also feel congruent with somebody when you feel there are shared norms and values between you. There's a resonance that comes with that alignment.

But congruence is context-dependent. What's congruent for me to share with my husband is not the same as what's congruent for me to share with you, my podcast listener. You don't want to know what my favorite sexual activity is, and even if you did, I wouldn't tell you because that's not for you. That's for my husband.

What's congruent for me to share with a cashier at the grocery store is not the same as what's congruent for me to share with my mom. Depth does not equal congruence, and depth does not automatically create trust. Deep and intimate personal sharing can be entirely incongruent in the wrong context or if you're doing it for the wrong reasons.

If the answer isn't performing intimacy and vulnerability that's not real or context-appropriate, how do you build know, like, and trust in a competitive market?

Let's think about when you are marketing a deeply personal service like coaching, therapy, or healing consulting. Or if you're marketing a product that isn't essential for survival, like luxury candles, and you're in a market where there aren't already hordes of people clamoring to buy your thing. Then you have to work harder to build know, like, and trust.

You have to cut through the noise, make an impression in all that noise, and get the right people to resonate deeply and emotionally enough with you to go from "I don't know who you are" to "I'm handing over money because I'm convinced the value I'll receive is greater than what I'm paying."

I mentioned luxury candle because that's a really good example. I love luxury candles and pay attention to their marketing. Luxury candle companies work hard to create brand familiarity and consistently evoke powerful emotions in their audience so people want to be associated with their brand. Without those powerful emotions, including desires (which are inherently emotional), nobody's buying a Diptyque candle for $80. For $80, you're not buying a hunk of scented wax — you're buying a story, an experience, an aspiration, or even an identity that resonates with you.

Let me repeat: All buying is emotional, even toilet paper. If there's only one brand of toilet paper available, then it's not emotional—it's just "I need to wipe my butt." But if there's more than one brand, which one will you choose? It's emotion that gets you choosing one brand over another. The question is: What emotions are you evoking, and are they appropriate to the relationship you have with your customers?

If you're still hesitant, thinking "Why can't I just tell people what I have, and if they want it, they buy it?" I understand. Many people feel that way. But let me make a different case.

There are two types of buyers: transactional buyers and relational buyers.

If you're selling a deeply personal service like coaching or healing, or if you're selling something that's not necessary for survival like luxury candles, you don't want transactional buyers. You want as many relational buyers as possible because transactional buyers are extremely expensive in the long run.

Transactional buyers don't care about you or your life story—they just want to get what they want and leave. They're not emotionally invested in you as a human being or as a brand.

Relational buyers form a genuine relationship with you that gets nurtured over time. They are emotionally invested in you as a human being and business. There's a real relationship there.

There's nothing wrong with transactional buyers in certain markets. But for a personal service or non-essential goods, acquiring transactional buyers is an extremely expensive strategy over the long term because they're typically price-sensitive, which means they're just looking for the best deal. If someone else offers what you're offering but at a cheaper price, they'll go to the other person. They require continuous acquisition spending—meaning you constantly have to spend money to acquire new customers because transactional buyers have no reason to be loyal. You keep having to spend more time, money, and energy to get new buyers because nobody stays. Because they have no emotional investment or loyalty, they don't generate word-of-mouth referrals or contribute to organic marketing where people say, "I'm so excited about what that business is doing! Let me tell my friends about it!" They'll leave so quickly if you were to ever evolve or pivot your offerings because they have no loyalty 'cause they have no investment in who you are. So you have to stay the exact same thing that you are if you don't want everyone leaving and you have to start from scratch. They are gonna be less forgiving of any mistakes or hiccups. If you're selling to people who really trust you and like you and you made a mistake, they're like, "Oh, no biggie, uh, you're human. It happens. I understand." Whereas if they don't give a shit about you and you say, delivered something faulty or made a mistake, they're gonna be like, "What the fuck? This is not what I paid for."

This is why authenticity matters. This is why storytelling matters. This is why being a genuine human being, being present, and showing up to connect with other human beings on a human level matters. It's not about faking intimacy. It's not about performing vulnerability. It's about showing people who you really are, what you stand for, what you care about, and what your work is about. You get to create and nurture these relationships based on your own sovereignty and inner creative direction.

I just wanna leave you with one final image that you can keep in your mind for actually how simple it gets to be.

Imagine you go to a farmer's market, right? Well actually a farmer's market seems like a pretty like affluent white people thing, but so like, I think a different example, so I live in Korea. We don't have affluent white people, but we have our traditional open air markets where people sell, like, produce, like fruits and meats and you know, like various household goods. Uh, we still have those. Luckily I love traditional markets. Um, let me not go down that rabbit hole, but so imagine that you have a market like that and imagine you walk in one day and walk past a certain stall. Imagine you walk in one day and pass a certain stall. You notice what they're selling, and you really like the colors of the stall. You notice the seller behind the stall, and it catches your eye.

Maybe they make handmade soaps that are packaged in a way that matches your aesthetic, and you think, "Ooh, that's pretty." You look over from a distance and think, "Ooh, there are a lot of scents. I like scented soaps that are handmade."

Then you shop for apples or whatever to make apple pie, and a couple of weeks later, you come back and see that stall again. You might pause a little longer this time to browse. You might even have a short conversation with the seller and get the sense that they're really passionate about their handmade soaps, and a lot of thought and principle goes into how they make their products and bring them to market. You think, "Hey, I like this person. They're cool."

Then you say goodbye. You don't buy anything. You just walk past and go get cabbage or whatever from the market. The next two times you come to the market, you're not buying anything, but you notice the soap stall every time. "Oh look, that cool soap shop and that cool soap person." You walk past, you come back, you walk past, you don't buy anything.

But the next time you go, you need a birthday gift for your friend, and you think, "Oh wait, I think they'd love these handmade scented soaps. This would be a perfect birthday present," and then you finally go to the stall and buy a few.

This is a simple example of how know, like, and trust is built over time in a way that results in a sale. You are visible where potential customers are walking by, and you attract people who are genuinely attracted to what you have. If they're not into handmade soaps or pretty scents, they're not your person. But you connect with the right people and create resonance through little interactions here and there. It grows incrementally.

You're not forcing a sale. You're not trying to control the timeline. But they come back on their own when the timing and conditions are right, and know, like, and trust is already established.

It really can be this simple. I challenge you to observe this in your life constantly. Look for where you are in the process of building know, like, and trust with a business. If you've already bought something, whether it's soap or coaching or whatever, reflect back on how the know, like, and trust was established with you over time.

Trust comes from doing good work, being visible to the right-fit people who want to find you, and doing that consistently without attachment to the timeline. It can be a lot simpler than you thought.

Okay, my friends, I hope that was helpful. What? Why can I talk? I hope that was helpful and I'll talk to you next time. Thank you again so, so much for listening.