LIVE from Abbey Road Studios: Building Trust in an AI World

[00:00:16] Hi everybody, I am one of your hosts Scott coming to you today from Abbey Road Studios. And I'm Andy in London here with Scott at Abbey Road Studios. This is, believe it or not, the Tea and Timbits podcast Global Perspectives on Business Development to Help You Prosper. And this is another on location moment that we get to share together. It's always fun when we get to do this in person.

[00:00:42] There's a little bit more energy here today for a conference and a bit of a conversation for the day about digital experiences. And we thought, well, why not hit record and lay down an episode while we're at Abbey Road. Absolutely. We have been spending this month talking about building trust and what that is all about. And there's going to be some people coming in and out and around us. And that's all part of the vibe here.

[00:01:10] We talked about case studies last time. And this time we wanted to get a little bit more into how messaging and testimonials can can help with that endeavor as well. So before we do that, let's stick with our usual pattern. Andy, hopefully I've given you enough time to sort of reflect on on your business journey for the last week or so. Got a story to share with everybody today?

[00:01:34] Well, I have as we were preparing for this event here at Abbey Road Studios. One of the things we had to do was, of course, try and identify potential people who would be interested in such an event. Oh, good one. And so putting together the list and going through my connections and people who I know and stuff, really having a think about who would be interested in it, but also who would get value after coming along to the event.

[00:02:01] And it made me think as well, you know, how important it is to maintain relationships with your your connections. Absolutely. And I will say that reaching out to a lot of these people who some of them, of course, quite neglected as relations, you know, on LinkedIn and stuff. It was very refreshing as well to start a new conversation and understand how people's own journeys have gone. And and it was just a reminder to me really to stay in touch with a lot of people. Keep up those communications. Absolutely.

[00:02:30] It really tied in quite a lot with today's episode as well about that messaging and, you know, the building that building trust. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think we could probably do a whole episode on that as well. So I'll share sort of my reflections on that on that same theme on our next episode. So when it comes to building trust in business development, that is very important.

[00:02:51] I think especially in the context of the conversations that we're going to be having today around digital and digital experience and how to make sure that your message is being communicated effectively. There is a right way to do this. But I think more importantly, there is a wrong way to do this. What's your thought on how to make sure that your messaging actually is helping build trust in what it is you're saying?

[00:03:17] Well, I think one of the most important things when it comes to any sort of messaging and with the purpose of building trust is it mustn't be self-centered. It mustn't be about achieving your own goal. It's got to be a lot more about trying to achieve, you know, help the people who you're communicating with to achieve something in their life, in their business. Come on in. You're very welcome. We're just recording an episode. No, come on. Come on. Come on.

[00:03:42] And so, of course, having the mindset of actually providing value, getting to know someone and understanding what it is that they need, why they need it, how they need it, and how you're going to support them really helps to formulate the messaging that you use.

[00:04:00] Because if you have that in mind, then your initial approach, of course, is initially adding value because you're showing that you care, you're showing that you're interested, and you're then making sure that you're having a meaningful conversation with someone that may still get to the result of what you're trying to achieve. But also, you're going to be more likely to help someone else and build trust and a stronger relationship.

[00:04:23] Yeah, and so when I distill this, and it's part of my presentation later today, you can say a lot of things about yourself, but that's kind of like just putting it on a billboard, essentially. You're broadcasting. You're not communicating. And I think that if you think of it that way, that's the difference between what it means to build trust versus what it means to just advertise. Absolutely, yeah.

[00:04:46] And when I have not had more conversations this year, and I may have even said this on previous episodes, I have not had more conversations than I have this year about SEO and GEO and how to brands and businesses get themselves into the answer of a chatbot and whatnot. And there's a lot of panic and anxiety in the space in the industry right now about how to make sure that you're doing that right. And a lot of people just think they need to be saying something louder or higher. More noise.

[00:05:16] Yeah, yeah. Or at a higher volume, at a greater quantity. And that's actually not the answer. And what I like about this moment that we're in from a digital and an AI perspective is that actually it's forcing us to go back to fundamentals. Exactly. Exactly that, yeah.

[00:05:37] There's a few things you have to do to make sure that you're technically set up to make sure your content can be digested by the AI platform or whatnot. But by and large, if you are intentional about who your audience is, that your message is appropriate for them. It's for them, as you said, not about yourself. Mm-hmm. That you are, so you're very focused in on who you're trying to talk to.

[00:06:06] You're not just trying to have a megaphone and hope that somebody that you care about hears you. If you can then make sure that the message itself is appropriate for that audience. And then once they kind of engage, making sure that the journey that you just take them on, that the click that they find themselves following is useful, then all the other trust builds around that organically. You'll have people talking about it. You'll have people sharing your content.

[00:06:35] You'll have the engagement that you're looking for that is that signal of trust that is going to help you get found but also carry on a conversation once they do find their way to your front door. Correct. And that brings me back to, of course, this location, Abbey Road Studios, very much in the center of the music industry. Yeah.

[00:06:56] And Toby and I were having a conversation last night, actually, about the importance of or the challenge within the music industry of reaching a particular audience because so many people now are sort of building music really easily. Yes. And they're doing it through AI or they're doing it with AI support or they're doing original music. It doesn't matter.

[00:07:18] But the problem is that getting it out there is harder now because the music is too much for too many people. And if you don't know who your audience is, who the main people are who are going to listen to your type of music and who you want to listen to that, you're not going to appeal to anyone because you're trying to appeal to everyone. Right. And that's the same in business. It's the same in anything else.

[00:07:41] So your messaging in business, your music, your approach to everything needs to have a clear purpose, a clear definition and a clear structure and strategy that links to the value that you're bringing to the other people. Yeah, absolutely. Part of, I think, what it means to sort of build trust through your messaging, though, is also making sure that there is a certain amount of endorsement.

[00:08:03] And we sort of started off this episode talking about testimonials as well as the messaging strategies that we've just talked about. And, I mean, testimonials, I think, are just kind of a stand-in label for, you know, that third-party endorsement, right? Correct. And you can say anybody said something about me and put the quote on your website or on the brochure or whatnot and credit, you know, Joe from Acme, Inc., right?

[00:08:32] But I think what we often forget is that you actually need to intentionally work at asking for that kind of endorsement and making sure that it is something that is solicited and you're not doing it in a cheesy, meaningless way. That when you have a good experience, when you're delivering good value, when you have a customer that is working with you very well, ask them for that testimony. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:01] Are you happy with what we did? Yeah. Did we achieve the goals that we set out to do? Would you be thinking that there's anyone else who could benefit from this? And if so, would you be willing to share your story and your experience? Yeah. And everybody's always looking for like a proof point, not just like, oh, they were great to work with. Well, isn't that nice? But I think testimonials that dig in on a little bit of evidence are particularly strong and useful.

[00:09:27] We often, I mean, we talked about case studies in the last episode. And you can go on a, I guess the testimonial is a way to sort of lead into that more, that layered depth of communication and content that you're adding to help build that overall trust story. It is a big part of trust.

[00:09:48] If people see that, you know, genuine other people are actually happy, actually positive about something and had a good experience, then that does build trust beyond, you know, an AI recommending it or, you know, seeing the ranking on Google being higher or something. So, yeah, it's important when it comes to building trust, but it's also important for companies to reflect on that through going through that process.

[00:10:13] As I said, if you're asking someone for a testimonial, then they are going to reflect on whether you delivered. That's right. And you're going to reflect and be forced to reflect on whether you delivered as well and that you are doing the right things. And it also allows you to adjust. So you're further improving the trust with the companies that you were working with as well. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think we talked about this maybe two or three episodes ago about getting that contact, that client, whatnot, to also share the story.

[00:10:43] Yes. Right. And so just to bring that theme back into this conversation, anything that you can do to amplify or augment that message that you want to deliver through your own channel, on your own website, what have you. So anytime you can get that also done on a third party site or through a third party voice is going to add more depth and authenticity to that testimonial and that endorsement.

[00:11:13] How is it now within the AI world that we're in? Because, of course, a lot of people are now trying to become priority recommendation through AI rather than on search engines. And I know this is more of an area that you're experiencing. How is that working when it comes to building trust? Does that actually help? Or do you think it sometimes hinders the fact that it's because people would feel like it's potentially being manipulated? In an AI help build trust, yeah.

[00:11:43] So we were talking with a client, presenting with them the other day, and they were talking about this because they had a – if you asked, you know, they were a wealth management firm and they asked chat like, oh, who are the top wealth management firms? What wealth management firm would you recommend? And it recommended like the biggest names, right? And chat only recommends, you know, two or three maybe. You're lucky to get past one or two, right?

[00:12:13] And so it's basically just kind of going like, oh, well, there's a lot of people out there that talk about this brand and say it this way. And so that's what I'm going to respond to with a generic broader answer. But then if you ask the AI, well, yes, but what about my company? It comes back and goes, oh, yeah, that's a really good one. So because it's got a sort of – it's got its algorithm. It's got its filter.

[00:12:39] It might sort of have a little bit more of a sense of like, oh, well, you're an investor that has a priority on sustainability and whatever your values are as an investor. So your chat might come back with something a little bit more refined, especially if you've got the paid version and it's got some of your data and whatnot. But then, boy, we're talking pretty hyper-personalized. But AI does a really good job of regurgitating what you do say to it about your own brand.

[00:13:07] When you say, well, what about Flywheel? And it comes back and says, oh, yeah, Flywheel is a really good digital agency. I think you should definitely give them a call. That is primarily based on the fact that we say good things about ourselves and nobody else says anything negative. And so the ability at the very moment to get a positive sentiment out of the AI is actually pretty easy.

[00:13:33] It's difficult to get a broad-based awareness from AI. So, again, back to my point. And becoming that genuine filter. That's right. That's right. So it's easy to make it. And at the moment, we're like, well, this is magic, this technology. And it's very easy to trust it as much as we're all learning sort of those boundaries and when not to trust it and how to dig a little bit deeper. But to get it to have positive sentiment about you and your own brand or something like that, it's actually pretty easy.

[00:14:01] You need to avoid the bad press. But, you know, that aside, it's a pretty straightforward process. But the ability to get that sort of top of funnel or initial awareness is more difficult. So back to my point earlier, it's fun because we get to go back to fundamentals of marketing and getting our message out through events and showing up at Abbey Road Studios. And the point that I was making with my client the other day is the handshake is not dead. No. The opposite.

[00:14:31] It's just that discovery has changed. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So, yes, in this world of AI, trust is a big topic. You need to trust that the data is coming back. You need to trust that it knows the right things. And I find that we're going to learn very quickly when to use it and how it supplements the fact that we get to go back into rooms with each other and share a drink or a bite to eat and a little bit of conversation around the table. Yeah.

[00:15:01] And that positive messaging as well with that right mindset is what leads to those positive interactions in real life as well. Yeah. Well, that's true. That's true. Well, there you go. I think we've covered a lot of ground there on messaging and testimonials and how to build trust in your business development process. Thanks a lot, Andy. Always a pleasure. Too bad we can't do every single episode from Abbey Road. Thanks for tuning in, everybody.

[00:15:25] If you want to get our back catalog, get in touch, please go to tandtimbits.com and we'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks again. Bye-bye.