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Social Media Marketing Podcast
Building Trust in a Changing World: How to Make a Lasting Impact
00:46:18
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- [00:01]
Michael Stelzner
Hey there, Mike Stelzner. Before we get started with today's podcast, picture this. While your peers are struggling with basic chat GPT prompts, you're the marketer everyone turns to for AI solutions. You're automating tasks that used to take hours, creating stunning visuals in minutes and analyzing data like a pro. This, my friends, is not a fantasy. It's exactly what's happening to marketers. It's in the AI Business society. When you join the AI Business Society, you get monthly live training from leading experts, real world examples you can implement immediately, and a community of innovators pushing the AI boundaries. Don't let this moment pass you by. Visit social mediaexaminer.com AI and start your AI transformation today. Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner. Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want more exposure, more leads, and more sales. If you feel lately like there's just a lack of trust in in this marketing world that we're in right now, and it's just getting harder and harder for your messages to connect with your audience and you're just looking for a way to kind of break through all the noise, today's guest is going to be one you're going to want to listen to very carefully. We're going to talk about how to build trust in a world where trust is really, really low. And I'm going to be joined by Alex Cotone. She is going to reveal some really awesome concepts that I feel with great certainty are to help you move the needle in a pretty magical way. By the way, if you're new to this podcast, be sure to follow this show so you don't miss any of our future content. Let's now transition over to this week's interview with Alex Cotone, helping you to simplify your social safari. Here is this week's expert guide. Today, I'm very excited to be joined by Alex Cotone. If you don't know who Alex is, you need to know Alex. She is a marketing strategist and founder of Copy Posse, a company that helps freelancers and entrepreneurs grow their businesses with messaging and branding. Her membership is called Spark, where she helps people build their dream businesses from home. Alex, welcome back to the show. How you doing today?
- [02:41]
Alex Katoni
Hi. Good. I'm so glad to be back super.
- [02:44]
Michael Stelzner
Excited to have you here today. Alex and I are going to explore how to build trust in a time where trust is very low so that you can make a lasting impact in your business.
- [02:53]
Alex Katoni
So.
- [02:54]
Michael Stelzner
So Alex, let's start with the trust is low thing, right? Like why is trust so important right now for marketers and maybe why is it not where it maybe used to be? What's your thoughts on that?
- [03:07]
Alex Katoni
I got a lot to say on that. I mean, one thing is for sure, and trust has always been incredibly important for marketers and business owners. I like to say that after attention and getting attention, trust is the most powerful currency that we have in marketing. Trust is absolutely essential in order for someone to give us their money. And we're of course, we're all in the business of making money and selling our products and services. And what's a little bit scary is right now we are in a major trust recession. And even without looking at the, the data to prove it, we can all feel that we are all, collectively everywhere, all the time, have our backs up, waiting for someone to try to scam us, mislead us, dupe us, and that is, you know, growing by the second. There's something called the Edelman Trust Barometer, which actually measures trust in key institutional areas. And they've been doing so every single year since 2000. So it's been 25 years that they are measuring trust across multiple different countries. In fact, the last study they did was 28 countries, over 33,000 respondents. And they have something called the Global Trust Index, which essentially just shows where we're at at a baseline of trust. And right now we are at an all time low than we've ever been in the past 25 years. And there's a couple key stats that I pulled out here that I thought were super, super interesting. 68% of people believe that business leaders are lying to them and that is up from 56% in 2021. And globally, in response to the questions, I trust AI and I am comfortable with the use of AI by businesses, over 80% and over 70% respectively, of those 33,000 respondents expressed moderate to high grievance in relation to those questions, which of course fuels the distrust. Now, I'm not saying that AI is what's causing all the distrust. I mean, you could just look around you and we all know that there's a lot of things right now that are causing that distrust to grow. But I do think it is is incredibly important as business owners and marketers that we're paying attention to that number and making sure that we are entering into the marketplace with that understanding that we are up against a pretty big battle here of decreasing trust and when that is absolutely critical to making a sale or running our businesses, that's something we should be paying attention to.
- [05:42]
Michael Stelzner
Love that said a different way. The question I want to ask now is when we are able to communicate trust or trust is received somehow by our audience, what is the upside to that? What is possible in this world where 68% of us feel like we cannot trust businesses? So if we're able to break through somehow, what does that make possible for us?
- [06:06]
Alex Katoni
I mean, I feel like it goes without saying, like if people trust us, they are going to buy from us and they're going to buy from us again and again and again. The thing that I find really interesting, and we all do this, like I love to look at buyer behavior, starting with my own buying behavior behavior, is we are constantly sorting businesses in our minds, right? We have like a no category. We have like I'm not sure yet category. We have a yes category. And we're trying to just as quickly as possible put people into these categories because it is so difficult to make sense of who and what we can trust today. So if you get added into the yes, I trust bucket in the minds of your customers, assuming you then don't do something to lose or break that trust, that customer will likely buy from you again and again and again. Because just by simply building that trust, you've created that foundation of like, hey, you no longer have to go search for an alternative. I can be your person, your business, your brand, your company in this marketplace to buy XYZ or whatever it is that you sell. So I think it's of course revenue, but also longevity in the marketplace.
- [07:13]
Michael Stelzner
I kind of hearken back to the wild wild west and I like the fact that you have the name posse in your brand and stuff like this. Back then, nobody really trusted anybody, right? Because like these people would come in from out of town on a horse and then, right? You just didn't know if they were going to rob you or they were going to shoot you, right? And I kind of feel like we're kind of in the new wild wild west right now because it's so easy for people to appear out of nowhere and seem to be slick and, and everything and then you trust them and all of a sudden you lose everything. Does this give an unfair advantage to those of us that have established a well respected personal brand or brand that is known? Talk to me about that a little bit, 100%.
- [07:52]
Alex Katoni
And I'll quote my friend Ryan Levesque, who. Who recently I had the opportunity to interview, and he said something, and this was just the perfect way to describe it. He said, we're entering into an era where the messenger is almost more important than the message, because messages can be copied, they can be faked, they can be AI baked, but the messenger, aka, you know, cannot be replaced. And so I really do believe that building a personal brand right now is a huge and very important strategy for every different type of business owner.
- [08:21]
Michael Stelzner
Well, and for those of us that have been around for a while and have a reputation, and are known and have a trusted reputation, probably most important part of it, this is your unfair, secret advantage. Right. But for those of you that are not yet known, there are things that we're going to talk about today. Right. Which is how can you build trust in a world where, generally speaking, the majority of people will not trust you? Right, Right. So let's dig into it by first starting about discussing what kind of mindset shifts do we need to make, if any, before we begin to get into the how side of this thing?
- [08:55]
Alex Katoni
Yeah, I mean, well, you kind of said it already. Like, I really do believe that. That the biggest mistake so many marketers make is assuming trust from day one. I remember back when I started doing online marketing, online when I was the creative director and, well, really an intern before I was the creative director at mindvalley. And it used to be that if you could publish a site, like, if you could put words on the Internet.
- [09:19]
Michael Stelzner
You were a blogger, right?
- [09:20]
Alex Katoni
Yeah, yeah. Like, wow, you must be smart and you must know some stuff. It was kind of like the, well, it's on the Internet, it must be true kind of, you know, joke that a lot of people say. But that was kind of the case. Like, if you had a website and had the skills to be able to publish content, you sort of had this baked in trust. And we were all operating from this place of a default or a baseline of people trust me because I'm on the Internet. Even saying that out loud now, like, makes me laugh because now we're obviously so much savvier when it comes to the Internet. And so the biggest mindset shift is assuming no one trusts you. The default is no longer trust. The default is now distrust. And so the biggest mistake people make is just trying to convince people to buy from them when the truth is first. Before you can convince someone to buy from you, you have to convince them to not immediately And I mean immediately count you out. Because we are in this world right now where we are, we are bombarded with messages, we are bombarded with ads, with emails, with social posts. And it's a lot like people are literally numbing out, they're tuning out, they're going into information overload. And as quickly as possible, we are trying to filter people in order to feel safer as we navigate this online space. And so as I mentioned before, you are either in the immediately no bucket. And we've all been there, we see people online and we're like, nope, hard, no, unfollow, mute, whatever, like, that person's not for me. And then there's the yes bucket, which to be honest, the yes bucket I think takes a lot of time to get into. And we'll talk about that in a second. Most of the time when people are first discovering you, you're falling into the like, I don't know about you yet, you know, but first convince me why I shouldn't count you out before you're trying to convince me why I should buy from you. And so the biggest mistake is people are applying the old school direct response marketing of like buy, die or unsubscribe mentality to their customers, being like, well, if they're not going to buy from me now, they're not going to buy from me later, so they're dead to me. Like that is so far from the truth. Now when you look at what actually is happening, there is a way longer buying cycle because people are in an evaluation phase, figuring out whether or not they should listen to you, like you, trust you before they ever decide to give you their money. And this has been studied. You know, Google released a report called Decoding Decisions, Making Sense of the Messy Middle. And this messy middle is basically defined as this web of kind of touch points and evaluation that happens between that moment that someone first discovers you and the moment they first buy from you. That used to be a pretty clear line of like, click, sign up, buy, let's optimize for a seven day pixel, whatever that was. Direct response marketing now. Direct response marketing, yes, of course it's still important. Yes, there will still be people who buy from you right away. We love those people. But the vast majority of people are taking a lot longer to evaluate options because you and I both know you are not the only person who offers what you do to the same group of people, to the same customer base. And so I really believe that those who have patience and who take the time to do these trust building Activities that we're going to be talking about will come out way farther ahead because they can stick around long enough for that customer base to say, you know what I'm actually going to purchase from you.
- [12:53]
Michael Stelzner
Alex Gatoni is dropping little gold nuggets all along the trail here. And just to reiterate, majority of people will never trust you. 68% probably growing since that survey was done by Edelman. In addition, we know that we have to operate from a presupposition that they are distrusting. And we also know that they have access to lots of information, so they're going to take their time and do their research before they buy a decision. Now, there are some people listening that do sell products that are impulse products. But for anyone who's selling something that's expensive or complex or where there's lots of competition, you can imagine that this is something that is going to be necessary that you build trust. So this is the perfect setup to now and you've done a beautiful job setting this up. So now teach us, Alex, where do we begin to build trust?
- [13:42]
Alex Katoni
Yeah. And one thing I do want to say about what you said, even with those impulse products, think about every time you've made an impulse purchase and then you received the product and you realize that it really wasn't what you thought you were buying or the quality wasn't there, or you didn't really pay enough attention to the reviews. As much as I do agree that this does apply more more to people who have more complex products or more high ticket. If you are selling a commodity, if you are selling an E commerce product where there is a ton of other available products on the market that fit the same need to the same customer base. There's a lot that you can do with building a brand and creating trust with everything we're talking about here that I think still will serve you massively in the marketplace.
- [14:27]
Michael Stelzner
Love it. And thank you for that because it is true, like there are some people that still are masters of, of getting people to buy impulse products. We know people that have like doom scrolled on TikTok or Instagram and bought things and regretted it later. But some of them have turned out to be nice little surprises. But in an ideal world, those products do have trust behind them. So how do we do this? How do we build trust? Where do we start?
- [14:50]
Alex Katoni
Yeah, I like to talk about this idea of context over content. So right now content is, is dirt cheap in its purest form, right? Anybody now can go to AI, ChatGPT, Claude, whatever and generate Content. And it used to be that how you won attention is by just producing more content kind of faster than anybody else. But when you think about it now everyone has access to that same information, that same rate of creation. What's the winning game here? Like, how are we supposed to win? Is it like, I'm going to create a hundred a day, I'm going to create a thousand a day, I'm going to create a billion pieces of clothing? How do you actually win that game? To build trust. And we can all agree just by our experiences of navigating the Internet, that there is so much going on and it's exhausting and we're numbing out and we're tuning out and we're wondering who we can trust and what content is really real. And so for me, when I say focus on context over content, I mean proving to your audience as much as possible that you are in fact a real person, that you actually know what you're talking about, that you have experienced insights. AI doesn't have context. It doesn't have taste, it doesn't have perspective, it doesn't have your point of view, it does not have your experience, and it doesn't really know your customers. Sure, you can use it to do some great research, and I use AI all the time. But using AI to generate content is a race to the bottom because you all have access to that same information. And so that takes away that competitive advantage like we were talking about earlier, your personal brand, what makes you unique. So instead, and this is exactly what I'm doing in my business, I'm looking for ways that I can show context in my work. Something that I'm now talking a lot about. And I've coined this term show, don't tell. Marketing is realizing that nobody needs more listicles. Nobody needs more, like, tell me the five tips for X, Y, Z. I'm not hating on that because that is how I built my YouTube channel. I was all about that, right? And while people still love learning in sets, a lot of people can go to ChatGPT and say, hey, ChatGPT, tell me the 10 things that I need to know about XYZ. And so I'm now looking at, okay, what do I have that nobody else has that nobody else can go to ChatGPT and say, Tell me the 10 secrets to writing. Click worthy subject lines, right? And I go, well, what I have is experience. What I have is data. What I have is a whole bunch of split test results that I can show my audience. And so a perfect example of how I've used this concept is we created a lead magnet that rather than say, here are the five ways to write a better subject line, I went, hey, we analyzed over 100 subject lines. We split tested them, we came up with the winners, and then we analyzed why we think they work. And we're going to tell you these insights. And so insights over information all day long. The next thing that I do as much as possible, is share real case studies. Right? We all see these glossy testimonials or these written case studies. I did a masterclass at the top of the year where I was sharing stories from my audience, and it was wild how many people were in the zoom chat saying, how do we know that these are real? And it was the first time that I had been on a live masterclass. Live, live, live. Not pretending to be live, saying, it's live. No, live. And people are saying, how do I know this is real? Luckily, I had these students whose case studies I was sharing on the line, and they were weighing in on the chat saying, no, hi, it's me. This is my story. I actually am real. And so I'm constantly asking myself these questions. Like, if I was super skeptical of marketing, which most people are now, and I was listening to some chick on a webinar tell me about how she's changed people's lives, I would probably have the question, if I didn't know who she was already and didn't have that built in trust, how do I know this is legit? And so really trying to answer that question in your marketing, I share screenshots of testimonials more than I share transcriptions. Because again, a glossy little avatar picture with a couple lines of text and a name, you're like, great, I hope it's real. I really want it to be real. Is it? Hey, what about sending or posting a screenshot of a conversation you're having, of course, with permission, with a customer? Really showing the transformation in a conversational way by sharing screenshots is something else that I do. Storytelling, obviously. Like, if I can tell you that I tried something in my business versus here are the five things. If I have a hook on a social caption, that's like, I tried X and here's what happened. That's infinitely more interesting than here are five tips to X, Y, Z. And so that's what I mean by show, don't tell marketing. Adding in as much context as you can to separate yourself from so many people who are just using ChatGPT to create content at Breakneck speeds that doesn't really do anything.
- [19:53]
Michael Stelzner
What if I told you while your marketing peers are still fumbling with basic AI prompts, you could become the AI expert your entire company depends on. That's exactly what's happening inside the AI business society. Our members aren't just using AI, they're mastering it. They're automating repetitive tasks, creating professional videos in mere minutes, and making data driven decisions that leave everyone on their team completely amazed. Most marketers are barely scratching the surface of what AI can do for them. While they're stuck creating mediocre content, you could be leaping so far ahead that people look at you as if you're from the future. Here's how we make that happen. First, you get monthly live training from leading AI experts who actually use these tools in real marketing situations. Secondly, there is a incredible community of innovative marketers who are pushing the AI boundaries every day that you have access to. Third, we have multiple meetups per month where you get a chance to interact with your peers and ask questions from our experts. As member Lisa Kanda said, quote, the quality of training offered is the best I've experienced and from an organization that I can trust. Here's the truth. The marketing landscape is changing very quickly. Don't get left behind while others race ahead. Visit social mediaexaminer.com AI and become the AI Enhanced Marketer your company or your clients need. Future you will. Thank you. Visit social mediaexaminer.com AI to learn more. Okay, so what we learned in this section is that context is more valued than content because content now is cheap and you can generate really high quality content. The baseline now is rows for everyone. Even the worst marketers have good right access to great quality. And because this trust thing is so important, you need to send signals that it's real because if it's too polished, they're not going to think it's real. And that's where screenshots, that's where live interaction with crowds. That's where sharing your stories and your successes is working. And I'm here to affirm this. Like, I write a lot on the social platforms. Actually every week I write a little story and they're real stories and people connect with those stories. And it is true that, you know, sometimes people want to know how to do certain things. For example, if there's something brand new in the world, like some new feature with AI, they're going to research how to do it. But everybody and their mother is racing to put that content out there. Why race when you can actually do something more valuable, which is to build trust through context. And context is experience. Actual data results, things that you can bring from your experience, your business's experience to the table that cannot be replicated by AI. Okay, love that first concept. There's more. What's next?
- [22:41]
Alex Katoni
So the next thing I like to talk about is this idea of conversations over automation.
- [22:47]
Michael Stelzner
This is a big one.
- [22:49]
Alex Katoni
Yeah.
- [22:49]
Michael Stelzner
Because a lot of marketers like, that's not scalable.
- [22:53]
Alex Katoni
I literally, literally, that was the one thing I was thinking in my head because every time I say that, how can you start more one on one conversations with your customers? And the first question I get from marketers is, but how do you scale that? And my response to that is, sometimes it's worth it, even if it's not scalable. Now listen, I am all for scalable marketing. Yes. Love it. Right? Love creating a lot of content, scaling content, scaling ad spend, scaling awareness, scaling, you know, attention, all of that. But as much as possible, I'm thinking to myself, how can I create one on one conversations? Because that creates more trust than anything else. You know, when I hear people tell, tell me that they've replaced their entire customer service team with AI, my first thought is, great, I'm sure you're saving a lot of money immediately on labor expenses, but what are you costing your business in terms of the trust? Because what I don't think a lot of people realize is that when trust is broken, people aren't writing to you and saying, you know, Michael, you've broken my trust and I don't think I'm going to buy from you anymore.
- [24:13]
Michael Stelzner
You're lucky if they do, by the way. Sometimes they do.
- [24:15]
Alex Katoni
And if they do, you're like, wow. And then like, you should be paying attention to those people because they're obviously desperate to connect. And that is a challenge that you can solve.
- [24:23]
Michael Stelzner
But generally that's not going to happen unless they really care for you.
- [24:26]
Alex Katoni
Right, Exactly. And that's, I think the biggest mistake is, is, you know, people will say in the short term, like, yeah, it's been fine. We've had like no complaints. And that's almost scarier, right? Because we have all been in a loop of talking to an AI agent and screaming at our computers or at our phone saying, person, person, like, I would need to talk to a human. And what happens when you just eventually give up and you go somewhere else and you're like, this isn't worth it. I'm not gonna spend my time or money here. And so, perfect example of What I mean by creating one to one conversations is, yeah, am I gonna do this for a 27 mini course? No, I'm not. Right? But hopefully I've built enough trust through the content I've built and the email marketing that I do and the stories that I tell that someone could buy a 27 product, even if they're not quite sure if they can trust me yet. But I just opened applications to my $10,000 a year mastermind. And you know, I have tried, I've had this mastermind for five years. I have tried all the different automated, you know, book a sales call type of funnels. And I'm always like, okay, am I doing something wrong? Because like, this just isn't really working for me as well as it is for other people. And then I realized that my audience is me. And I cannot tell you the last time I booked a sales call with someone. My audience are savvy marketers and they are allergic to automated funnels that force you down a step by step process when really all you want to know is like, give me the info up front and like, let me know what you're all about. And so for the first time this year, I changed my entire application process to not involve any sales calls, no gatekeeping of information, no, you know, forcing down a funnel. It was simply, hey, complete this application. And then anyone who was qualified based on the application, I sent them a personal gasp. Marketers everywhere, like falling over. I sent them a personal email. This is a $10,000 sale that literally said, hey, so and so. Saw your application. I'm the kind of gal who likes all the information up front. I'm not going to gatekeep anything. Here's everything you need to know about the mastermind, the investment, everything. And then I went to their Instagram page and I sent them a voice memo. Not a AI personalized voice memo. I mean, I opened my phone and I talked to them as if they were a real human and said, hey, I just wanted to make sure you got my email. I just sent it across. Sometimes it gets missed and mixed up with my marketing emails. But I just wanted you to know I. I just sent you a personal invitation to my mastermind and I'm here if you have any questions. The feedback that I got from people was, I can't believe this is actually you. We went back and forth on voicemail a couple of times. We're not even done closing the conversations yet because the applications just closed on Sunday and we're still following up. And in conversations with A lot of people. I have had a higher conversion rate on this simple one to one, human to human process than any fancy automated funnel ever did. And I really am just leaning as heavily as I can into that in all of my marketing. And I think to myself, the more one on one conversations I can start, the better I'll do for sure.
- [27:42]
Michael Stelzner
So I know some people are like, I can automate that with a generic response. Because it sound like you had a generic response, Alex, you probably would say, hey Mike, it's Alex. Like literally you would somehow make it. So it's obvious this was not just a generic audio thing that you were sending them, right?
- [27:57]
Alex Katoni
Oh yeah, I would say I got your application.
- [27:59]
Michael Stelzner
I saw like in question three where you blah, blah, blah or whatever. Like you're, you're actually personalizing it a little bit. Right.
- [28:05]
Alex Katoni
And more than just a name, you know, I'm. Because I know it can be like, hey Mike. Like I say like, hey Mike, it's Alex. I just saw your rain application. I totally feel you on feeling like a bottleneck in your business. That's something that I've really struggled with as well. I love that your next goal is to do xyz.
- [28:20]
Michael Stelzner
So it's obvious that you read it. That's the key, right?
- [28:23]
Alex Katoni
Exactly. And in some cases I was like, just so me. And I said, I'm not going to lie, I wrote hard yes next to your name because I think you'd be such an amazing fit for this group. Like, I meant genuinely every single message. And it's just, you know, I enjoy it. Like I realize that sometimes in an attempt to over automate everything, we remove the connection piece, which is probably what we all enjoy most in our business. When we think back to when we started and it was like, wow, I'm really making an impact in people's lives and I'm, I'm making them feel special and like that's really cool. And all of a sudden you try to automate it and you're completely ripped the heart and soul out of your entire business.
- [29:00]
Michael Stelzner
Well, and for those that are really busy, it could be like, hey, Jane, this is Jill. I'm Alex Gatoni's executive assistant. And she wanted me to let you know, blah, blah, blah. She absolutely love what you said here. Da, da, da. So you could delegate this to someone else on your team and it could still be personal and that would still. And by the way, she sent you a message and I, she asked me to DM you so that you can blah, blah, blah. Right so like you don't have to do all that work, right?
- [29:25]
Alex Katoni
A hundred percent, because it's still human to human connection. You know, I chose in this scenario to do it myself because I knew that that would make a bigger impact. But absolutely, you could have someone that's like, hey, this is so and so from Alex's team. She read your application, I'm looking at her notes, she's really excited. There's so many ways that you can personalize it and I don't want to make it sound like we don't use any automation. Like obviously we automate stuff. For example, we use manychat with some of our social posts to start conversations. You know, I think that's a key distinction is, is there's a really great way to use tools to automate the initiation of conversations, like hey, comment this keyword if you're interested in learning more. And then we now know who has kind of raised their hand and said I'm interested in learning more. And then we can start a one on one conversation there. And so I do really believe it's a mix of automation and personalization, but not throwing the baby out with the bathwater and trying to automate absolutely everything because I think right now people are starving for that connection and a little bit conclusive go a long way.
- [30:28]
Michael Stelzner
Now you don't have to have an application process for this to also work. For example, I don't really directly sell very much at all, but I do represent my brand, Social Media examiner and I generally engage with every single person who comments across the platforms that I post long form writing on, which is LinkedIn, Facebook and X. And a lot of times what will end up happening is sometimes they'll DM me or I'll DM them. Like I'll say hey DM me if you have questions. And that is also a way of just starting a conversation. And it's not hard to do if you know what to do. And obviously I try to customize as much as possible because I know I'm doing it all in public. But I would imagine any kind of conversation, whether it's over email, whether it's public on social, whether it's private on social, whether it's done over text. I mean, the key is that by breaking the automation, maybe presupposition or automation thing that we've been programmed to do, we actually will stand out. That will help build trust. Is that kind of the key take home message of this?
- [31:26]
Alex Katoni
Yeah. And also I love what you said about like, hey DM me If you have questions like, what's even more powerful than being the one to initiate the conversation is inviting people to raise their hands because then they're giving you permission to initiate that conversation. And that creates a baseline of trust. And so I love all of that. In fact, one of my really good friends, this reminds me of a conversation that I had with someone at his event a couple weeks ago. His name is Giovanni Marcico and he hosts incredible events for entrepreneurs. And he doesn't have a huge following, he doesn't run ads for his events. And I'm in the audience and someone came up to me, they're like, you know, how does he fill these rooms? Like, I don't understand. They were like, I, I don't get how he sells so many tickets to his events because he doesn't have a huge social following. And like, I don't think he runs ads. And I'm like, he messages people. Like, he starts conversations, he connects with people. And like, this is this idea that's so like mind blowing, it's, it's literally marketing 100. But we have somehow forgotten that all we want as humans is just to be seen and understood. And when someone connects with us in a real human to human way, and it's not an automated message of any sort, we really go, wow, thank you for taking the time to do that. Like, it really is that simple.
- [32:42]
Michael Stelzner
Give us a couple tips for those of us that maybe don't have a lot of experience with sending private dms or private audio messages via the various platforms that support it. How do we move the conversation down the line in such a way that feels natural and doesn't feel salesy? Do you understand what I'm asking?
- [33:01]
Alex Katoni
Yeah. Honestly, I think the biggest thing, I think, I think there's a way to mess it up by going too salesy. And then I think there's a way to mess it up by trying to be too has coy the word or too. Like, I'll give you a perfect example. I get so many DMs from people that are like, I'm curious, do you offer any paid programs? Immediately I'm like, this is someone trying to close me on something in the DMs and they're asking me a question that I say yes. And then I'm like, here are all my programs thinking that it's an actual customer who's looking to buy a program versus someone who's like, well, I can help you sell those, you know, and so I'm now allergic to sort of These, like, vague, you know the answer to that question. You could go find it yourself. It's like I just get a radar for it. And I'm sure we all have it. Like, these are the things we need to pay attention to. To like, I know that as I'm saying this right now, you guys can think of DMs that you've gotten where you're like, oh yeah, that person, like pretended to be a genuine customer with a question and then they just tried to close me on something or they asked me a really weird question about something. I recently posted because someone told them to go look at a recent social post, comment on it to make it seem personal and then fault, like, we see right through it. And so to me, you know, I'm reaching out to people who have, have expressed some sort of interest or have raised their hand in some capacity already. And then I literally say, like, hey, I saw you, for example. Let's say I'm reaching out to someone who, this happened the other day, who commented on one of my Instagram posts and asked me if I had a mastermind. The comment just said, hey, do you have a mastermind? And I was like, I wonder if this is legit or if this is someone just trying to sell me on something. And I DM'd her and I sent her a voice message and I went and creeped her profile, of course. And then I sent her a DM and I said, hey, so and so I saw you commented on my recent and post asking if I had a mastermind and I saw your profile and I'm, I love what you're all about and I actually think you would be perfect for my mastermind. Yes, I do have a mastermind. Probably changed the order of that. And then I just told her about it in voice memo and she ended up joining. And so I honestly think we overthink it. We try to overthink it by following scripts, by following outreach templates that people say is like the secret. The best thing to do is just to reach out like your, you're like you're speaking to another human. And the worst thing they can do is say like, I'm not interested right now, or no thanks. And you're like, cool, sounds good. Keep me posted if that ever changes and move on.
- [35:22]
Michael Stelzner
There is probably a progression in the conversation. Presumably that happens, right? Like when you reach out to them the first time, let's presume they're not DMing you, you're DMing them. You know what I mean?
- [35:32]
Alex Katoni
Right?
- [35:32]
Michael Stelzner
Like what do we do. Hey, I saw that you commented about. You seem interested in masterminds. Let's. Let's assume they didn't ask, but they. They said maybe they're looking for a mastermind. Like, how progress the script. Would you get it all done in one little message? That's the part I'm looking for feedback on. Like, how do we move the ball down the field in such a way that we don't come across as like, too salesy? You know what I mean?
- [35:53]
Alex Katoni
Yeah, great question. Honestly, I. I'm trying to think of times where I would just do cold voice memo DM outreach. It would have to be some sort of behavior that I saw where they were either raising their hand or expressed some sort of interest or took an action that then kind of invited me to say, hey, I saw this. This was. And then I would probably ask a question like, I'm curious to learn more about your business. Do you mind telling me a bit about what you do or, like, what your next big goal is? And I try to get them into conversation rather than just like, lay it all out there in the first sentence.
- [36:24]
Michael Stelzner
And are you generally sending voice messages because it's easier for you? Are you typing or whatever?
- [36:28]
Alex Katoni
I love voice messages.
- [36:29]
Michael Stelzner
Okay.
- [36:29]
Alex Katoni
I do.
- [36:30]
Michael Stelzner
Have you found that people respond to them? Because sometimes maybe they're in a spot when they get it, they can't hear it or whatever because it's noisy. Is that ever an issue?
- [36:37]
Alex Katoni
Yeah, of course it is. But oftentimes I will even say in my message, don't feel like you have to send a voice memo back. I'm just a voice memo girly because I can't type with my long nails. And I'll literally say that in the message and say, feel free to just text back. More often than not, I get a voice memo back from them. They're like, oh, my God, Alex, it was so good to hear your voice. I was so surprised that you messaged me. Like, again, like, I personally do. That doesn't mean everybody has to do it. But again, I'm going back to that very first thing I said where like, like, how can I do more to prove that it really is me and that I'm a real person who genuinely cares about people versus trying to automate everything. And I think that, yes, you don't have to send voice memos. If you want to text it out, you can. But I actually personally think it's a lot easier to ignore a text message because we get like a hundred of them a day. How often do you get a voice memo? Usually it's from your good friends.
- [37:26]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so so far we talked about context is greater than content, and we talked about conversation is greater than automation. You've got another one. What is it?
- [37:36]
Alex Katoni
Well, the last one is time savings is greater than value stacking. And so this really goes to this idea of. And any of you who have been around marketing for a while have heard this idea of like the thud factor where it truly used to be, like, the more content you could cram into your offer if you're like an info marketer like me, or the more stuff you could put in the box if you sell, you know, physical products, the more you had that, like, bam, look at everything you're getting, the more valuable your offer was perceived. And I know I've had to like really rewire my brain to like break up with that idea because now when I hear things like you're getting a hundred hours worth of content or words like intensive or in depth, I don't know about you, but I start to sweat. Like, who wants that right now? Right? Like that's the opposite of what we want in our lives. We are all so bombarded with everything that if someone is bragging to me about how their program is hundreds of hours of content, I'm like, hard, no, Like, I can barely keep up with my tasks on my to do list, let alone consume this product. And so I'm always again asking myself, like, how can I add more value through actually helping people save time, not giving them more things to do to spend more time. And so an example of that would be if I'm crafting an offer on the sales page, I still might have a lot of bonuses. Don't get me wrong, bonuses are great. We love bonuses. But instead of including hours of additional content or training or in depth this or intensive that, I'm thinking about tools that actually shortcut their time and shortcut their transformation. So that might mean like AI prompts or copy and paste swipe files or checklists or laser coaching or a personalized consumption path. I'm really thinking about what can I do to cut their time in half and make this feel easy versus more time consuming. The other thing that I'm doing is I'm as much as possible trying to cut down on heavy like replays and long video trainings. So in my evergreen courses, I used to turn my live training that would often be like five 90 minute videos and just kind of like package those into a course. Now I'm thinking, okay, as much as that was exciting to do Live. Nobody wants to sit around and watch five videos, 90 minutes each in order to get to the point. So I'm really looking at how can I deliver the value as quickly as possible in like 30 minute videos max, or even better, like mini lessons within one module where people can consume them in a few minutes and then, you know, gamifying their consumption and focusing fully on how can I make as many people as possible take action right away, connect with at least one other person in the community, because the more and quicker they connect with other people, the longer they'll stick around. And this is true for like memberships or anything where there's like a recurring billing component and removing heavy replays. So in my Mastermind, I used to do four calls a month and they would be about 90 minutes each. And I was looking at the consumption stats, I'm like, nobody is watching these replays. And then I was kind of getting resentful because I'm showing up for 90 minutes four times a month for my Mastermind members and nobody's watching them. And so what we did is we dropped one whole call a month. And in lieu of that call, we created a WhatsApp group so that they could get anytime support whenever they wanted and have access to me, which I was super resistant to give because boundaries and all the things that we say we need to protect. But it's actually way easier for me to answer a quick question via a voice Note in a WhatsApp group than it is for me to go live for an extra 90 minutes a month. And then we also made one of our calls every single month. Nothing but a connection call. It is not recorded. Everyone knows that the point is to show up live and connect with people. And so I'm just always asking myself, how can I make sure my customers get the information they need to get in order to get results? But how can I make it more fun, easier and less time consuming for them to get those results? And if I focus on that, it completely breaks that old school mentality of like, more is more.
- [42:03]
Michael Stelzner
So love this concept. Help me connect this to how this helps with trust.
- [42:07]
Alex Katoni
Because the faster you get people results, the more they trust you. And one thing that I think is really important and why so many people tend to focus on front end conversions, right? And while I think that's really important, if I look at like my revenue over my entire business, I get between 70 and 80% of my revenue from repeat customers. The only reason why someone would buy from me again is if they got results from the first time they purchased from me. If they're not consuming the content, they're not buying from me again. And I think that's like this compounding effect that what we tend to forget is that it's so much easier to just keep a customer than it is to always try to find new customers, because once you've gotten that trust, it's theirs, assuming you don't break it. And it's so much easier to then continue to sell to those people versus always just focusing on new, new, new, new, new, and not actually looking at the delivery of what it is that you offer. And so it really is this idea of the better I can, I can create results, the more trust I can create, the more likely they are to buy from me again and the less money I need to spend on new customer acquisition.
- [43:15]
Michael Stelzner
I love this for a lot of reasons. So many of us and marketers are told to focus. I mean, in the marketing world, they're told to focus on the value, the value that you provide to your customer. And often we try to have more features, more benefits, more like you call value stacking ideas. But in this world that we're in right now, where trust is low and time is scarce, which is the other side of the equation here, right, because we're all working longer hours now. Most of us are working from home work. We're working like much longer hours. We're on all the time. We're easily distracted. If you, in your product offering can save us that valuable resource, perhaps the most valuable resource we have, which is our time, that is perceived by them to be even more important than some of the other values that you might historically equate to your products and services. And when you do that, you have a happy customer who will gladly evangelize for you, give you the testimonials, allow you to do all the things that you want to do. So it's kind of a secret unlock, isn't it?
- [44:15]
Alex Katoni
It, yeah. And then that just helps you build more trust. So to me, you know, I, I often say, like, you know, I might not have the highest conversion rate, you know, but I am very confident in my retention rate and the people who join my community, how likely they are to stick around and buy from me again and leave me testimonials and all of that stuff. And so I just think it's, it's, again, it's important. Like value, like that word is almost lost its meaning, don't you think? Like, you say it enough times and you're like, but what, what does that mean? Like, when someone says, like, this value or this bonus is valued at 3,000, you're like, what does that mean? Like, why is it valued at $3,000? Like, we, we just. We literally question everything now. We're like, is it $3,000 because that's how much you would charge for that bonus? Or is that just you saying that, well, this is going to be $3,000 if you went and bought it somewhere else? Or like, like, people are just so skeptical of all of that now. And time is something that if we, like you said, if we can spend, save them time, that is so much more valuable than just some arbitrary value stacking.
- [45:17]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, recently you took a vacation and you did something really fascinating with your email, and I want you to share with everybody what you did.
- [45:24]
Alex Katoni
Yeah, I love that you asked me about this again. I think it just goes back to really asking yourself, where am I potentially breaking trust with my audience? And where can I step into more alignment and integrity with my marketing? You know, for me, I'm just. Just very much a believer in not trying to dupe or mislead or say something's live when it isn't, or say it's me when it's automated. And part of that for me is that I write and or review every single email that goes out to my list with my name on it. Now, I recently went on vacation for three weeks and said to my team, like, hey, I'm not going to be on social media. And I was talking all about how I was taking three weeks off on my social media, so my audience, audience knew I was going offline. So then I'm thinking to myself, well, if I say I'm going offline and then they start getting emails from me with my name on it, they're going to be like, obviously Alex didn't write this or didn't read this or review this because I know she's offline. And that was just this one little thing that I identified where I was like, you know, wouldn't it be more trust building to say, I'm going on vacation and I'm actually not reviewing any of the emails and therefore my name is not going to going to be on any of them. And I empowered my team. I said, do a takeover of my Instagram, do a takeover of my email list and sign off as the posse team. And it was honestly so much fun. And the response that we got from our list, which was like, tell Alex, like, we hope she's having a good time and they were doing Alex trivia in the, in the emails and just truly having the best time and I enjoyed it. I was sipping aperol spritzes next to the pool reading these emails that my team sent out and I just think it's just one example of how we can be more in integrity with our marketing. If something has our name on it, it should be something that we have reviewed at the very least and not pretended to.
- [47:16]
Michael Stelzner
You know, Alex Katoni, this has been a fascinating exploration of how we can build trust in a world where trust is becoming harder and harder to build. I really appreciate you sharing your insights with us. If people want to connect with you on the socials, what's your preferred channel? And if they maybe want to explore some of the programs you've got going on, where do you want to send them? Send them.
- [47:37]
Alex Katoni
Yeah. I love this conversation. Thank you. If anyone wants to connect with me, you can head on over to Instagram. My personal Instagram is Alex Katoni. If you message me there, I will respond to you. It is really me. And you can go to copy posse.com to learn all about my programs.
- [47:53]
Michael Stelzner
Thank you so much Alex for joining us today.
- [47:55]
Alex Katoni
Thanks. Had a blast.
- [47:56]
Michael Stelzner
If you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over@socialmediaexaminer.com677 and if you're new to the show, be sure to follow us. If you've been a longtime listener, would you give us a review on whatever platform you're listening on and maybe share this show with your friends and tag me on the socials? Do check out our other shows. The AI Explored podcast, hosted by me and the Social Media Marketing Talk Show. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your your day and may your marketing keep evolving. The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner. Just a quick reminder before you go. If you're ready to become indispensable in the age of AI, the AI Business Society is your solution. Join now and secure your discounted membership by visiting social mediaexaminer.com AI I can't wait to see you inside the AI Business Society.