The Collapse of the Funnel: How Trust Now Drives Every Purchase

0:00We are talking about the collapsing of the customer journey. What has happened that causes the traditional four stages of the buying process to collapse into one? And last episode, we talked about identity trust. We went through several examples and things like that.

0:20Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Business Lunch podcast with your co-hosts, Ryan Dice and myself, Roland Frazier. we are talking about the collapsing of the customer journey. What has happened that causes the traditional four stages of the buying process to collapse into one. And last episode, we talked about identity trust. We went through several examples and things like that. I want to start off today first asking my wonderful co-host, Ryan, how you doing? Oh man, I'm fantabulous. How about you? Nice. Nice. I like that. I like that. But I'm curious, do you think if somebody just picked up right here on this episode, maybe it's the first time they listen to it, you know, friend forward it to them, should they go back and listen to the previous one?

1:08I don't think they need to. I think that it's like, I think you can get enough out of it. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I mean, the basic concept is just this. Consumers are no longer, buyers are no longer just going through this like perfect step by step funnel anymore. I think a better way to think about the buying process, it's not a funnel. It's a popcorn popper. Okay. Everybody's in there. They're all their popcorn kernels and they're getting heated up at different times and they're going to pop when they pop. And your job is just to be there and to be ready and to have the lid on so that when they pop, they pop in your pot.

1:47And so how do you do that? You got to make sure that you're creating trust. And there's a number of different ways to do that. but that is the lid that stays on. And so if you think about all the different media channels that are out there, whether you're primarily on Instagram or TikTok from a consumer perspective, maybe it's YouTube, maybe it's LinkedIn, wherever you are, that is the pot. Your audience, they're the kernels going around and the content that you and also your competitors are putting out there, that's heating them up. It is the trust that's the lid that's going to cause them to pop for you.

2:29And so that's what we're talking about. So we talked about one of the ways to create trust in the previous episode, definitely go and listen to that. But I do see these as standing alone. And if you can do all of them, they compound, but it's not one of these things where it's a sequential funnel. So you don't have to go and listen to it for this to make sense. So, yeah. And last time we talked about identity trust and the identity was that you see yourself in the person who is speaking on behalf of the other company. Um, that's that trust agent. Uh, and we talked about the shortcut way to memorize it was mirror, uh, micro and media.

3:08So mirror, can you see yourself in the person who is representing the company? Uh, When you do get that person, ideally to be a micro influencer so that they have a following that will see and already trust that person. And then media amplify that message outside the media that is owned, the followers of the micro influencer. Here we're talking about competence trust. So rather than. Sorry, real quick. I just want to say, because this is this is demonstrable. So we do want them to go and listen to that previous episode after. And then after that, they should listen to all the other business. Specifically the embedded influencer episode that they did, because if we can get them to listen to three episodes in a row, there's some content binging going on here.

3:55It's kind of like we're demonstrating what we're going to encourage, you know, them to do. So I just wanted to point that out. That's what we're about. I like it. I like it. So just to kind of draw the distinction. I think that's great. to draw the distinction and it doesn't serve us at all. Um, the, uh, the last time we were talking about the mirror of like, Hey, I, I, I relate to the person I relate to the company. And, um, this one is the brand gets me. So competence here is that the brand, uh, the brand gets me is what the competence means. Right. So like what Nike is, Nike is a global sportswear brand.

4:35Hopefully everybody knows that their old tagline was just do it. It was a command. It was like, you know, the brand is a drill sergeant, just do it, get it done, you know, suck it up kind of thing. And the new branding is why do it? So I, you know, I have kind of, maybe I'm like most people, I naturally don't like changes to ads and things like this. And I, I question everything and I'm like, you know, well, what do you mean? Why do it? You know, just, just do it, you know, but, but that's what I got branded with. Just do it. Now the question is the brand as an empathetic partner, Nike goes from just do it to why do it.

5:15Why is a question more powerful than a command? Well, I think it invites a conversation. And anytime you can have a conversation, you're now, we're building a relationship. It's a back and forth. Whereas a command, they either do it or they don't, but either way they're moving away from you and so but it harmonizes much more with the zeitgeist of of what's going on right now right it's it's all very you know lovey-dovey you know let's let's all get along kumbaya not you know just suck it up and do it as a different generation now it's like but why you know which is a fair question and they didn't need the old people like you know the ussens um we were kind of already for nike like we grew up you know we're we're buying nike because Michael Jordan told us to.

6:02The people that they're missing are the Gen Z and younger. And so for them, this messaging makes sense. So it does go back to kind of what we said before. And now we're talking about the messaging. Being clear on who it is that you're talking to is very, very, very important. And I think it's interesting. I haven't seen this messaging, right? So what that tells me is it's not showing up in the channels where I hang out. Um, so they're not, they're not necessarily showing this to the old folks with the gray hairs. And you're not a sneaker head. You're not like shopping for the latest, uh, Travis Scott release or anything like that.

6:40So, uh, you're definitely not going to see them. Um, what, what I like about it and why we call it competence is that Nike is the brand is competent in identifying with you and showing that it gets you. So it's showing that it understands the inner drive of Gen Z and the anxieties that they've got now. It's like, well, what do you mean just do it? Why am I doing it? And then they're like, yeah, we get that. We're gonna help you see why to do it so that you will then just do it, which I think is kind of interesting. And the proof is personalization with these types of ads, lifted AOV, average order value by 15%, retention by 25%, loyalty by 30%.

7:21Um, another kind of mini case would be Sephora. Uh, Sephora does these tutorials. And so it's video content and how to demos, which directly drove basket sizes to increase by 13 % when buyers engaged first, because they were like, Sephora gets me. Sephora is competent at understanding who I am and I relate to it. Now we use the negative example of Bud Light and the Dylan Mulvaney for, um, for identity trust. The negative example here was Peloton Holiday. So this was an ad in 2019 where a husband gifts his wife a Peloton and she nervously films herself and says, a year ago, I didn't know how much this would change me.

8:06So shockingly, the guy giving his wife for Christmas a device that will make her fat self be skinny and beautiful finally for once. I'm obviously hyperbolizing here. Was seen as sexist and tone deaf. Can you imagine that that was the case? Yeah, can't even imagine, especially at that time. And especially since, as I recall from the commercial, she was already lovely and quite fit. I mean, like you, it was, it was, yeah, it was awful on, on all accounts. They, uh, stock dropped 15 % in three days,$1.5 billion loss. Isn't it amazing how poor decisions in the marketing department by a hundred to$200 ,000 a year person can cause billions of dollars of damage.

8:55Yeah. And it shows up. I mean, we get to see it with public companies, um, because, I mean, cause it's, it's there for everybody to see, but don't think that this can't impact your brand similarly just because it doesn't show up on a stock chart. Yeah. Just because it's not on a ticker, right? It absolutely can happen to you as well. And it, and it is exactly what, what you said, you know, their average person that is thinking like, yeah, I mean, I definitely do want to get in shape and there's a lot of shame there. And so if you really understand where your person is right now, if you understand their before state and you understand what that means and what their emotional state is, you have to know that shame is a big part of that.

9:36And so the last thing that you want to do is to rub their fricking nose in it, which is exactly what that ad did. So completely tone deaf shows a complete lack of competence. Yeah, for, for sure. So let's kind of break this down into an action plan like we did before. So the how-to would be script myth-busting or demo shorts, publish them as reels or TikToks or shorts on YouTube, link directly to an offer. So that link directly to an offer is the collapsing of the customer journey we're looking for. The shortcut framework we're describing here is basically why, what, where. The why is start with why it matters, like why do it for Nike, right?

10:21What is the myth that we're going to bust? What is the pain point that the customer has that we're going to solve? What is the motivation to validate? This is our competence. This is why we are competent, right? Now, the what is showing what the person, the customer, that prospect is supposed to do and how our product or service works in practice. That's typically done as like a demo or a teardown or a tutorial or something like that. and then the where is the collapsing of the customer journey isn't going to happen if they can't buy it so show them at the end where to get it what's the direct cta the cause to the call to action that links to your product to your consult to your offer that's that's the step was that one two three you know three steps basically of of or or the three things why what where any thoughts tweaking plusing of that i like the myths i think myths are good another thing that can work in there is also doing this on what are your uh unique points of view uh and and stating it as we believe okay simon sinek did did the whole start with why thing and and so a lot of this is is stating your why like so that was that was nike's thing like what is your why Telling people here's why we're doing it is fine, but that can also sound a bit strange.

11:43We've had a lot of success just saying, here's what we believe, right? Here's some things that we believe because then the people who agree with that will go, oh, I believe that too. And so like, you know, one of the, and I mean, we got lists of these things. So I think one of the best things that a brand can do and one of the first things that we do is, you know, sit down with a brand and make a list of what are all your unique points of view that make you, you. And if you can just simply, you can create carousels for these. You can have the influencers go out and just state them. You can create campaigns around them, but getting out your unique points of view and your beliefs is another thing in addition to the myth busting.

12:23I like it. So let's give an example for a tax advisory firm. That also kind of goes to identity. If the company is speaking there, it kind of compresses the identity and competence trust, right? Because it's where the, we are the influencer that's speaking there about that we get you. So it's probably most competence, but it's also a bit of identity trust too. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's some overlap for sure. So let's say that we're a tax advisory firm and we want to raise our average order value. So, um, step one, we would script a 30 second video that busts a common myth, like why writing off your car lease doesn't work the way you think.

13:04Then, uh, step two, we'd film it in a conversational, not highly produced kind of informal style, uh, that would be very authentic, ideally with the founder or a relatable staffer. Uh, and staffers can be really good here. Step three, we would post the video on LinkedIn and Tik TOK, Instagram reels. Step four, we would include a direct link or link in bio to the, in the description at the end, uh, to book a free consults. That would be our call to action. And then we track step five. We track which leads came from the videos. Step six, measure our average order value on those leads. And we would be expecting a 10 to 15 % lift as the higher quality customers respond to the expertise.

13:47the anything on those steps that you would adjust? I think the steps are, I think the steps are fine. What I'll say, like the beauty of something like this to a sales process is very often when, when leads come in to a, to a sales pipeline, especially in B2B, they don't know what their actual problem is and they don't know what they want and they don't know how to articulate it. So when you start putting out this type of information, one of the best things that it accomplishes is you're naming their pain. And so when you give a name to somebody's pain, that is the ultimate way to demonstrate competence.

14:23It's what doctors do. And so when you name the pain, then when you talk to them, they say, hey, I got one of these things. And you say, oh, well, good news. We got a thing that happens to fix that thing. And it just makes the conversation so much easier to start as opposed to somebody coming in and they're saying, well, it just hurts over here. And you're having to start from the very beginning and it just takes a really long time and folks get frustrated. So having this type of content that helps people to name their pain or gets them coming in, in this case saying, I think I might've messed up in writing off my car lease.

14:59Like, can you, can you help me fix that? I think I might've screwed that up. That's why it works so well. I like it. So from a KPI standpoint, we're thinking that competence, trust raises AOV by proving value and expertise. It encourages bundles. It encourages upgrades. There was an article in MediaCat that talked about this as desirable friction. And I kind of like that. Like Nike's question makes the campaign more memorable in that collapsible journey because frictionless is forgettable, but a desired kind of friction, like, well, why am I doing it? Questioning, thinking about it. You know, did I write my lease off wrong?

15:39wrong that's that's friction but it's not like you know uh fingernails on a chalkboard you know like the maybe the mulvaney thing was or the kendall jenner thing was um that i kind of like that what do you what do you think about that is there like a way to create desirable friction yeah well i think there's always going to be friction in the sales process and so the question is where do you want to put it and how evenly do you want to space it out but this is a friction not in the process. This is like a friction that you're creating in the mind of the customer that is positive and driving them to take the action you want to take.

16:15Yeah, I would argue it's the same kind of thing because in the sales process, what a good salesperson is doing is kind of walking somebody through this process over the phone or during the process and they're having to take this big leap. All we're doing here is allowing them to go through this process on their own so that they're going through their own state of awareness in their own time, not burning up your sales reps time, you know, not burning up your time. And, and because they're coming to the conclusion on their own, and this is what I think makes it positive because they're coming up with their, their own conclusion.

16:52They truly trust it. It's not, they haven't been convinced of it by somebody else. So that's the distinction, but it's, it's a distinction that still the overall process that's taking place is the same process that's always been. Okay. That makes sense. Um, anything else that you can think of that might be good with respects to, to share with this competence trust concept, or we can go on to proximity trust. I would just go back to, because I think it's so important that I want to sort of hammer this. The ultimate way to demonstrate competence is to speak your prospect's problem better than they can.

17:40If you can describe your prospect's problem better than they can, then that is the ultimate signal of competence. and just think about every single person that you trust in your life, that's what they do. And so be that to them and you will demonstrate competence. Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. And incidentally, a simple way to do that, if you just want a very tactical piece, go to ChadGPT, say, you are, insert the, you know, a description of your ideal client. please list in your own words the top 10 problems, issues, and challenges that you face when trying to and then insert the thing that you know your ideal client or prospect is attempting to do.

18:28I like it. If they were to buy from you. It's shocking how, you know, the information that you get from that. Then when you get 10, ask for 10 more, ask for 10 more. When you get 30, that's where the gold is. I like that a lot. So then that brings us to our third type of trust, which is proximity trust. And the idea here is that the people that are closest to you will sell the best for you. So a positive example is DSW. DSW is the discount shoe warehouse, which I think DSW probably sounds better than that. So I think it's good. They don't call it that right out. Shoe retailer, affordable fashion footwear.

19:08And what the ad said was, let us surprise you. And the campaign reframed in-store shopping as fun. Because going to a big shoe discount warehouse doesn't sound particularly fun, I don't think. But it featured AR, augmented reality mirrors, so that you could see the shoes that you were trying on with outfits that they were styled for you that went with the shoes, which is kind of interesting and risky, but, but also fun because even a terrible outfit would be fun to like laugh and share with friends and, you know, be like, that looks terrible. Ha ha ha. Um, so I think, I think that's really cool.

19:46Um, the, the idea was basically try and then see what it looks like with your clothes and buy all in one step. And that's in store. So the, you know, the method of buying immediately was, was in the store, but it kind of brought people into the store to have the experience of the fund. So, so I think that was kind of interesting. The proof was employee posts, employee posts of that experience led to 561 % more reach for the media that DSW was putting out. 70 % of consumers tend to trust brands when employees share. So having the employee share was pretty cool. So I guess I've got two questions for you on that example.

20:39If I have a service business, let's say, and there isn't really an augmented reality tech play, or even I have a retail business, I think there is an easy way to do it, but let's say that you can't figure it out, how would you put proximity trust to work? Would it be like having your employees tell stories? Would it be having, you know, their families or the founder? What's the best way to do that, do you think? I mean, the simplest thing that everybody should be doing, because it's much easier now and very basic, but just accepting currency in somebody's, you know, preferred, based on the country they're in.

21:17If you're an international business taking money from different countries, you should probably accept the currency there. Like that is a biggie. We've seen upticks from UK when we accept the British pound. I mean, it really is that simple. I'm not saying it's, you know, depending on the locale, it can be more complicated, but especially for service-based businesses, when the numbers are big, it could be important. Similarly, having websites that are.co.uk and those kind of things so that you're looking more like you are there. That type of stuff can absolutely matter. It can affect. Now, if you don't have an in-store component, because that really does make it look, that is your store.

22:04And so making your store look like it is at least in the region, that that's helpful. If you don't, apart from the store though, let's think about your, your ads and your, and your visuals. I was watching this Nissan ad and I noticed it because the car that was in the ad is the same car that I bought my son. And, and I was like, oh cool. They filmed this ad in Austin because I could clearly see that it was the Austin skyline. I was like, that's neat. They filmed it in Austin and it made me feel really good about the purchase that I made. And then a couple of weeks ago, I happened to be in Denver.

22:35I saw the same freaking ad. And guess what? It was the Denver skyline. And what I realized is this is just AI. That's pretty cool. It's just AI. All of us could do this. So if you know that you're marketing to different cities, to different geographies, if you're marketing to colder climates, to mountainous regions and have mountains in the background, If it's a desert, then have a freaking desert. Make it feel like that your product works wherever they are. And then the third thing I would say, going back to the micro-influencers that we talked about in the previous episode that everybody should go listen to after this one, finding micro-influencers that are in different regions and just doing a quick search for what are our top cities, our top states, and finding micro-influencers who are in those areas.

23:27You can say, hey, Janice here from Austin, Frank here from San Diego. If there's a call out to somebody's city, now they're more likely to trust it because it worked for somebody in their area. Even things like accents matter, right? If somebody hears somebody with a Southern accent and they're Southern, well, that's gonna sound good. Whereas Southerners, if they hear somebody with a Northern accent, they're like, well, this only works for freaking Yankees. Screw those guys. So three things that I think can help to localize and make your product and your business feel a lot closer than maybe it is.

24:04Why do you think that using employees versus, say, a micro-influencer has as much as a 5 or 6x additional response or reach? I just think we're, most people are employees. Yeah. Right. That most people are employees. Most people are not business owners and most people are not celebrities. And so, and they're not influencers. And so I think when you see an employee speaking, and I think most of us have worked at jobs that we actually liked, and most of us have worked at jobs that we don't. And so when you see an employee who is willing to speak positively on behalf of the brand, that does speak volumes.

24:46I think that's it too. Behind the scenes. Yeah. I think it's like, you couldn't get your employees to do this if they didn't like you. So therefore you must treat them well. So I like you that you did that. And it's probably honest because as an employee myself, if my, you know, I would never do that ad, right. Or I would do that ad, you know, and so I think it just has such credibility. Yeah. Especially if the ad can be one of the walk-up ones. I've seen these before where, you know, it's somebody with a, with a phone and you see them walk up as though they're, you know, kind of surprising the employee and asking him a question.

25:18My guess is every single time they've told them that they're going to do that. But if it has that idea that, that it's unprompted, just that, that visual, I think adds a, an air of authenticity to it. A couple of things to give you guys ideas, things that worked, um, Starbucks barista TikToks. So they would go up to basically different baristas at Starbucks and say, what are your secret menu hacks? Or show us your latte art. And that's really cool. 100 million plus views, huge surges in orders. Also Apple retail. So whether specialists or geniuses, because at some point they changed the geniuses to specialists, but Apple's frontline staff consistently drive top line loyalty.

26:05And Forrester ranked Apple retail number one for customer experience and retention impact. That's because when you go into an Apple store, you don't feel like you're going to have the typical experience of someone who doesn't even know where in the store, the thing you're looking for is located. You actually feel like you can ask questions that are slightly technical and you'll get an answer. And that just is so powerful that it helps sell the thing. And you also know that all those employees in the store are using Apple products, right? And they're, you know, under 35 years old, most of them.

26:41So they can actually, you know, they know the latest, I think as we record here, we're on OS 26, you know, for iOS. So it's like, they're not going to be living, you know, on a BlackBerry still. Probably not. Yeah. Chipotle right now is running an ad series where it's employees that are, you know, making the guacamole. And then the whole thing is like, yep, we really do make the guacamole fresh every day. And they're walking around in the back and we don't have any freezers here. Everything does come in fresh every single day. And it is more believable because it's an employee. But I'll tell you, I think the commercials look too professional.

27:18I think they'd be far more effective if those ads look like they were shot on an iPhone. Even if it was a vertical video and had the black bands on the side. It looks ugly on a TV, but it would get noticed. Nobody in the brand department at Chipotle is going to let that go through because it's unprofessional. The only thing that would happen is it would get noticed. Yeah. Now the negative side, probably the most memorable one was, I don't know if it was actual employees or if it was TSA or if it was private security of some other sort. But in a few years back, United Airlines, there was a viral video of a passenger being drug off a plane.