How Small Businesses Can Compete by Building Trust | RR352

This week, I sit down with Nick Richtsmeier to explore something many business owners feel but struggle to articulate: trust is eroding, and it is affecting every sales conversation.
Nick challenges the traditional growth playbook. Instead of treating hesitation, resistance, or disengagement as problems to fix, he reframes them as valuable data. Distrust is not a failure. It is information.
We talk about why digital systems reward speed and extraction over relationship building, and why small businesses feel the impact most. Nick introduces the idea of “trust nodes” as simple, human touch points that shape long-term loyalty far more effectively than funnels or persuasion tactics.
If you have ever wondered why prospects seem more skeptical, why sales cycles feel longer, or why pushing harder no longer works, this conversation will give you language and clarity.
At its heart, this episode is about returning to what actually grows business:
authentic relationships built on transparency, alignment, and integrity.
Key Takeaways
- Resistance in a sales conversation is not rejection. It is feedback.
- Distrust often reveals misalignment in expectations, incentives, or promises.
- Small relational moments, or trust nodes, matter more than automated campaigns.
- Traditional persuasion tactics are losing effectiveness in a skeptical market.
- Sustainable growth comes from strengthening relationships, not gaming systems.
You can find Nick at: Culturecraft.com
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A LinkedIn Checklist for setting up your fully optimized Profile:
An opportunity to test drive the Follow Up system I recommend by checking this presentation page - you won’t regret it.
AND … Don’t forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and be eligible for my complimentary LinkedIn profile audit – I do one each month for a lucky listener!
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Nick, Hello everyone, and welcome to this
Janice Porter:week's episode of relationships rule. My guest today is Nick.
Janice Porter:Rick Meyer, and Nick is a growth strategist and founder of
Janice Porter:culture craft who challenges conventional digital and
Janice Porter:marketing rules, helping leaders rebuild trust as the foundation
Janice Porter:for sustainable business growth in what he calls a post trust
Janice Porter:world. Welcome to the show,
Nick Richtsmeier:Nick, thank you. Janice, so glad to be here.
Nick Richtsmeier:I appreciate that.
Janice Porter:We had a chat last week, and I really enjoyed
Janice Porter:talking to you, and since then, I've done a little bit of
Janice Porter:reading of some of your stuff and some of your like your
Janice Porter:website and some blogs, and listen to you speak, and I'm
Janice Porter:like, I'm not sure that that, you know I can keep up with your
Janice Porter:level of rhetoric, but what I get from everything And from our
Janice Porter:conversation, is that we are on the same page when it comes to
Janice Porter:relationships in business, and so I think when we talk about
Janice Porter:the lack the the lack of trust, or the distrust that's happening
Janice Porter:these days, I think I recognize that in what I see as I'm so fed
Janice Porter:up with everything being digital that I can't, that people don't,
Janice Porter:don't bring it down to the caring and the of people. And so
Janice Porter:I want to know your perspective and what has changed in the you
Janice Porter:know, the marketing world, the world today in business. And why
Janice Porter:does this matter so much right now? I know you're going to have
Janice Porter:a take on that. Yeah.
Nick Richtsmeier:I mean, I think we're at an inflection
Nick Richtsmeier:point, you know? I think the undermining of trust and by the
Nick Richtsmeier:digital ecosystem and the all these tools that we were told
Nick Richtsmeier:that we were told that we're supposed to create connection
Nick Richtsmeier:and bring us together and blah blah blah, ended up doing
Nick Richtsmeier:nothing of the sort. And that doesn't mean there weren't some
Nick Richtsmeier:good things, you know. It doesn't mean you weren't, didn't
Nick Richtsmeier:reconnect with your, you know, high school best friend through
Nick Richtsmeier:Facebook or whatever, you know. But writ large, we've been on
Nick Richtsmeier:this probably 10 to 15 year journey of digital moving from a
Nick Richtsmeier:sort of creative ecosystem where people can find each other and
Nick Richtsmeier:find information and it's sort of expansive and interesting to
Nick Richtsmeier:one that's really primarily extractive, that what that
Nick Richtsmeier:spending time online is more and more a feeling of what company
Nick Richtsmeier:is trying to get, what from me, and what am I being surveillance
Nick Richtsmeier:and data and, you know, all that kind of and AI and all of that
Nick Richtsmeier:like it just, it's not pleasant, and it's not pleasant for a
Nick Richtsmeier:reason. It's, it's not just because, you know, it's not just
Nick Richtsmeier:because it's like, the the design of it's bad or something.
Nick Richtsmeier:It's actually designed that way on purpose, and and we can go,
Nick Richtsmeier:oh, well, great. Well, then let's just all get off social
Nick Richtsmeier:media. That'll be great. Well, you know, some sort of
Nick Richtsmeier:technology solution. The reality is, we all now come to the world
Nick Richtsmeier:with a much more cynical eye. There's all kinds of evidence
Nick Richtsmeier:for this, that the trust in institutions is at historic
Nick Richtsmeier:lows, that we're much less willing or interested to walk
Nick Richtsmeier:across the room and engage someone who's unfamiliar or new
Nick Richtsmeier:because of our expanse of distrust. And you know, I was on
Nick Richtsmeier:a call conversation this morning with a colleague, there's
Nick Richtsmeier:increasing evidence that our emotional fragility, we're just
Nick Richtsmeier:more we just more emotionally kind of wound up, so to Speak,
Nick Richtsmeier:because of our online experiences that we don't handle
Nick Richtsmeier:disappointment and frustration and these things that are just
Nick Richtsmeier:normal human experiences. We're just we're just grumpier, right?
Nick Richtsmeier:And all of that just makes having real relationships
Nick Richtsmeier:harder. So this, this idea that I think a lot of people go,
Nick Richtsmeier:Well, yeah, digital and online is kind of a BS, reality, social
Nick Richtsmeier:media, AI, whatever. But what I think people have missed, and
Nick Richtsmeier:why this is so important, is that we forget that our brains
Nick Richtsmeier:are being wired by the amount of time that we're spending in
Nick Richtsmeier:these environments, and now the way we experience digital is now
Nick Richtsmeier:seeping in to how we experience real life, and that's that's
Nick Richtsmeier:scary, right? Because relationships and how we engage
Nick Richtsmeier:each other is what really matters totally.
Janice Porter:So when we say that and when you say we I think
Janice Porter:I could be wrong, but my experience seems to be that it
Janice Porter:depends on what generation you. Are as to whether you see it
Janice Porter:from, you know, one side of the coin or the other. Because so
Janice Porter:many of the young people they've grown up with that, that they
Janice Porter:grew up in that digital even, I got to say this even something
Janice Porter:the other day, my granddaughter, who's six, six and a half, she
Janice Porter:proudly says her mom found, bless you. Her mom found a
Janice Porter:drawing app that she put on the child's iPad that she uses for
Janice Porter:educational stuff, and she loves it, and she's drawing and
Janice Porter:stopping the thing and drawing whatever. And ironically, I had
Janice Porter:just bought her a book with that kind of thing in it, where you
Janice Porter:copy the drawing step by step, and she'd already seen the app,
Janice Porter:so she's using the app. So when I introduced her to the book,
Janice Porter:she wasn't as interested. It was really weird, because she's so
Janice Porter:geared towards the screen. Terrible thing. She's six and a
Janice Porter:half, and I think it's too much. However it's again, the
Janice Porter:perspective is different, because that's what she's
Janice Porter:growing up with.
Nick Richtsmeier:Well, I think I wouldn't frame it as
Nick Richtsmeier:generational. I would frame it as exposure, okay? And because
Nick Richtsmeier:there's, there's really good evidence, and I have some
Nick Richtsmeier:anecdotal experiences as well that there's an enormous number
Nick Richtsmeier:of young people who are moving to a low
Janice Porter:digital Thank goodness. Love to hear that,
Nick Richtsmeier:because they don't like it. They you know,
Nick Richtsmeier:the advantage, in some ways, the advantage of being 14 or 17 or
Nick Richtsmeier:20 in this current digital environment is you kind of
Nick Richtsmeier:weren't alive for the good part. Yeah, like, or you were maybe
Nick Richtsmeier:alive, but you were little or whatever, right? So you've never
Nick Richtsmeier:had a good social media experience. For someone who's
Nick Richtsmeier:17, their entire experience of social media has been bullying
Nick Richtsmeier:and terrible image expectations and advertising and so it
Nick Richtsmeier:really, it's about exposure, I mean, because, for example, one
Nick Richtsmeier:of the really pervasive issues is that people 50 and above
Nick Richtsmeier:wholesale committed to Facebook over the 2010s and they haven't
Nick Richtsmeier:left. Right? Most people younger than them have left.
Janice Porter:Yeah, they're the only ones there. Yeah, exactly,
Janice Porter:yeah.
Nick Richtsmeier:And that platform in specific, is
Nick Richtsmeier:incredibly destructive from a validation of data, distribution
Nick Richtsmeier:of reality, use of AI, right? There's enormous problems. So
Nick Richtsmeier:if, if if you have a lot of really nice, thoughtful, you
Nick Richtsmeier:know, people who have who should be very analog focused, folks
Nick Richtsmeier:who who spend four or five hours a day on Facebook, you know, and
Nick Richtsmeier:they they're there. They're there because originally they
Nick Richtsmeier:were there to see their grandkids photos or whatever,
Nick Richtsmeier:but now they're being inundated by this non reality?
Janice Porter:Yeah, that's so true. Okay, so let's, let's go
Janice Porter:to this trust eroding environment in business. Can you
Janice Porter:explain what this looks like in everyday business terms for a
Janice Porter:small business owner or sales professional?
Nick Richtsmeier:Yeah, absolutely it. It means that the
Nick Richtsmeier:starting point for anybody who's buying for you is that you're
Nick Richtsmeier:not you're not on their side. The starting point for almost
Nick Richtsmeier:everybody who sits across the table from you, whether it's a
Nick Richtsmeier:future employee or a future customer or whatever, the
Nick Richtsmeier:starting point is distrust, because that's how we've been
Nick Richtsmeier:socialized. They're expecting an extractive experience, because
Nick Richtsmeier:the majority of experiences they have with providers and vendors
Nick Richtsmeier:is extractive. What does that mean? Extra means that they're
Nick Richtsmeier:taking from you instead of giving to you, okay, and
Nick Richtsmeier:certainly on the employment front and the other and the
Nick Richtsmeier:reality of that is, the more you're generating that
Nick Richtsmeier:opportunity. Let's say that that perspective customer that you're
Nick Richtsmeier:sitting across the table from, that you they found you by way
Nick Richtsmeier:of your ads on LinkedIn, which then went to a landing page,
Nick Richtsmeier:which then went to a website, which they went to, whatever,
Nick Richtsmeier:all of the parts of the brain that those certain experiences
Nick Richtsmeier:fire with those parts of the brain are used to being lied to
Nick Richtsmeier:and manipulated and so, so now you're right. Remember a billion
Nick Richtsmeier:years ago, right when you sell, when advertising used to be like
Nick Richtsmeier:billboards and TV commercials and all of that, businesses were
Nick Richtsmeier:really, really careful, like, what sitcom they put their
Nick Richtsmeier:commercial into, because what you were next to told your buyer
Nick Richtsmeier:what
Janice Porter:kind of company you were right. That's who you
Janice Porter:identified
Nick Richtsmeier:with, right? And we don't do that anymore.
Nick Richtsmeier:Right now, businesses are putting their advertisements
Nick Richtsmeier:into a. Social media feed right next to somebody who's putting
Nick Richtsmeier:up an AI image that's falsifying a news story that, and all of
Nick Richtsmeier:that is just going through the same part of somebody's brain,
Nick Richtsmeier:right? And so we have to completely rethink about how we
Nick Richtsmeier:find each other, because if we keep finding each other through
Nick Richtsmeier:these distrustful venues as the primary way. That doesn't mean,
Nick Richtsmeier:I'm not saying that you can't be on LinkedIn if you're a business
Nick Richtsmeier:owner, that's fine, but you've got to start to think about the
Nick Richtsmeier:long term effects of that. Yeah.
Janice Porter:And you have to be discerning, questioning,
Janice Porter:curious kind of person, and not everybody is
Nick Richtsmeier:so yeah. I mean, I the the level of
Nick Richtsmeier:critical thinking that it requires today to just be able
Nick Richtsmeier:to sort through what's true and what isn't is, I know,
Nick Richtsmeier:significantly higher.
Janice Porter:Yeah, it's, it's very scary. I actually came
Janice Porter:across a post that that you put up yesterday. I think it was,
Janice Porter:it's very short. It just says, I just got off a call with I kind
Janice Porter:of want to challenge this interesting comment, but I just
Janice Porter:got off a call with a client who has valuable roles to fill, only
Janice Porter:two hours after a colleague with a very strong following here on
Janice Porter:LinkedIn, I assume that lamented another month of extended
Janice Porter:unemployment. The client specifically said, We've got to
Janice Porter:stop wasting time with LinkedIn. And then you say, I'm convinced
Janice Porter:more people would be more gainfully employed if this app
Janice Porter:didn't exist. Was that you saying that?
Nick Richtsmeier:That's me, that I believe that. Okay,
Janice Porter:so I challenged that a little bit, but speak to
Janice Porter:me about that.
Nick Richtsmeier:I think that millions and millions and
Nick Richtsmeier:millions of dollars and 10s of millions of hours of attention
Nick Richtsmeier:are being spent trying to force feed connections through a
Nick Richtsmeier:platform, okay, yeah, that reliably doesn't work. You have
Nick Richtsmeier:there are people, and I know many of them that are spending
Nick Richtsmeier:dozens of hours on LinkedIn every week trying to post the
Nick Richtsmeier:right thing and click on the right person and find the right
Nick Richtsmeier:connection and blah, blah, blah to apply to the right thing that
Nick Richtsmeier:then feeds them, and they've applied to hundreds of positions
Nick Richtsmeier:on LinkedIn, yes, 600 700 800 positions on LinkedIn never even
Nick Richtsmeier:gotten a response.
Janice Porter:So that that part, I totally agree with you
Janice Porter:that that happens on a daily basis, and I think it's
Janice Porter:terrible, and it's frustrating and but to me, that goes back
Janice Porter:to, you know, even when you were just sending your resume and
Janice Porter:cover letter to the recruiting agents, you know, by mail, it
Janice Porter:was the same thing, they all sat in a pile on the desk. Because
Janice Porter:ultimately, it's about people. It's not about right? It's about
Janice Porter:network.
Nick Richtsmeier:I think that's true. But even you the story,
Nick Richtsmeier:the example you're describing, of the recruiting agent, there's
Nick Richtsmeier:legitimate friction there, and that for that friction is
Nick Richtsmeier:valuable. So the effort that it takes for me to write a write a
Nick Richtsmeier:cover letter and produce a resume and mail it, and the
Nick Richtsmeier:friction that it requires for a recruiting manager to review,
Nick Richtsmeier:like all of that friction is human friction, it's not digital
Nick Richtsmeier:friction, it's human friction, right? And that human friction
Nick Richtsmeier:allows us to make better decisions. So I am convinced
Nick Richtsmeier:that that recruiting manager with 600 resumes on her desk is
Nick Richtsmeier:in a better position to hire someone successfully than the
Nick Richtsmeier:recruiting manager with 4000 candidates from five different
Nick Richtsmeier:apps in her inbox where she can't even access them because
Nick Richtsmeier:the platform and some of them are through ads and some of them
Nick Richtsmeier:aren't. And instead of spending time with the application, she's
Nick Richtsmeier:going, Well, gosh, which one of these have we screened through
Nick Richtsmeier:the AI? And which should we? Should we switch our ads from
Nick Richtsmeier:LinkedIn over to indeed, maybe indeed has better at right? And
Nick Richtsmeier:the attention, because attention is so important, the attention
Nick Richtsmeier:being spent on manipulating the digital platforms is attention
Nick Richtsmeier:that isn't going to reading the resumes. That's why that woman
Nick Richtsmeier:sitting there with the 600 resumes on her desk, if, if
Nick Richtsmeier:she's got three hours set aside to find the candidate that day,
Nick Richtsmeier:we know she's going to spend it on the resumes. We don't know
Nick Richtsmeier:that today, in fact, we know that she's probably not going to
Nick Richtsmeier:spend it on the resumes.
Janice Porter:But then today, I still think that I've always
Janice Porter:believed this, that it's not what you know, it's who you
Janice Porter:know, and if you are able to use the platform, in this case,
Janice Porter:LinkedIn, to find a way in to somebody who knows, somebody
Janice Porter:that you know, in. That particular company that you
Janice Porter:would like to get into, or, you know, whatever, then if that
Janice Porter:person gives you a little nudge to the person with the 4000
Janice Porter:resumes on their desk, they're going to look, if they respect
Janice Porter:that person, if they know that person, if they trust that
Janice Porter:person, they're going to look for that resume. Because it
Janice Porter:makes it a little bit easier. I know that's favoritism and all
Janice Porter:of that.
Nick Richtsmeier:No, that's not the issue that I mean that would
Nick Richtsmeier:be great if it was true, but that's not the reality is that
Nick Richtsmeier:person that you're trying to reach to give you that nudge,
Nick Richtsmeier:they don't check their DMS in LinkedIn anymore because their
Nick Richtsmeier:DMS are full of sales trash and automated AI messages, so
Nick Richtsmeier:they've stopped reading their DMS, so you can't even reach
Nick Richtsmeier:somebody through LinkedIn anymore, and I'm broke, so I
Nick Richtsmeier:can't afford to DM people on LinkedIn anymore because it's
Nick Richtsmeier:now a paid service. I can't afford to pay the DM service
Nick Richtsmeier:anymore because I don't have a job, whereas before it was a
Nick Richtsmeier:phone call or a postage stamp. Now I have to figure out, or I
Nick Richtsmeier:meet somebody for coffee right now, if I want to use LinkedIn
Nick Richtsmeier:to do it, it's going to cost me a $600 or $1,200 membership to
Nick Richtsmeier:LinkedIn, money I don't have.
Janice Porter:Well, that's totally that is. That is an
Janice Porter:example, for sure. And there are people in that situation,
Janice Porter:definitely.
Nick Richtsmeier:I mean, there are hundreds of 1000s of people
Nick Richtsmeier:in that situation. Yeah. So your premise is correct? It is
Nick Richtsmeier:people. The question is, is LinkedIn the best possible way
Nick Richtsmeier:we could imagine to get people to find each other? And
Nick Richtsmeier:increasingly, it's the worst?
Janice Porter:Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to say it's the worst.
Janice Porter:I'm not going to agree with that, but I think that the the
Janice Porter:the whole thing of coming back to relationships and
Janice Porter:relationship building in a more authentic way, or, you know,
Janice Porter:yeah, and there are different strategies to get people to the
Janice Porter:right people that can be better than what most people don't.
Janice Porter:Most people don't have a clue, to be honest, and that's the
Janice Porter:problem when it comes to how to use that platform. I did a
Janice Porter:presentation yesterday in front of 50 people, and I said, How
Janice Porter:many people have a LinkedIn profile? And they all put up
Janice Porter:their hand, except for maybe one or two. And I said, How many
Janice Porter:people are using LinkedIn? Maybe five put up their hand. So, you
Janice Porter:know, they don't know what they're working with or how to
Janice Porter:make it better. So that's an aside, though, now, because
Janice Porter:that's not what we're here for, but I just see it as you know,
Janice Porter:one of the things is, you've gotta find a way that makes you
Janice Porter:stand out from the crowd. Whether it's because you picked
Janice Porter:up the phone and called somebody and maybe they didn't answer,
Janice Porter:that's fine. Most people don't, but when they do, oh my god,
Janice Porter:it's such a bonus. But when they don't, at least they've heard
Janice Porter:from somebody in a different way. And so you've drawn
Janice Porter:attention to it. It's funny. I interviewed a guy a while ago,
Janice Porter:and I can't remember his name right now, but he was telling
Janice Porter:stories about he also was about relationship building and
Janice Porter:whatever. And he in the he was a pharmaceutical salesperson back
Janice Porter:in the early days, and that's what he he wanted to meet
Janice Porter:doctors. And he, you know, they're the hardest people to
Janice Porter:get hold of and he said that he would put on a, you know, a
Janice Porter:doctor's coat, white coat, medical coat, whatever you call
Janice Porter:them, and go stand in the parking lot to just when this
Janice Porter:guy, you know, the doctor, was coming. He would do these trick
Janice Porter:things, these, you know, strangely courageous things in
Janice Porter:my mind, but sometimes funny. And he would get to have the
Janice Porter:conversation because he stood out, or he would send crazy
Janice Porter:gifts to them or whatever. But people have lost that by the
Janice Porter:way, they've lost that ingenuity because a lot of people feel
Janice Porter:entitled these days. So there's that side of it, too. I think,
Janice Porter:yeah,
Nick Richtsmeier:that's not my experience. When I talk to
Nick Richtsmeier:people who are underemployed, who are trying to find their
Nick Richtsmeier:next great position, or I'm talking to founders who have
Nick Richtsmeier:built great small businesses that they're trying to find a
Nick Richtsmeier:way to not have to spend 15 or 20% of their revenue on ads.
Nick Richtsmeier:It's I don't find entitlement. What I find is exhaustion.
Janice Porter:Okay, so you talk about when a prospect hesitates,
Janice Porter:disengages, or goes quiet, and this would be to those founders
Janice Porter:that you were just talking about. I'm thinking most people
Janice Porter:see that that is a problem. You see it as information. What
Janice Porter:should these people be doing to be paying attention to in these
Janice Porter:moments? How is it information?
Nick Richtsmeier:Yeah, I mean, behavior is always information.
Nick Richtsmeier:So when someone's exhibiting a behavior, often out of our own
Nick Richtsmeier:drive or neediness or whatever we try to, we try to change the
Nick Richtsmeier:behavior. And the problem is, as soon as like, it's just like.
Nick Richtsmeier:With, like, with your kids, right? As soon as you try and,
Nick Richtsmeier:hey, stop doing that, then they want to do it more, right? Yeah.
Nick Richtsmeier:And so that's just not how human beings work. So when you have,
Nick Richtsmeier:when you're having the experience that someone's
Nick Richtsmeier:showing you signs of distrust, then your first question should
Nick Richtsmeier:be, why? Why is this reasonable person distrustful? Not? What
Nick Richtsmeier:can I do to get their attention? That's what the internet teaches
Nick Richtsmeier:you, is, what can I do to get their attention right? More,
Nick Richtsmeier:more, more. No, you need to have the humility, yeah, to say this
Nick Richtsmeier:reasonable person is distrustful is giving me distrustful
Nick Richtsmeier:behavior. We don't know if they're distrustful Right,
Nick Richtsmeier:right, but they're giving me distrustful behavior. I wonder
Nick Richtsmeier:why that is, and then that will impact what my next best action
Nick Richtsmeier:is. Now my next best action is also going to depend on what
Nick Richtsmeier:access to them I have. I've already emailed them three
Nick Richtsmeier:times, and they're ignoring me and they're giving me
Nick Richtsmeier:distrustful behavior. Is a fourth email really going to
Nick Richtsmeier:build trust? Probably not. No, right? So again, some of this
Nick Richtsmeier:depends on context and all of that when we stop competing for
Nick Richtsmeier:attention, this game that we've been incentivized into for the
Nick Richtsmeier:for a decade or more, and we start treating people as
Nick Richtsmeier:reasonable actors who are doing what just makes sense to them in
Nick Richtsmeier:life, then we can go, Okay, I'm kind of a distrustful person
Nick Richtsmeier:too, and I don't really like sales calls and I don't really
Nick Richtsmeier:like people, you know, intersecting themselves into my
Nick Richtsmeier:life. So how might I add value to this person? How might I make
Nick Richtsmeier:their situation better? Right? And there's going to be a flurry
Nick Richtsmeier:of answers depending on what your relationship then is. Have
Nick Richtsmeier:you ever actually met them? Is this a cold call, right? There's
Nick Richtsmeier:all of that's contextual, but that's, that's what I mean by
Nick Richtsmeier:distrust, is information.
Janice Porter:So I'm thinking that if we get that information,
Janice Porter:then we know we have to pivot somehow to get their attention,
Janice Porter:and we can't really do anything direct, because we're not
Janice Porter:they're not my client yet, they're not your client yet.
Janice Porter:They're prospects still. So So that takes either a lot of
Janice Porter:ingenuity or someone to help you who's got that ingenuity to to
Janice Porter:make that happen. So most people get stuck there. So what do I
Janice Porter:do?
Nick Richtsmeier:Well, I some of it. I I would build a
Nick Richtsmeier:business where, where, which I've done, and I coach other
Nick Richtsmeier:people do where, with everything in my power, I would never be in
Nick Richtsmeier:a situation doing cold outreach. That's the number. That's the
Nick Richtsmeier:first thing I would do. Okay, so the situation that you're
Nick Richtsmeier:describing sounds like cold outreach to me. I'm not a cold
Nick Richtsmeier:outreach expert, so I don't know. Once you piss somebody
Nick Richtsmeier:off, I don't know. Yeah, no. Good point, like, good luck. I
Nick Richtsmeier:mean, again, there are people out there that are really good
Nick Richtsmeier:at that kind of thing, and I just am. That's just not my
Nick Richtsmeier:business. I think the what I advise people to do is, from the
Nick Richtsmeier:jump, build networks of relationships, so that you're
Nick Richtsmeier:never in a position having to build cold relationships, right?
Janice Porter:Okay, that's where I was hoping that you
Janice Porter:would go. Is that what you call trust nodes?
Nick Richtsmeier:So trust nodes are places where trust
Nick Richtsmeier:transactions happen. So a trust node is anywhere where we can
Nick Richtsmeier:trade value for trust, right? And so value might be me
Nick Richtsmeier:listening to you. That's value. And so if I give you that little
Nick Richtsmeier:bit of value, you're going to give me a little going to give
Nick Richtsmeier:me a little bit of trust back right. Value might be showing up
Nick Richtsmeier:on time. Value might be being the one to buy the coffee. Value
Nick Richtsmeier:might be following up with a email afterward that says, hey,
Nick Richtsmeier:this is my notes of what we talked about. These aren't AI
Nick Richtsmeier:generated. This is generally what I thought was important
Nick Richtsmeier:about our conversation. Really appreciate your time, right? And
Nick Richtsmeier:and smart business development people and business development
Nick Richtsmeier:work builds on those little nodes over time, because what
Nick Richtsmeier:happens in the back of the brain, which is where trust
Nick Richtsmeier:happens, is those then all that stuff compiles, and now all of a
Nick Richtsmeier:sudden, I've trusted you in that 10 minutes that you listened to
Nick Richtsmeier:me, and I've trusted you to buy the coffee, and I've trusted you
Nick Richtsmeier:to give you the time to read the review of our meeting together,
Nick Richtsmeier:and I've trusted you that I gave you the my cell phone number,
Nick Richtsmeier:right? And now all those little bits of trust are adding up, and
Nick Richtsmeier:I, as the person who's doing business development, is what
Nick Richtsmeier:I'm watching that happen, right? Because all behavior is
Nick Richtsmeier:information. I'm watching that happen. And I notice when we've
Nick Richtsmeier:built an up enough trust for me to pull from the bank account
Nick Richtsmeier:and to go, Hey, can I? Can I offer an opportunity for me?
Nick Richtsmeier:Invest further in this relationship for us to do more
Nick Richtsmeier:together. Are we? Are you open to that conversation? And you're
Nick Richtsmeier:now in the habit of saying yes to me. It's the thing that in
Nick Richtsmeier:our trainings we call yes momentum. You have yes momentum
Nick Richtsmeier:with me, and now I can ask something a little bit more
Nick Richtsmeier:risky, because you've learned that when you say yes to me,
Nick Richtsmeier:good things happen.
Janice Porter:Okay, this is good. So I've had conversations
Janice Porter:with two different people lately. That one was on my
Janice Porter:podcast just recently, and the other one a while ago, and
Janice Porter:they're both talking about this being the year of referrals.
Janice Porter:Okay, it is referral time. I mean, we again. It's back to
Janice Porter:relationships, and back to, you know, people that know and trust
Janice Porter:you, that you want to do business with. And then that'll
Janice Porter:make it easier if they refer people that you can also know
Janice Porter:that anyway, you know what I'm saying. So one of them says you
Janice Porter:never have to ask for referrals. If you do business properly, you
Janice Porter:don't have to ask for referrals. Referrals. The other one says,
Janice Porter:this is, and this is this one is done through a process that we
Janice Porter:look at on LinkedIn that will help you get to people that can
Janice Porter:be referred by someone in your right, in your circle of
Janice Porter:influence. So which, where do you sit on that?
Nick Richtsmeier:I mean, I'm kind of neither.
Janice Porter:You are. You are a contrarian, though, yeah.
Nick Richtsmeier:I mean, I spent 10 years teaching a
Nick Richtsmeier:referral program to professional services people, okay, so, I
Nick Richtsmeier:mean, I, I don't teach it anymore, and I wouldn't
Nick Richtsmeier:necessarily draw from it, because it was 10 years ago, so
Nick Richtsmeier:it's a little old, yeah, but I know a little bit about this.
Nick Richtsmeier:What we what we frame as referrals, is really just to me,
Nick Richtsmeier:two things. One is, do the people who know about you know
Nick Richtsmeier:that you're open for business, meaning that you have space that
Nick Richtsmeier:you could take on people that you could help? So whether
Nick Richtsmeier:you're pinging people on LinkedIn, which, depending on
Nick Richtsmeier:how you do it can be very intrusive, or whether you
Nick Richtsmeier:magically are such an excellent service provider that people
Nick Richtsmeier:volunteer referrals to you. I mean, I that has been mostly my
Nick Richtsmeier:experience, so I hate to say that that person's wrong. I
Nick Richtsmeier:don't ask for referrals, and I mostly live exclusively on
Nick Richtsmeier:referrals. I wouldn't necessarily say that that's
Nick Richtsmeier:universally true, regardless the what you have to have is people
Nick Richtsmeier:who know that you have capacity to take on more clients or more
Nick Richtsmeier:people. And those people have to know who you'd like to work
Nick Richtsmeier:with. Fair enough.
Nick Richtsmeier:Yeah. And if people know that stuff tends to work out.
Janice Porter:Well, I would add a piece in there that I believe
Janice Porter:makes it happen, and that is that usually the people that
Janice Porter:bring you referrals are people that have known you forever. And
Janice Porter:would you know would always refer you because they love you.
Janice Porter:And then there's those you've worked with that had a
Janice Porter:successful experience with you, right? And but the the missing
Janice Porter:piece there for me is staying in touch with them. If you don't
Janice Porter:stay in touch with them, you get forgotten for the next shiny
Janice Porter:object.
Nick Richtsmeier:Oh, sure, yeah, right, yeah. I mean,
Nick Richtsmeier:that's what I mean. I guess I when I say those people have to
Nick Richtsmeier:know those two things. They have to know it in the current
Nick Richtsmeier:moment, right? They have to have to have enough reasonable
Nick Richtsmeier:experience with you in the last three months or six months or 12
Nick Richtsmeier:months, yeah, to know that those things are true.
Janice Porter:Yeah, that's when I was getting out there. Okay,
Janice Porter:so how does building trust? Wait, I just have to read this
Janice Porter:one. No. Okay, so for someone, okay, this is kind of
Janice Porter:interesting. You have said that the growth rules are stacked in
Janice Porter:favor of incumbents. Not sure what you mean. How can small
Janice Porter:businesses stop playing a game that quietly works against them?
Janice Porter:Do they mean against them or against the incumbents?
Nick Richtsmeier:No, against them as small businesses, yeah,
Nick Richtsmeier:okay, yeah, so
Janice Porter:the big boys versus the Yeah, yeah. So, can
Janice Porter:you speak to that a little
Nick Richtsmeier:bit Sure? I mean, and some of this is
Nick Richtsmeier:digital, like the platforms, the at, certainly the at the digital
Nick Richtsmeier:ad business, all of these things are overtly biased toward large
Nick Richtsmeier:existing players. Yes, there was a time where you could like game
Nick Richtsmeier:SEO as an as a as a startup, and use use search engines to sneak
Nick Richtsmeier:in, right and all of a sudden be this snappy new player that all
Nick Richtsmeier:of that's gone. Okay. And yet, if you talk to a small business
Nick Richtsmeier:that's starting, you know, they've had some success.
Nick Richtsmeier:They've been referral based. They they've never really needed
Nick Richtsmeier:a ton of marketing. Inevitably, they raise their hand and
Nick Richtsmeier:they're like, You know what we need? We need some social media.
Nick Richtsmeier:We need, we need to do, we need to do SEO. We need to, I want to
Nick Richtsmeier:be number one on Google.
Janice Porter:It's like they grab these things out of the
Janice Porter:air, and inevitably,
Nick Richtsmeier:I'm like, why? Yeah, why would you want to try
Nick Richtsmeier:and compete in the forum where you are overwhelmingly under
Nick Richtsmeier:resourced, right? Whereas, I think this is part of your arena
Nick Richtsmeier:is, you know, where you're never under resourced is across the
Nick Richtsmeier:table from somebody who knows you, or knows someone who knows
Nick Richtsmeier:you, right? Then it's just, then it's just trust and value. Yeah,
Nick Richtsmeier:exactly, and, and, but, but the level of resistance by leaders
Nick Richtsmeier:and founders to doing that, because they've been convinced
Nick Richtsmeier:that there's these magic wand things you can do on the
Nick Richtsmeier:internet to get around it, I know. And the good news is,
Nick Richtsmeier:whatever what there was of those magic one things, they're gone.
Nick Richtsmeier:They've been eaten by AI. And so now all that we have left is
Nick Richtsmeier:this that we will history will look back and go. That was kind
Nick Richtsmeier:of funny from like 2010 to 2021 when people thought this weird
Nick Richtsmeier:place called the Internet could do all these things because it's
Nick Richtsmeier:over.
Janice Porter:Yeah, I agree. And it's like, it's so passive
Janice Porter:in a way. I mean, it's like, Okay, I'm going to put all this
Janice Porter:stuff out there and then just wait for the it to come to me.
Nick Richtsmeier:You know, you can thank HubSpot for that. They
Nick Richtsmeier:invented that idea. Oh, did they Okay?
Janice Porter:All right. So last question about this, for
Janice Porter:someone listening who feels overwhelmed and skeptical
Janice Porter:themselves, what is one mindset shift or small change they could
Janice Porter:make that would immediately improve how they show up in
Janice Porter:sales and client relationships.
Nick Richtsmeier:Someone's overwhelmed and skeptical.
Nick Richtsmeier:What's one way they could shift?
Janice Porter:I mean, I guess they have to trust whoever's
Janice Porter:guiding them, don't they? Yeah. I mean,
Nick Richtsmeier:to some degree, distrust is a secondary
Nick Richtsmeier:effect of something deeper and and for most people, what I
Nick Richtsmeier:teach in my trainings often is that everyone you're engaging
Nick Richtsmeier:with, almost everyone you're engaged with, is some version of
Nick Richtsmeier:lonely. Yeah, I was gonna say fear is right, lonely, anxious,
Nick Richtsmeier:afraid and mentally exhausted, because digital life is
Nick Richtsmeier:incredibly taxing on our brains. So if I reverse that and look in
Nick Richtsmeier:the mirror and I want to be more resilient as a sales leader or
Nick Richtsmeier:as a founder or whatever it is, then I need to be proactive
Nick Richtsmeier:about addressing one of those three things, loneliness,
Nick Richtsmeier:anxiety or mental exhaustion. So loneliness, I need to find some
Nick Richtsmeier:people who are going to be a compassionate witness to my
Nick Richtsmeier:life. That's the way you solve loneliness, is you find a
Nick Richtsmeier:compassionate, compassionate witness to your life, someone
Nick Richtsmeier:who says, Hey, that sounds hard. Or let's talk about that. Or let
Nick Richtsmeier:me ask you questions. Anxiety, it means that your body is
Nick Richtsmeier:telling you that you're trying to do things you have no
Nick Richtsmeier:business doing. That's what. Or again, if it's chronic medical
Nick Richtsmeier:anxiety, it's a different situation, but just sort of
Nick Richtsmeier:basic anxiety. So that means that you're doing things you
Nick Richtsmeier:shouldn't be doing. So most of the best way to solve for
Nick Richtsmeier:anxiety is to do fewer things.
Janice Porter:You need to step back. Oh, so. And in my world,
Janice Porter:I'm always telling people this motto that came from a friend of
Janice Porter:mine, when it comes to LinkedIn and outreach and so on, slow
Janice Porter:down your output. To speed up your outcome. You just got to do
Janice Porter:fewer things exactly. So that's beautiful. Thank you.
Nick Richtsmeier:And then you know, mental exhaustion is,
Nick Richtsmeier:again, that will is related. You have to feed your brain with
Nick Richtsmeier:things that are stimulating but not overwhelming, which is,
Nick Richtsmeier:again, analog things. Go listen to a record, read a book, read a
Nick Richtsmeier:magazine, walk a dog, right? These are things that bring down
Nick Richtsmeier:all that mental exhaustion, talk to a friend.
Janice Porter:So that leads me to the perfect ending. The last
Janice Porter:thing I want to talk about, which has nothing to do with any
Janice Porter:of this, is that I saw that you are a movie person. Oh yeah, I
Janice Porter:love movies. Oh, my God, I love movies. And I want to have a
Janice Porter:whole conversation with you about movies, but just briefly,
Janice Porter:I think it was, was it a post you did? A lot of people wonder
Janice Porter:why I'm so obsessive about saving the movie theater
Janice Porter:experience. That's a whole thing in itself, going to the movies
Janice Porter:as opposed to watching them on TV. But that's somewhere where I
Janice Porter:saw that you're obsessed with movies. And. Um, do you like,
Janice Porter:are you an Academy Award person like?
Nick Richtsmeier:Do you have to watch? Yeah, well, yeah, try to
Nick Richtsmeier:catch as many of those films before the awards come out. And,
Nick Richtsmeier:Yep, yeah.
Janice Porter:And I see you've seen a few already that two of
Janice Porter:whom, no, I've seen Marty supreme. I've seen one battle
Janice Porter:after another, yeah, but I haven't seen the other ones yet
Janice Porter:on your list. I'm not a Lord's Lord of the Rings person, but
Janice Porter:the testament of Anne Lee. Who is it that's in that?
Nick Richtsmeier:Oh, now Susan, you have to ask me, I'm
Janice Porter:sorry, but I know that she's in two movies, and
Janice Porter:one of them is that one, and the other one is the more
Nick Richtsmeier:popular I can picture her. She was in Les
Nick Richtsmeier:Miserables. She was in Mean Girls. She was in,
Janice Porter:yeah, it's gone from my head anyway, yeah, yeah,
Janice Porter:but I heard that that was really good. Yes, obviously you've
Janice Porter:written, you've seen it, yeah, it's good, okay, and Hamnet is,
Janice Porter:I think it's in the theaters here now. Hamnet is incredible.
Nick Richtsmeier:Hamlet's bit. Hammer's remarkably hard to
Nick Richtsmeier:find, which I think is silky.
Janice Porter:Well, I think because it's probably seen as
Janice Porter:what I call a film, as opposed to a movie, yeah, a more artsy
Janice Porter:art.
Nick Richtsmeier:But I think it's still, I think, I think
Nick Richtsmeier:it's having sort of a second round of release now that it's
Nick Richtsmeier:Oscar nominated. Yeah, Hamnet is excellent, okay, but sad, that's
Nick Richtsmeier:the thing, right? Very sad, but beautiful. Sad. It's about how
Nick Richtsmeier:art it's about how art can heal us. It's beautiful.
Janice Porter:Okay, I am going to see it before the camp. So
Janice Porter:anyway, I just wanted to share that love of of cinema with you
Janice Porter:and and you talked about, I think taking your child, your Is
Janice Porter:it a son? Yeah, I have three. I have three sons a lot. Yeah,
Janice Porter:yeah. I think that's really cool, and I love that. Anyway, I
Janice Porter:just wanted to share that with you and and so what's your,
Janice Porter:what's your prediction for this year? What's going to be the
Janice Porter:best movie, or the best top three?
Nick Richtsmeier:Yeah. I mean, I think, I think, I mean, it's
Nick Richtsmeier:a, it's a for Best Picture. It's a one battle, sinners, Marty
Nick Richtsmeier:supreme race, yes, almost, I'm sorry, a ham net race. Marty
Nick Richtsmeier:supreme Hamnet race. He should win, though, for best but, but,
Nick Richtsmeier:but, one battle will win
Janice Porter:because of what the writing it's, it's a truly
Janice Porter:American movie, like it's a truly Yeah.
Nick Richtsmeier:I mean, so sinners and so is Marty supreme.
Nick Richtsmeier:I mean, like they're all of those movies are asking really
Nick Richtsmeier:fundamental questions about what it means to be an American.
Janice Porter:Yeah, okay, and that's where we're at right now
Janice Porter:in the world, right? Yeah, okay, yeah, perfect. All right. Thank
Janice Porter:you so much for your time. Thank you for your wisdom and your
Janice Porter:thoughts on, you know, distrust in the world today, in business
Janice Porter:and things to think about in that regard. How can people find
Janice Porter:you?
Nick Richtsmeier:Probably the easiest way. I mean, you can
Nick Richtsmeier:find me on LinkedIn, until I eventually find eventually,
Nick Richtsmeier:finally quit, because I hate it. But the easiest way is just my
Nick Richtsmeier:my newsletter is at dams given.com
Janice Porter:and you have a book coming out? Yes,
Nick Richtsmeier:yeah, probably late spring, early summer.
Janice Porter:Yeah, awesome. Well, do come come back around
Janice Porter:when that's happening, I will, and we can talk about my book.
Janice Porter:Alright, yeah. Totally appreciate your time. And for my
Janice Porter:listeners, anybody who really wants to get in on this
Janice Porter:conversation, I think you should reach out. Let us know, leave a
Janice Porter:review. Contact Nick. See all of his website and his you've got
Janice Porter:more than you've got. Your website, your culture, yeah.
Nick Richtsmeier:Culture, craft.com, is the business.
Nick Richtsmeier:Culture, craft.com, is the business. Trustmade growth.com
Nick Richtsmeier:is the community. If you are a independent professional, you're
Nick Richtsmeier:a consultant, or you're a coach or something, we have a
Nick Richtsmeier:community for people like you at trustmade growth.com and then
Nick Richtsmeier:just my publishing site is dams given.com Perfect.
Janice Porter:Thank you so much and remember everyone to stay
Janice Porter:connected and be remembered. Bye.














