March 3, 2026

How Small Businesses Can Compete by Building Trust | RR352

How Small Businesses Can Compete by Building Trust | RR352
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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

  1. Resistance in a sales conversation is not rejection. It is feedback.
  2. Distrust often reveals misalignment in expectations, incentives, or promises.
  3. Small relational moments, or trust nodes, matter more than automated campaigns.
  4. Traditional persuasion tactics are losing effectiveness in a skeptical market.
  5. Sustainable growth comes from strengthening relationships, not gaming systems.

You can find Nick at: Culturecraft.com

In appreciation for being here, I have some gifts for you:

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!


Connect with me:

http://JanicePorter.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/janiceporter/

https://www.facebook.com/janiceporter1

https://www.instagram.com/socjanice/


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Janice Porter:

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.