Trust Is the Most Valuable Marketing Asset
As people believe less of what they hear and see, they lean harder on the people they know.
This weekend I was hiking with a friend. During the hike she got a call and the iPhone Call Screening feature said it was a sergeant from the San Diego Police Department looking to speak with her. It came from an unknown number and they didn’t leave a voicemail.
I told her not to answer. It was the exact same scam I almost fell for last year. They call you over and over, sometimes for hours or days, and if you pick up, they tell you there’s a warrant out for your arrest for missing jury duty. I had gone far enough down that rabbit hole that I actually contacted SDPD to confirm it was in fact a scam.
So she ignored the call and the subsequent ones that come with a typical scam. A few minutes later, her neighbor called and she picked up. The neighbor told her the police were at her home trying to reach her about a parent she was caring for. In this case, the call from the police was real, but the only reason she eventually answered their call was because it was confirmed by someone she trusted. If that call had come from any number she didn’t recognize, she would have kept sending it to voicemail, just like the scam calls.
That situation stuck with me because it applies directly to what’s happening in marketing right now. People are trusting less and less of what they hear and see. Between scam calls, deepfakes, AI-generated content, misleading ads, and spam emails, people are building thicker walls around their attention and the default response to anything unfamiliar is to ignore it.
What still gets through is the people they already know and trust. This comes as a recommendation from a friend, a referral from their accountant, or a name they’ve seen consistently in their community for years.
For advisors, this is why relationship-based marketing matters more now than it ever has. The cold outreach, the generic ads, and the mass emails are all less effective because people are conditioned to assume anything unsolicited is either a scam or a waste of time. But a warm introduction from a trusted source still opens doors.
The takeaway: As trust in what people see and hear continues to erode, the advisors who invest in real relationships with clients, COIs, and their community will have a marketing advantage.
