****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.****

Scott Baradell 0:00

Hi, I'm Scott Baradell and you're listening to A Shark's Perspective.

(Music - shark theme)

Kenneth Kinney 0:20

Welcome back and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective. I am Kenneth Kinney, but friends call me Shark. I'm a keynote speaker, a strategist, a shark diver, host of this show in your Cheif Shark Officer.

Kenneth Kinney 0:31

We're talking about trust again today. It's always been hard for brands, but customers need a lighthouse, a beacon of trust, if you will, a symbol of trust to help them make the right decision. But that's rarely the focus for brands and agencies. It's often the chase after media coverage where your customers are not, or make changes to a website without doing so to create trust. So ask yourself when building a brand in a post truth world are you building trust signals.

Kenneth Kinney 0:58

Scott Baradell is the CEO and founder of the PR agency Idea Grove and the author of “Trust Signals: Brand Building in a Post-Truth World.”

Kenneth Kinney 1:06

And on this episode, we'll discuss trust signals, viewing trust through a PR lens, not having a shared truth like we used to, a continuum of influence, trust seals, Ivy Lee's promise to the media, how 2 different sides, trust or don't trust presidents and politicians, where to focus your PR to impact your audience. The five grow with trust solutions, a famous Bruce, the BBB, Yelp influencers, a few famous cowboys, and a lot, lot more.

Kenneth Kinney 1:32

So let's tune into a trusted signal author with a shark who you know you can trust on this episode of A Shark's Perspective.

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Kenneth Kinney 1:45

Scott, welcome to A Shark's Perspective. Tell us if you will a little bit about your career and your background today.

Scott Baradell 1:50

Thank you for having me, Shark I, I grew up in Virginia, went to school at UVA studying history and was planning to be a history professor for most of my academic career. And then I kind of got tired of being in libraries and things like that. And so I ended up being a journalist instead, wound up in Dallas, where I ended up being a journalist for about six years, then I went into PR and marketing was a corporate marketing person, a CMO and CCO and those kinds of roles at some big companies and some startups. And then 17 years ago, I started idea Grove, which is a PR agency based in Dallas with clients and employees these days, just about everywhere. And we focus on technology clients and have been around for 17 years now.

Kenneth Kinney 2:41

Awesome. Well, we're going to talk a lot about your book today, trust signals brand building in a post truth world. But I'm curious, you worked for a lot of these large brands, a couple of billion dollar brands. So you have the corporate side, why do you think when you look at it now, from an agency side, or from a consulting side, why do you think trust is so incredibly low today in respect to how we as consumers trust brands?

Scott Baradell 3:04

Well, I think that we get our information from so many different sources today. It used to be you know, trust, you know, lack of trust in brands is not a new thing. You know, the whole PR industry developed 100 years ago, because there was a huge trust crisis, during what was called the Progressive Era, against big oil companies, big railroads and these kinds of companies that were emerging and just becoming so powerful. And, and they at the time, these industries, the few companies that dominated them were just so arrogant about the power they had, they felt kind of untouchable. And it a little by little, the public outcry began to kind of attract the notice of politicians and, and in the media, and suddenly, companies started to worry, these big companies started worrying they were going to be broken up. Because does that sound familiar with Facebook are companies that they're Google, they're worried they're gonna Amazon. So 100 years ago, same thing was happening, the railroads are worried about it, the oil companies. And so there's a railroad, Pennsylvania, hired a guy named Ivy Lee, who had been a journalist to kind of help them. And he said, you know, what you guys have been doing probably doesn't work, what you've been doing. Is this is true. When there was be a fatal accident. Not only would they not put out a press release, those didn't exist at the time or tell the media or answer, they would deny it happens, they would say, what fatal accident there was no fatal accident. So obviously, at a certain point that, you know, dishonesty is going to lead to, you know, animosity among the public and distrust and so Ivy Lee put out What became kind of what's considered the Constitution or declaration of independence for the for the PR industry, which was called his declaration of principles, which was basically, as a representative of the railroad saying, Here's my promise to you the media, his promise was basically that he'd be a fair broker that he would get the facts to you, but that he wasn't trying to be an ad firm that that he knew that his value was only going to be in if he could earn the trust of the media, the media at the time being considered the primary representative of the public. And so as a result, the New York Times and others say, hey, you know, Ivy Lee was responsible for the first positive coverage and positive attention for the railroad industry in years. So that's what started the PR industry is this idea that if you could kind of be that broker, that that, that that intermediary between the public as represented by big media companies, and in industry, that you could kind of build these bridges of trust. And one of the things that's changed and has put us in another era, that's similar in a lot of ways is that there isn't that megaphone of the traditional media, that people trusted, that used to exist back in the days of Walter Cronkite, and you know, major news media that were whether you agreed or disagreed with some of the reporting, that was generally considered, these are sources you could trust and everyone consumed them. These days. The information sources that we rely on, are so fragmented across so many different places that as a brand, you have to figure out how do I kind of cobbled together the sources that my audience will trust, so then they'll trust me, you can't just say, like, I started realizing the changes that were happening about 10 years ago, when, what for my whole career in PR would be an ultimate coup, I landed a feature in the New York Times for one of my clients, which is an oil and gas company that I've been working with for some time, I knew them, well, I knew the CEO well, and I told him, Hey, this is going to be a good deal. We're going to do this interview, this was going to happen. I had plotted it all out. And then at the last minute, after, you know, literally the the reporter had booked a fight and all these things, the CEO called me and told me that he wasn't going to do it. He backed out at the last minute, which basically completely torched my relationship with that reporter. But he did it because he said, I've talked to my not only my other senior executives, but I've talked to some of my most important clients. And they said, they don't trust the New York Times New York Times coverage in New York Times means nothing to them. So he's like, why am I taking this risk? If this is not an outlet that's going to move my my target audience. And so he started thinking, Wait a minute, New York Times used to be all the news that fits the print. Now it is for some people, but others don't trust it. I've had clients that come to me and say a CEO came to me and said, he had a technology project that had nothing to do with politics. But he said, I only want to be in Fox News and Fox Business, because I don't trust the other outlets. Now, that's where I say, well, that's in the case of the oil and gas CEO. That makes sense. But it can make sense if you said, well, oil and gas, people that work in that business generally are conservative, generally or less, they're more likely to believe what's in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times that makes sense. But for a CEO of a technology product, just arbitrarily based on their political beliefs. Say, I don't want to be in these other outlets. Well, shouldn't you do some research to figure out the people that are going to buy your product, what they believe? And that's basically what the books about, we're in a post truth era, meaning not, there's not one shared source of truth for everybody. And if that's the case, you have to figure out who your audience trust. It doesn't. It's not who the CEO trusts. It's who it's who the people you're trying to reach trust. And for companies that don't do that have a really hard time. Building trust? That's a very long answer to question, but but that's the answer. It's spot

Kenneth Kinney 9:29

on, though. I mean, I think so many brands and marketers fail today, because they're believing only with their heart without doing any research and finding out their target audience, as you just gave an example of could all be on Fox, it could all be on Good Morning America. The point is find out which one it is before you lead with you just go in with your heart and pour a bunch of money and waste a bunch of time on the wrong target audience. So I love that. Well, you devote half the book. I mean, you've got it's a fantasy sybok You got two beefy books inside one book. But you devote half the book to understanding what a trust signal is. It was it was enough to be a whole book on its own, but explain high level what a trust signal is.

Scott Baradell 10:13

I'll show you this. I didn't have a book. But this is I got this. This, I'll show you. This is what the cover looks like. That's just signals. So when I talked about trust signals, actually, the book cover itself is an example because

Kenneth Kinney 10:24

he was holding up a picture of the book inside.

Scott Baradell 10:28

This is Audio Only, I'm sorry. Yes, so the the most

Kenneth Kinney 10:33

trustworthy sky was that there was a very trustworthy for the, for the IR, IR folks out there.

Scott Baradell 10:39

Well, for the IR folks, yes. And the cover has a lighthouse on it, which is a kind of an ancient symbol of trust, sailors had to trust that the lighthouse would guide them safely through the rocks and that they wouldn't crash. And you can think about all the different evidence points you see online from a better beer business bureau seal to customer reviews to positive media coverage to an influencer that you trust on social media saying something, these are all like that, that does beacons of light for the lighthouse guiding you toward that decision you're planning to make or the path you're gonna take. And so in the case of the book, you know, examples of trust signals are why do you think every book has quotes from people saying this is a great book is because obviously, the author is gonna say it's a great book, but what you want is people that are more famous than the author, saying good things about it, because that provides third party validation from someone that hopefully people in your potential audience might trust. So that's a trust signal. me putting a biography that says all this cool stuff I've done in my life and career, that's a trust signal that says, Oh, well, this person's probably qualified to write about this topic. If you get out away from the book itself to the online world, someone's going to look and say, has this had a lot of Amazon reviews? Are they good? Amazon reviews? Do they see my authentic Amazon reviews? They're all examples of trust signals. And oh, and and since I come from the world of PR, is there positive media coverage? have had people that write about books been writing about this book? Those are all examples of trust signals. They're the evidence point that helped us decide whether to trust or not trust a brand?

Kenneth Kinney 12:24

Well, in that first chapter you did, you made this a little bit political. I love how you spoke about Donald Trump, you broke down as a way I'll describe that one audience thinks seasoned angel and the other thinks he's the devil basically, explain if you will, in a non biased way, how one could look at Trump and see a lot of trust, or none at all.

Scott Baradell 12:44

Yeah, I mean, the point I try to make in the book is, you can think, however you want about Trump, but if if if surveys show that there are a large, it's not just some people like him, some some people don't. There are a large group of people who believe he is the most dishonest, untrustworthy as a as a proxy for the honesty, president in history. And there are a large number of people who believe not only that that's not true, but but they believe he's the most honest president in history. Now think about that. That's very different from this kind of spectrum where people are just add, I don't really believe him, but I am gonna vote for him because I agree with his positions or whatever, yeah, I'm gonna hold my nose and vote for him, or I kind of like him, but I don't. It's not like that. It's these extreme positions that people are falling into most honest, most dishonest. And so when you start thinking about that, it has a real application to brands. The point I make in the book about Donald Trump is, is, I think, a big reason why he's built his following is not simply that he's got the political views he has on or that he, you know, how he, you know, it's not it's it's not political stances, having extreme positions, any of those. It's that he has been incredibly consistent in taking a an approach that feels more authentic than traditional politics to a lot of people. In other words, for some time, politicians have been distrusted because they are so they prepare everything so carefully at each word in and they'll say the same answer over and over again, to different questions, and they'll do a lot of things that are just so carefully thought out, that they're, they're perceived as inauthentic. Whereas, Donald Trump

Kenneth Kinney 14:58

sounds like those online cover say shouldn't people have with a brand? Yeah, get their customer service things fix?

Scott Baradell 15:04

Yeah. Well, Donald Trump has always felt, particularly in the early days just felt like, wow, what agree or disagree with him. He just speaks when he says what he wants to say. And particularly the early days, people may or may not remember that. And it's still happening to some extent, but you know, the whole party, Republican Party was against him. And they would constantly tell him change your opinion on this change opinion, the fact that he never ever did, he never did say what you will about his positions, they can be the worst positions ever. But the fact that he was unwilling to compromise is something that I think builds a lot of loyalty for him among his followers. Anyway, I bring up Trump in the book simply to make the point that if you can, you can end up having this kind of division, it does extend to brands, I'll give you a obvious example would be, for example, Colin Kaepernick. He's someone who's a politically divisive figure, the quarterback who kneeled during the national anthem, obviously, Trump got involved in that controversy and amplified it. He's someone who many people don't like he's a symbol of things they don't like. And he's a symbol of freedom of speech and standing up for civil rights for others. Nike decided a few years ago to make Colin Kaepernick the face of a major advertising campaign. So some people said, Oh, this is a mistake. And you had of course, boycott Nike hashtags. On Twitter, you had videos of people burning their Nikes, and so forth. But the end result was that Nike made a lot of money from its decision, because it knew it had done its research, it knew its new, its clients tell it knew its customer base. And on balance, you know, whatever dollar it lost from someone who was so opposed to Colin Kaepernick, it would make $3 from people who felt more aligned with the brand, as a result of Colin Kaepernick endorsement, because he, he, he, he was aligned with the brand. So the point is that Nike doesn't do that blindly. They do that because they they are very sophisticated in their research and their knowledge of their customer base before they make a decision like that. So they can go into decision like that very confidently knowing it may seem controversial to you. But we know that it's going to work for us, because it the decision in the values that we're we're projecting align with those of our customer base, and it worked like a charm. So you don't have to be Nike to think that way. You can be any brand. And you can think, you know, when I'm thinking about a celebrity spokesperson, or Instagram creator, or whoever. A little picture, in terms of who they appeal to. One of the things I talked about in the book is that I talked about a continuum of influence. And I say, there's really no difference ultimately, these days between the New York Times and the Kardashians, you know, it's like they both are mega influencers for the right audience. So you can you can be high and mighty and say, Oh, the Kardashians, The New York Times is respected publication, by who? That's the question you have to ask yourself. If for your audience, the Kardashians are respected, and they never, and your audience never reads in New York Times. What are you doing? Why are you bothering going after coverage in the New York Times, focus on you know, you know, renting, you know, save up your money and invest in a Kardashian endorsement on Instagram, you know, you've got to, you've got to focus on that. Or else, you're just going to get lost in all the things you could be doing, rather than prioritizing what's going to have the most impact for your audience.

Kenneth Kinney 18:56

So let's bring this back then, especially to the online world and where a lot of people are on the web. What's the value to making people feel at home? And I guess basically, what do we need to do to build and make a trust centered website

Scott Baradell 19:10

so that your website is your home on the web? And what I what I say in the in the book is that, you know, you have a lot of Savior looking to get your website, redesigned. There's a lot of design firms that will be like, Oh, they'll show you all these. Design, pyrotechnics and fancy new things. Oh, this is this cool new animation thing or whatever. All of it, totally unrelated to what the user experience is going to have the impact you want, which is to build connection and trust. So someone wants to learn more about you. Or you've got other design firms that are oh, we know all about conversion. And we can tell you that this button should be green instead of red and you're going to double your clicks and blah, blah, blah, all of which is to what purpose you know, just to get more are bad leads? I mean, that you're not you shouldn't your website is not should not be how do i by hook or by crook get someone to give me their email address it has to be? How do I let's I have sometimes I counsel salespeople on how to overcome this divide that exists in a lot of organizations between salespeople and marketers. This, this sales and marketing alignment and I say, you know, as a salesperson, you know that you can't go up to a prospect and just start talking about your product, you have to establish rapport, you have to show you show them that you have their interest at heart, and that you're will share information with them. Even if it doesn't tie directly to your product, you have to build that relationship before you can then sell. In so many cases, the same same salespeople, when it comes to marketing, they want to go straight for the sale, but just put all the pieces and season pricing. But I don't want to thought leadership, I don't want any social, you know, community involvement all that's just a waste of money. And time, just put this Do you realize that that's the exact opposite of what you do as an individual when you try to sail, but you try to do it marketing's to do ultimately is trying to scale a successful sales experience. And so that starts with a website that builds rapport, through an understanding of who your audience is, you can there's so many low cost ways today to do listening to understand sentiment and language, their language analysis tools, you can hear how your target your customer base, hear how they talk, hear the words they use, hear how they talk about things. reflect that back in your website, it's just basic, that's a basic sales technique to write, I reflect back to you. The style, you show me, if you're really high energy, if you're this or that, I'm going to be more successful in selling something to do, I can reflect back that same energy, you want your website to do that, too. All the tools are at your disposal, it doesn't cost a million dollars in research to figure out how to how to create a website that doesn't sound like it's, you know, some hermetically sealed brochure or CEO speak. But it's actually the language that that that your customers speak. And that's one part. The other big part is having third party validation. So no matter what you say about yourself, even if you say it just the right way in the voice your customers use, you still people still trust what other people say about you more than what you say about yourself. That means your homepage needs your customer logos, it needs testimonials, it needs endorsements, you need that better. Business Bureau seal, the Norton security seal, you need all of these, depending on your site. What's most important varies. But you need all these indicators throughout your website, whether it's something as basic as professional design. If your design is not perfect, if your design sloppy, I'm going to think you're probably you know, the way you do business is sloppy. If your navigation is such that I can't find what I want, I'm going to figure out I can't make heads or tails of your instruction manual, or that when I talk to customer service, then I can really understand what I'm asking for. These are all proxies for the overall experience they're going to have with your brand. So, so many companies just don't invest the time and effort and thought, integrating that kind of website that's designed to replicate that experience that one on one experience of, of building trust.

Kenneth Kinney 23:49

I thoroughly enjoyed that chapter mainly because you did from a very tactical standpoint, you broke down, it wasn't an academic conversation just about trust, you break down a lot of things, just basic web design that just like a CRO firm would do. There's so many basic things like menus and colors and all all things that go into sign that a lot of people don't think about whether or not it injects trust, it's just a lot of the conversation always gets lost in this button or that button, as opposed to how does the consumer feel when they're looking at you. So from an online e commerce perspective, talk a little bit about the research into how trust signals produce more revenue and growth.

Scott Baradell 24:33

Well, you know, absolutely, you know, the the trust signals term really kind of came out of ecommerce, early days of the web like 25 years ago now, when go back to those days. Obviously people are very worried about what people are going to do with their personal information today. But back then, just the idea of giving your credit card information to a website was was scary to a lot of people. So what emerged, this business of the early stress signals were what called were called trust seals. And the two big companies that that really dominate that space early on were the Better Business Bureau, which of course, just transitioned from being a brick and mortar way of securing trust online. And then trusty, which is a privacy seal, which became very popular, these clearly made people who otherwise wouldn't have entered their credit card information, feel comfortable entering their credit card information. And it was so obvious. And there were academic studies and all kinds of studies showing the importance of this to adoption and trust in the web, in general, and ecommerce in general, beyond any specific site, that what followed was Norton, the McAfee, you know, PayPal visa, everyone had seals. And in and it became a very, it's become a very competitive space. And there's lots of documentation of what seals in the right places on an ecommerce site, like the checkout page, or a product page, you know, what they can, what they can do. What's also interesting is that, you know, certainly, you know, a business like, that's really well known like Microsoft or Walmart, or what have you doesn't need to have a better business bureau seal, right, because they're so well known, they've earned their trust in other ways. So the local plumber better get the Better Business Bureau sale, but maybe Microsoft doesn't. However, the website experience in lack of trust, and it impacts really big businesses to an E commerce. There's a study by a really interesting company out of Denmark called the baymard Institute. And I highly recommend anyone who's interested in making any commerce site better is to check out their website, we have subscription to it, they've done over 90,000 hours of research in user experience, in E commerce specifically to tell you what works and what doesn't, there's nothing better than that. But they one of their studies showed that believers on a Microsoft site that was selling Microsoft products, and it was ecommerce, that there was a mistake in in that when you were trying to enter your zip code information or something as you're just trying to complete a form to buy something. It was superimposing over some autofilled data. And just that mistake, caused a dramatic drop off in trust. In this case, it wasn't lack of trust in Microsoft, per se, it was trusting Microsoft does trust in Microsoft's ability to ward off hackers or spammers, or whatever. In other words, this experience doesn't feel right. So I'm abandoning this wholesale. So that idea of having to build and constantly convinced these e commerce buyers that you can be trusted applies from the local business to the biggest brands in the world, if they can't make sure their ecommerce experience from beginning to end isn't focusing on how do I make sure that people feel trusted until they make that final purchase? Yeah, I

Kenneth Kinney 28:35

like he also talked about the coffee spoon approach with brand measurement. But I was thinking about this in particular with a lot of the different trust signals and trust seals, if you will, that I put on sites and they go in and whether it was with mouseflow or CrazyEgg, or hot jar, just really looking at those from a heat map standpoint, it's fascinating to see where customers eyeballs, you know, the tools that marketers can use to see where those seals go on a site and where it really triggers some effect with a customer. So

Scott Baradell 29:05

let me tell you one other thing real quick related to that. But it's also the book. It's in addition to interesting form of research that pretty new is brain scans like looking at. So so so they took it. This was a study in Spain. And they were looking at an E commerce site that I believe was selling books in Spanish site. They asked people which of these things that were elements of this site you trust, trusted most or least and when you're making your purchase decision and one was the vendor saying money back guarantee, free shipping, that kind of stuff. One of them was star ratings. They had a number of reviews and they had a they're all four and five star reviews and aggregated star rating. And a third was a trust. steal from a security company is a sealcoat confianza. I believe I'm pronouncing that right. And in. So they basically rated them basically all the same when when you ask them. But when they did a brain scan research and had them experience the site, while their brain was being scanned, they're in the loop. The people studying this or looking at how different elements of the brain are kind of reacting, it showed that that security seal that trust seal, unambiguously made them trust more the star ratings. On the other hand, in the the the the vendor, assurances were considered less important just because they were coming from the vendor. And in the in the star ratings created the sense the sense of ambiguity. It's not that they're not important. It's just that what the brain scans were saying is that, you know, do AI people these days are like, well, are these real reviews? Do I believe them? What does it mean that this person rated this number of stars in this? So obviously, reviews are very important, but it really emphasize, you know, comparatively, there's just no downside to having the seals on your Sitemap. It's nothing but a positive to have these kind of third party endorsement seals from respected organizations.

Kenneth Kinney 31:23

Yeah. Well, I like chapter nine as well, were you talking about using the right kind of trust signals in a post truth world, highly encourage everybody to read that, but I want to jump into part two, which is a whole other This was the second book inside your book, talking about building your brand with trust? So at a high level? How do we go about doing that, especially in an online world?

Scott Baradell 31:45

Well, you know, what I, why I decided to write the second part is I realized that I actually had done it kind of like you and I talked about, it could be two books, I was kind of focusing on that first part. And then I did as I was writing, and I did a webinar at a local bank, it's actually our my company's bank, they're called Texas security bank. And I was talking about all these difference trust seals. And someone asked me a question afterwards, it was kind of bewildered, you know, he's like, I don't this all sounds great, I have no idea where to start, you just listed like 70 Different trust signals, right. And, and, and so I said, you know, I talked about a wish list approach and how you can kind of prioritize based on which things are gonna give you the most bang for the buck. But I think that that more than that these these trust signals needed to be within the context of a system where you weren't focusing on an individual trust signal, like influencer endorsement or media coverage or customer view. But you are focusing on your broader goals, and then how to build a program that will help you build trust through that solution. So I established a acronym, which is trust. And the system is called grow with trust. And acronym is contains five elements, which are third party validation, which we've talked about some reputation management, because if you're not protecting your reputation, you're building something up, that could be taken away in a minute, because you're not protecting it. User experience. And that's kind of the Trust Center website, and all that say own media, like your email marketing, all the things that you control, should all have that very same consistent look or feel. So that's consistency is so important in a brand. And and so that's so important user experience. Search presence. So Google, we haven't really talked about Google, but Google is the ultimate arbiter of trust today, you know, you can build the greatest website, most, most trusted, yeah, most trust centered website in the world that does everything, right. But if Google doesn't like it, and put you on page 36, of results for your keywords, it's kind of like having, you know, having a really fancy restaurant in a really bad neighborhood, or, you know, or being or having to sit in the booth right next to the men's room for your big business dinner. It's, it's Google, telling people that you're not important, basically, beyond people again, it's kind of like, thinking about your navigation and things just in terms of CRO or if you think of your search presence in terms of just am I getting traffic or not, that's not what's most important. What's most important is Google is very much the ultimate arbiter of trust today. And so if Google's telling people by how they treat your web presence, that you're not important, they're gonna think you're not important. That's the ultimate form of third party validation. And then the fifth letter in trust is thought leadership. And that's that whole idea that it's like a salesperson, you can't just be out there talking Thinking about yourself, it's like, if you, if you don't have a thought leadership element to what you do, you're kind of like that person at a party that just talks about themselves, someone's eventually going to just say go to the bar, I don't have to listen to this anymore. But if you have interesting ideas to share, that aren't just about you, that can really draw people in. And so third party validation, reputation management, user experience, search, presence and thought leadership, or what I call the five grow with trust solutions. And then I have three strategies under each for how you kind of create a solution that achieves that element of helping you build trust. And I present that and that's something that you could do as a, as a business you can do in house, you could work with a marketing firm, I see coming from PR, I have a message for PR people, which is why are you just doing media relations, like so many PR people do want you to think about what the purpose of media relations is, you're trying to get the the in media coverage to confer the credibility of that media outlet onto your client. But it doesn't have the same effect that used to have back when everyone was consuming and believing the same media. So you have to find other things that do the other ways of achieving the same thing. And so this, I believe, and what I've told PR firms that are kind of backward and are just doing media relations, that she was trying to embrace this whole model, it's like looking at my perspective, is this kind of viewing digital marketing through a PR lens? So I'm thinking I thought, in other words, yes, navigation, and doing navigation in a clean way, is very important. But I'm talking about it from the perspective of because I'll trust you more to understand me, as opposed to, because I'll get the click. And when I talk about search, I'm talking about, it's important that you have a good search presence, because people will not trust you not because you're going to get more clicks and more conversions, you know, in other words, it's that kind of what I would call a PR perspective, which is thinking about the larger brand perception implications of not doing the things that you need to do.

Kenneth Kinney 37:16

Where should someone start? They read the book, they want to go dive in, and they want to fix or at least get an assessment of where they are. Where does somebody start? Because it's, it's a wonderful subject, it's written out in great detail. But then when you go look at all the things to work on. I'm curious where you want people to start?

Scott Baradell 37:42

Yeah, that's a great question. I have a chapter in the book, right? Talk about what I call a wish list approach, which is, you think about now that you understand that there's a common thread here, that there's more similarities in a customer review program to immediate relations program, then you thought, once you've done that, then you can start prioritizing based on bang for the buck. In other words, what's going to take me the least amount of time to get the most results. So I'll give you an example of with a client. They had, they approached us because they wanted media coverage. They wanted media coverage in big outlets. That's great. That's very time consuming. And even much more time consuming when you have some things that they had like an F rating from the Better Business Bureau. So it's pretty easy to get an F rating change to an A rating for the Better Business Bureau. All you have to do is respond to the complaints. It's literally you have left complaints and responded to to the satisfaction of the Better Business Bureau. That's a big deal for a lot of brands. Because that can literally be that big old gray can be on your first page of results. But if you're if you're too distracted, my CEO said we need to be in the Forbes Well, you're not seeing these obvious things. By the way, the Forbes writers probably going to Google you. And if they see bad reviews or these things, they're not going to want to write about you anyway. Or if they do, they'll ask you about all this bad stuff. So I think you have to say, Oh, well, I want media coverage. I want I should I should get better reviews online. I should get you know I have my website has is not ranking well. You can look at all of these factors. And then I think line them up in terms of what things are easiest to achieve for the highest potential return. And as we talked about in a little bit, you know, in the coffee has been approached. These are the when we say highest return, it's not always some kind of short term thing that you can measure, sometimes that I described PR in the book, I define it as the art of securing trust and skill. And I use the term art instead of science intentionally. Because I think the reality is, for the great majority of brands, you can't simply say, Oh, if I do this, it's going to result in if I do x is going to result in why you have to educate yourself and make some assumptions. a starting point before you get into the wish list, I guess I should say is doing research into your audience, though. And that's going to make your prioritization so much easier. So we do buyer persona research where we talk to buyers, and then we supplement that with what we call trust profiles, which are doing surveys of your audiences to understand what sources of influence are important to them. And once you understand those things, it's a lot easier to determine where to focus your efforts.

Kenneth Kinney 41:13

Perfect, Scott. So first of all my guests, what is your favorite kind of shark and why?

Scott Baradell 41:21

Oh, my gosh. Well, I mean, look, I will I one of the firt the first I mean, I'm a I still have nightmares from Jaws, because I saw when I was a very little kid. And so Bruce from Jaws, I don't know what was he he was a mechanical shark. Great White.

Kenneth Kinney 41:45

Here's a great white shark. With great that Great White Shark. Bruce? Well, Scott at this special time the show, are you ready for the five most interesting important questions you're gonna be asked today. Okay, I'm ready. All right, number one, which would you trust more reviews on the Better Business Bureau? Or reviews on Yelp?

Scott Baradell 42:06

Better Business Bureau.

Kenneth Kinney 42:08

Okay. Number two, which is more trustworthy, marketing, or PR, PR? Why? So?

Scott Baradell 42:20

These are obviously not really black and white answers, but if I have to have a black and white answer, and it's PR because PR inherently is concerned about audiences beyond the buyer.

Kenneth Kinney 42:32

Fair enough, all right, number three, more trustworthy, a micro influencer or a macro influencer

Scott Baradell 42:39

a micro influencer. Why so and the reason is that micro influencer is generally going to have closer relationships with people that that follow them and are more likely to have an authentic interest in the products they endorse.

Kenneth Kinney 42:58

Yeah, it's fascinating because followers to a lot of people equates to trust. Yet, what you just described is true. And it kind of argues against that practice. All right, so you're in Dallas, Texas. Who is more trustworthy with the ball? Lindsey? Oh, I would basketball. Then in your home of the great year. You're in the home of the greatest football team on the planet decide despite sucking for the last 25 years alltime fantasy team at running back for the Cowboys, Ezekiel Elliott or Emmitt Smith.

Scott Baradell 43:36

Oh, definitely Emmitt Smith.

Kenneth Kinney 43:38

Okay, what if I said Ezekiel Elliott, because I would too. What if I said Ezekiel Elliott or Tony Dorsett?

Scott Baradell 43:46

Oh, oh, I have to go with Tony verset, too. I mean, Tony, those guys won Super Bowls, you know, seeks going to Zeke barely getting a playoff win. So exactly. And also beyond port and I can't blame a zekiel that for the fact that running running backs have become kind of a commodity in the league. Absolutely. Not as important as they used to be. But Emmitt Smith is Emmitt Smith, over Tony Dorsett, as we did didn't ask that one but for sure,

Kenneth Kinney 44:15

no, well zekiel contract is probably that plus Tony's in doubled. So it shows how times change money. So number five, the most important question that you're going to be asked today, biscuits or cornbread.

Scott Baradell 44:30

Wow, gosh, you know, I grew up in Mississippi. I mean, my parents grew up in Mississippi and I was raised on Mississippi food so I'm gonna have to say cornbread but you know, after grits of biscuits and gravy in the morning, it's kind of hard to be so I'd say depends on time of day but in general, I have to support cornbread.

Kenneth Kinney 44:51

There you go. Well biscuits and gravy for breakfast and shrimp and grits for lunch. So Scott, where can people find out more about you get up copy of the book, and more. Well,

Scott Baradell 45:02

the book is called trust signals. It's available on Amazon. And basically everywhere online, you could buy a book. I also have a website called trust signals.com, which is a blog, which has a lot of content related to the book, I've actually started to excerpting the book there too, so you can kind of get a feel for it. Try it out there. My agency is called Idea Grove, like an orange grove. And it's idea grove.com If you're interested in learning more about my agency and our services.

Kenneth Kinney 45:30

Awesome. Scott, thank you so much for being with us today on the sharks perspective,

Scott Baradell 45:35

thank you shark I was really, it's gonna be great. And I really want to just say I am really grateful the time, the time you put into just kind of reading the book and thinking it through these were great questions, and it's tough stuff I've loved love talking about. So I really appreciate the opportunity.

Kenneth Kinney 45:50

Well, I appreciate it. I think my my listeners, I've gained a little bit of trust with them. So they'll know I'm actually reading the books. Before

Scott Baradell 45:58

we dive into these, it'll be surprised how many don't?

Kenneth Kinney 46:01

Yeah, have a great day.

[music]

Kenneth Kinney 46:07

So there was my conversation with Scott Baradell, the CEO and founder of the PR agency on deer Grove and the author of trust signals brand building in a post truth world. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from our conversation with him.

Kenneth Kinney 46:19

First, trust continues to fall for brands. And as Scott said, a lack of trust in brands is not a new thing. But thinking about this when we get information today, from so many forces, that makes building trust even tougher. People don't trust the bullhorn of the news like they used to when Walter Cronkite was a trusted voice. Today, half the people don't trust the New York Times at all, as with whatever channel lean one way or the other heavily politically. But if you truly understand where your audience is, whether they air quote, live on the New York Times, or on Fox, or CNN or MSNBC, or some other channel, then it makes more sense as to where you can build trust with that audience for a PR push, for example, here's your head and follow their hearts, build trust signals where your audience is.

Kenneth Kinney 47:04

Second, from a PR standpoint, he poses the idea that there's no difference between the New York Times and the Kardashians in the sense that both are mega influencers for their audiences. Again, if you are considering the two of them, to focus on what has the most impact on your audience. And if Kim wants to play Wordle with me that she can call me Hi, Kim.

Kenneth Kinney 47:23

Third, take a few minutes today and take a look at your website and ask if you're building trust throughout the site. The one on one experience is crucial for the user. Most brands and agencies only think about changing button colors because Eric what looks better, but does that actually create more trust in the user? Colors, reviews, seals, designs, etc? Just ask if what you're doing to your site? Does it inject more trust?

Kenneth Kinney 47:48

Got a question, send me an email to Kenneth at a shark's perspective.com.

Kenneth Kinney 47:53

Thank you again for the privilege of your time and I'm so thankful to everyone who listens.

Kenneth Kinney 47:57

Let's go out today and be the beacon of light that someone can trust. Join us on the next episode of A Shark's Perspective.

(Music - shark theme)