In Episode 183 of The Business Development Podcast, Kelly Kennedy dives into the fundamental role of trust in building sustainable, long-term business success. He discusses how, in an era dominated by passive marketing strategies and digital communication, the missing ingredient for many businesses is authentic human connection. Kelly emphasizes that trust cannot be built solely through emails, ads, or social media posts; instead, it requires genuine person-to-person interactions that foster rapport and confidence. Drawing from his extensive experience, he shares strategies for integrating trust-building practices into the sales process, shifting the focus from immediate sales to creating meaningful, enduring relationships.
Kelly also explores the growing importance of a human-centric approach as we move toward 2025, predicting that businesses will need to prioritize real connections over automated interactions. He advises listeners to make simple but impactful changes, like writing personalized emails, engaging in face-to-face meetings, and even stepping outside their comfort zones at networking events without expectations. By putting trust at the forefront of business development, Kelly believes that companies can not only increase sales but also create loyal customer bases that drive success and growth far beyond the initial transaction.
Key Takeaways:
1. Trust is the foundation of long-term business success and should be prioritized in all client interactions.
2. In a world leaning heavily on automation, real human connections are invaluable and help your business stand out.
3. Passive marketing alone, like ads and social posts, can’t build trust; balance it with active, personal strategies.
4. Building strong relationships is more impactful than pushing for immediate sales, as it leads to greater long-term success.
5. Authenticity in emails, posts, and conversations helps establish trust; avoid canned responses whenever possible.
6. Direct contact—such as phone calls and face-to-face meetings—creates rapport and makes a stronger impression.
7. Attend networking events without expecting immediate results; focus on connecting with others genuinely.
8. Meeting clients for casual get-togethers like lunches or golf builds personal connections and strengthens trust.
9. Consistent, authentic engagement with clients fosters dependable, long-lasting relationships.
10. As we enter 2025, businesses that embrace a human-centered approach will stand out in a digitally dominated world.
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Companies mentioned in this episode:
Trust First: The Untapped Key to Explosive Business Growth
Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to Episode 183 of the Business Development Podcast. And today we're talking all about trust and how it is absolutely critical to the long term success of your business. And how the heck do we inject trust back in? Stick with us. You are not going to want to miss this episode.
Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, Business happens over years and years.
Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs.
And business development reps, you'll get actionable advice on how to grow business. Brought to you by Capital Business Development, Capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the Business Development Podcast. And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.
Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 183 of the Business Development Podcast.
My gosh, 183 episodes! Man, I don't get it. I'm really hyped up at the moment. New podcast recording space. We just moved to a brand new home. I got my own studio. I got a brand new microphone. Not that I needed one, but I wanted to try a new one. And life's good, guys. We're fighting a sickness in the Kennedy household.
We're doing the best we can here. I got I got three out of four sick boys. So, hoping for the best. Hoping for a quick return. Me and Shelby have somehow survived. Scathed under the radar and I'm hoping that stays that way. I don't want to get sick. And I always end up getting sick. Usually at some point as we approach my birthday and as we are getting closer and closer to December, I'm just hoping that I can slide under the radar.
But my gosh, if you guys know anything about moving, it is a nightmare. It is a lot of work especially as you get older. I, I look back to being, like, young, and never worrying about moving, you know, when I had an apartment, or when I had a townhome, or whatever. Because let's get real. When we're young, we don't have anything.
You can move your whole life in, like, in, like, two truckloads. Like, that's life. And then by the time you're in your thirties, you know, you've collected some stuff. You got some stuff. And moving is a absolute hellish nightmare. We had a 26 foot, you all friends and family to help. And the damn move still took us over a week, but we're getting settled.
I got like a somewhat of a space set up here. You might've seen it in a clip that came out from my interview with Garry Ridge. But yeah, it's it's awesome. We got a little space. It's a little podcast room. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet. We're going to cross that bridge as we keep going, but.
I guarantee you, it'll be a big part of the next phase here of the business development podcast and a super cool, super cool, super grateful, super thankful, just looking forward to kind of what comes next, guys, looking forward to what comes next year. I'm really looking forward to the future. I think things are going to be really good as we move into the next few years.
I know there's a lot of people who are. Kind of being downers and kind of talking like it might be the end of the world. But guys, it's not the end of the world. We're fine. The world is fine. Business is going to keep turning. The world is going to keep turning. Chin up and keep going. You absolutely, absolutely got this.
And I just wanted to give a gigantic thank you. To all the listeners of the show who have taken us to this point, all my incredible followers on LinkedIn, all my friends on LinkedIn, you guys are absolutely incredible. And the people that I met on this business development journey, I can't be more thankful for.
It's turned into, you know, Genuine friendships, genuine relationships and encouragement like I could have never seen coming and empowerment like I could have never seen coming guys. The community that we have, our rockstar business development community, you guys are incredible. And I could not, could not, could not do this show without you.
Couldn't do it without the support. Thank you so much for the kind messages. Absolutely love to hear the messages when you guys reach out and say, Hey, I'm Found this show and now I'm killing it in BD or I just got into the, or I just got a BD career and I'm just getting started and I found the show and it's, it's changed everything for me guys.
It's incredible. It's incredible because the whole point of the show was to help create a blueprint that people could run from and achieve with, and you know, not just achieve, but achieve exponential results over time. And so I think we're doing it. I really do. I genuinely think We are doing what we set out to achieve here.
I think there's incredible, incredible people out there doing the good work, doing the business development work, implementing the active marketing process and finding success. So I'm. I'm incredibly grateful. I'm incredibly thankful. And I do wish you all the greatest of success. I want you all to achieve everything you want to achieve.
Nobody starts out to be mediocre. And nobody has to be mediocre. That's the thing. If you know what to do and you just follow the steps, you are going to be successful. And guys, I want to start today with a show update. We are sitting at 221, 000 downloads. We are quickly approaching 3, 000 followers on Apple podcasts.
And Spotify will likely be passing that by the end of this month, if not sooner. We are heading into November and we are taking on more community questions. So if you're here in this show and you got a question for the business development podcast regarding podcasting, regarding business development, business growth, or just business in general, Shoot it on over podcast at capital bd.
For you to leave us not only a rating, but if you could write us a review, no matter what country you're in around the world, it absolutely helps. It absolutely helps us to reach further and further and further with this show. If you listen on Spotify, same thing. Drop us a rating. Tell a friend, tell a family member and help us to continue to grow this show as we head into our 200th episode.
We are very quickly approaching our 200th episode, guys. That is it. Absolutely blows my mind. We will be crossing the 200th episode, likely the end of December, if not the very beginning of January, which is absolutely nuts because I look back at when I was just a podcast listener, not a podcaster myself.
And I'd see shows that were like 100 episodes, 200 episodes and be like, man, that's incredible. I can't believe those people made it to 200 episodes. What must that take? They must be absolutely exceptional, exceptional individuals. And now it's like, holy crap, I'm, I'm getting there myself. So it's kind of a cool little realization that maybe I'm a half ass.
Decent podcaster, which is kind of cool. I I quite enjoy, I quite enjoy this thing. I quite enjoy this thing. We call The Business Development Podcast. I could have never seen it coming. I could have never seen it coming. This was never on my to do list. Podcasting was never even on my radar until, like I said, late 2022.
And I just went for it. And so I just kind of want to speak to, to my other individuals who may be on the fence about what you're going to do is we're approaching 2025 guys. 2025 is going to be a great year to start any kind of media platform, whether it be a YouTube channel, a podcast of your own, whether it's just getting more active on social media, Maybe being a little vulnerable, being a little personal.
I have a feeling guys that 2025 is going to be the year of the human centric approach. If 2023 was the year of AI and 2024 was the year of personal branding, which has really seemed to be the trend, at least on this show, I just have a feeling that next year is really going to be about bringing humanity back to business.
How do we put people first? How do we put people first? And I think that that is going to be the thing, because on some levels we've pulled away so much from our own humanity, using AI, using computers, trying to let machines do the work. That what we're realizing is, holy shit, we miss people. We need people.
We need human to human connection. And I bet you, I bet you 2025 is going to be that year. That is my prediction, guys, for 2025. I think there's going to be a massive. Massive pullback to just being you, to being the authentic human, incredible human that you are. Watch, it's going to happen. And that is going to lead us into today's show topic.
And I want to chat all about trust today, trust. And I'm going to give a gigantic thank you to Colin Harms. You guys know Colin Harms, Hypervac Technologies has been on the show a few times. He's been a sponsor of the show. We have a weekly call me and Colin. We love to encourage each other and kind of pull each other up and chat about what's going on.
And we had gotten talking about the importance of trust. And he looks at me and goes, Kelly, why the heck haven't you done a show like this yet? And I was like, okay, you got me. So call in arms. This one is for you, my friend. You're absolutely right. We should have done a show on this quite some time ago.
And so here we are. Let's talk about it, guys. A foundation of trust. One of the biggest challenges that I am seeing today is a lack of foundational trust being built ahead of asking a customer to make a buying decision. Trust must be built with a human to human connection. Words and images alone can not cut it.
We are trying to sell people through email and it does not work. Not very well. Anyway, you're usually able to build interest. And I talk about this on the show all the time. What is a business development specialist real job? Your job is to build enough interest to get you to a meeting, a face to face interaction where rapport and trust can be built.
That is the secret to take us to that next step, to that buying decision. We have to find a way to establish trust and it doesn't matter whether you're buying consumer goods, business to business goods, a large purchase or a small purchase. Typically, some level of trust must be built ahead of the buying decision for you to feel good about making that buying decision.
And what are you guys seeing on LinkedIn, on all your social medias, basically every way somebody is trying to advertise to you? They are trying to get you to make a buying decision without earning your trust first. And you're getting really, really good at just calling the bullshit. And that's exactly what is happening to you.
If you are sending email marketing campaigns, if you are only trying to sell over social media, if you are utilizing passive strategies that are great for brand recognition and hoping that they will translate to dollars and cents for your business, because unfortunately, They typically do not translate at the rate you need them to or even the rate you're paying for with regards to your passive marketing advertising costs, right?
So what is the problem? The problem is we don't sell with words, emails, texts, social posts. The world keeps trying to tell you that this is the way guys, it's the way because marketing companies make a damn fortune off of you. Think about it. Think about the money you're spending on Facebook ads, Meta ads on LinkedIn ads.
And guys, I love LinkedIn, but I'm just saying think about the money that people are spending on advertising campaigns, Google campaigns, you name it, hoping to God that they translate to dollars and cents sales for the business. I hate to say it to you. They typically do not. And the reason is they are not for that.
It is not the marketing company's fault. First off, it is not their fault. That is not the medium that they are. They're a passive marketing company. What they ultimately do is they build brand awareness. It's for you, your products, your services. And depending on what your products and services are, maybe that works.
But the reality is for most people, most businesses, it is not enough on its own. They're one piece of a puzzle. of a puzzle, of an active marketing and a passive marketing strategy. And you need that active part, that human to human part, that direct reach out, that connection part, to pull the whole thing together.
So it doesn't matter whether it's words, emails, texts, social media, billboards, radio ads, TV ads, you name it. They are all passive strategies. They're great for brand recognition, but you could implement all of these things and not sell 1 worth of products and services. Did you know that you could buy all of the TV ads, the radio ads.
You could have the best social media campaigns. You could have the best Google AdWords. You could be paying, you know, 10, 000 a month. And it not translate into a dollars and cents sale. And guess what? It is not marketing company's fault. That is not what it is for. We have to remember passive marketing strategies are just that they're amazing for brand recognition.
And I'm not hating on these things at all. I think they're critical. I think they're very important. What I'm saying is you're using them wrong. You're thinking that if you buy the radio ads, the TV ads, they are going to lead to dollars and cents sales at a massive quantity. And typically that is not what's happening because there's a step missing.
There's a step missing. And that's a human to human interaction that builds rapport, builds trust, builds word of mouth. No, this does not have to be a word of mouth from your company. Even this could be, if you have a product and service out there in the market right now, you could just be the community talking about it because it's an incredible product and service and they're recommending it to their friends.
Great. That built enough trust for them to try your product and service to make a buying decision. But you need a human. In the mix. Are you seeing what I'm kind of getting at here? You need human to human interaction because that is how we build trust. And no, think about it. This does not actually need to be an in person interaction, by the way.
How many times have you heard something good about a product and service, or you've been researching something? What did you do? You hit the internet to watch reviews and you watched. Not one review, because that wouldn't be enough. Not two, not three, not five, not 10, whatever. Maybe you watch 20 different reviews to come to your buying decision.
But what did you do? You relied on another person to tell you about their personal experience and make a recommendation. And no, you didn't rely on one. You relied on 10, right? You relied on multiple trusted sources or multiple sources to come to a buying decision. What did that do? It built trust, it built enough trust for you to make that choice.
And when we're talking about services, products, guys, it's all the difference. You have to, have to, have to have a human in the mix, somebody who can make a human to human connection, have a real conversation, answer some real questions, be authentic, build trust that leads to success. to a sale and hopefully repeat business over time.
The key ingredient missing is trust. All the marketing companies in the world can't help you with this. Trust is built by people, by word of mouth, by human to human interactions. And if you are struggling to sell your products and services, what you could be struggling with right here is trust. Luckily, though.
I have some really great news for you. You are the missing ingredient. We need to bring people and relationships back to the forefront of the marketing process, guys. We have to bring humanity back into the marketing process. And not just bring it back, but bring it back. Put it at the forefront. It has to be the forefront.
It has to be 80%. 20 percent needs to be on the passive marketing strategies, but 80 percent needs to be focused on active marketing, human to human interactions, real meetings, real discussions, real relationships being built by people for people. This is how it works. Computers and AI are great, but they do not and cannot replace a human to human interaction.
And I know, I can already hear some of you saying, I saw a digital ad and I bought something. And I said, sure, I get it. Me too. But, But you likely watched a review or two or five or 10 and maybe had previous trust established with that brand. So this is the other thing. Once you have trust established new products, new services, they automatically get garnered a level of trust.
Why? Because that customer likes your products and services. So maybe very likely they will like your additional products and services. Is that So really what we're talking about in business development is really establishing a brand. Once a brand is established and trust is established, it can carry through the entire product line and service line of that brand.
Look at Apple. Look at Samsung. They could release a new phone every single year and you automatically trust it. Why? Because you bought 10 of them before and they were good and they were great at the time. So why wouldn't the next one be great? You already have a foundation of trust. So we need to focus on how do we build this foundation of trust for a new company, for a new product and service, right?
There has to be a track record, but you have to start somewhere. And the secret is to start with human to human connection. Even all the incredible individuals that we follow on socials are building trust with us through repeated daily interactions with their content. I've had people reach out to me, talk to me, meet me in person and say, Wow, it's like I already know you because I've heard you like I was literally listening to you this morning.
I feel like, I feel like we were just talking guys. That is trust. That is trust being established through content, right? Content creators are consistently building trust through repeated interactions with the people that listen to our shows, with the people that engage with our content. That is how these people are building massive social media followings. They are building daily, repeatable, dependable, trustworthy content that people can rely on. And what happens is if people are engaging with this content on a daily basis, it is actually creating a level of trust because subconsciously, It's still human to human interaction. This is why nobody is engaging with your corporate posts.
By the way, if you are posting corporate stuff on LinkedIn or on any of your socials or sales ads or whatever you're seeing, they're getting very little interaction, very little. And then you're seeing the personal posts are getting an absolute. ton of interaction. Why is this? Because we connect with people.
We don't connect with business. We don't connect with sales ads. Okay. We, we just don't. What they are for is brand recognition. Brand recognition, it's critical too, because it builds trust over time, but it takes a lot of time. And so you obviously need to still be doing corporate posts, sales posts, things along those lines, but understand that is not where trust is built.
It's built in your authentic personal interactions. It's why part of my coaching now literally includes personal brand building. Why? Because I don't think there's a future that personal brand is not important. I think it's not only critical, it's going to be mandatory in the future. And so literally you can't teach business development anymore.
Without also teaching the power of the personal brand and how do we do it? So guys, we're there. We're absolutely there. We are back to the point where human to human interaction is not just critical. And the funny thing is it's been critical the whole time. We just forgot about it. We just forgot about it.
We tried, we tried to machine humanity out of it all, but that doesn't work because every organization, no matter how big or small is comprised. of people, of humans, making decisions, making emotional decisions, making decisions built on trust. Okay. So how do we do it? How do we build trust in an increasingly AI and computer based world?
Guys, we have to balance our digital marketing and passive strategies with an active marketing process, and we have to go back to prioritizing the human to human interactions. We have to put building trust ahead of the sale because it is a required stepping stone to long term success, okay?
We have to balance our active and passive marketing strategies. And guys, for those of you who maybe are new to this, active marketing is human to human interaction. It's direct contact. So I always like to say it's a direct email. It's a direct phone call. It's leaving a human voicemail, and it is pushing to get to a face to face meeting. Everything we do in the active marketing process is to get us to a face to face interaction, because that is where the trust is built. That is where the sale is done. And that will lead to exponential results for your businesses over time. We have to build relationships. We have to build trust.
We have to build connection. These are done in human to human interactions. And so everything that we do. With the active marketing process is get us to a face to face interaction that will lead to sales for your organizations over time. Number two, we have to find ways to inject humanity into our day to day.
We have to bring ourselves back. We have to get, we have to put humans back in control and we can do that. In a few different ways, but some easy ways that we could just get started with is I want you guys to write a personal social post. No AI, just you, just you talk about something. I don't even want you to like, check yourself, just type something like we used to.
You remember that time when you used to sit down in your computer and type out a social post on Facebook? Okay, do that again. Do that again. Absolutely. Check your writing, make sure that it's done well, but I want it to be you. I guarantee you, you do one post like this a week. You are going to stand out.
Why? Because everybody is using AI. Everybody and their dog is using AI for social posts. You want to stand out now? Don't use AI for your social posts. Write personal emails. Same thing. I get it. I get it. We're busy. We're in BD. We're sending tons and tons of emails. And it makes a lot of sense to can emails.
I get it. I get it. But every once in a while, type an email. Type an email like you used to. Mistakes and all, whatever, in some cases, the mistakes are actually good for you. They make you stand out, but it's funny. But my point is behind ways to not use technology, right? Find ways to interact with people like a human, like your authentic, genuine self.
Stop using copy and paste introductions. Guys, this is a big one on LinkedIn, right? LinkedIn specifically, we're connecting with people. We're typing up messages, but let's get real. We're not typing up messages. We are copy and pasting messages. We are chat GPTing introductions. Guys, they don't have to be long, write your own introductions to people, do a quick type.
If you're going to paste something, paste your links to whatever that you want to send them to you, but ultimately write the message yourself. It is the secret to standing out in 2024, 2025 and beyond. We have to go back. We have to go back because 2025. Is absolutely, absolutely going to be human centric.
We are going to be finding ways to go back, to interact as people, to connect as individuals, to be more authentic than we have ever been. I know, I know it's uncomfortable. I also struggle with it. You guys know that I don't post a lot of personal stuff. I'm working on it. I'm working on it because for me, it's a little uncomfortable.
I want to do more videos in 2025. I want to do things like this. I've never done them before. So for me, I have work to do. You also have work to do. We can absolutely do this together. Number three, choose an in person or teams meeting to build genuine connection. Guys, stop trying to sell over email. Get to a face to face interaction.
Have a real conversation. Build authentic. relationships. Don't be afraid to meet somebody for lunch. Don't be afraid to go golfing or do something fun with a potential client. This is how relationships are built. Relationships lead to repeat business over time. Repeat business over time will build your companies, get real relationships.
Computer relationships are not enough. Four, go to a networking event with no expectations. And I know I already have beady people like gasping right now. What do you mean? No expectations. Guys go to a in person event with no expectations. The whole thing that I want you to do. Is just practice your social skills, be a human, interact with some people who knows what you'll find.
The problem is we're going to events with expectations and we're getting super disappointed when it's almost impossible to meet them because events are hard to meet the right people. We know this, like we know this, come on. So if you're going to go to an event, I want you to go to an event without any expectations.
Just meet people, have a conversation, work on your social skills, and guys, we need to work on our social skills. We like it's 2025. We live in front of computers. Okay. We need including myself. We need to work on our social skills. Go to events with no expectations and you will never be disappointed.
Number five, take your clients to lunch. Golf or something fun to build connections. Guys, we built friendships doing fun things. Think about being a teenager. How did you make friends? How did you build friendships? You build friendships by hanging out and doing fun things together. Why would it be any different in business somewhere along the line?
We forgot about that. Okay. We forgot about that, but trust me. Trust me, it is the same. You can build incredible, incredible friendships with your clients with coworkers, with whatever else, right? By just doing fun things that you would do with friends. This is how friendships are built. This is how long term trust and bonds are established.
We do fun things with friends. We can do fun things with clients and make them into friends. And number six, guys. And this might be the most important, the most important message I have for you today. Stop pretending to be somebody else. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Be genuine. Be authentic. Be the you you were born to be.
Okay? We have never been allowed to be ourselves. I want you to understand that. I want you to understand that. It's not your fault that you're not being yourself. We have been taught that we had to be someone else, that we had to be strong, that we had to know it all, that we had to have all the answers, that we had to lead, that we had to be strong and be tough.
Guys, it's all bullshit. It's all bullshit. You were already all of those things. We have never lived in a time where you could truly be yourself and succeed. But we do now. But I'll tell you what, it only works if you take your authentic power back. It only works if you wake up tomorrow and say, you know what?
I'm done. I'm done pretending. I'm done hiding who I am. Be your authentic self. Be genuine. Because genuine people, authentic people, automatically instill a sense of trust. Be yourself. You are awesome. Trust is not a nice to have. It is absolutely essential to all stages of the sales process. Put it first, make it a core value, and watch your business and yourself.
Thrive. Shoutouts this week, Bryan Hayes, Collin Harms, Deanna Kean, Rodney Lover, Chris Small, Susan Poseika, Shawn Neels, Gary Noseworthy, Jan Hnat, William Silva, Nate Simpson, Emily Rushworth, Billy Martin, Jeanette Sesey, April Boyes, Jennifer Lee, Courtney, Jamar Jones, Vijayan Swaminathan, AmirAbbas Mirakhorloo, David Fair, and Krista Kelly.
Until next time. This has been episode 183 of the business development podcast, and we will catch you. On the flip side,
Intro: this has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.
His passion and his specialization. Is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.
