The Know, Like, Trust factor

This is a popular term in branding and business in general. It’s exactly what it sounds like – people need to know who you are, like you enough to stick around, and trust you so that they feel confident buying from you once, and then again and again.

I talked to Laura Rees, a brand strategist who works with small businesses to help them think about their brand as a sales tool instead of just a logo. She works with smart, fun entrepreneurs and business owners, and helps them build brands that sell so they can stop spending so much time hunting for customers and instead create a system that brings customers to them.

Let’s break down the know, like, and trust factor so you can have some easy steps to get started.

Listen to the podcast straight away or keep scrolling to get the breakdown:

Boost the Know Factor

1. The first step is to get very, very clear about who you serve and how you serve them.
2. Then you can build stories and messages to communicate in a way that gets people interested. 

Laura recommends always telling stories that relate back to your business. Can you share a story of your own transformation? Can you share a story of a clients or customers’ transformation? If you’re somebody that has a product, how can you tell a story about how you use that product or how a customer uses that product?

Storytelling is a really easy way for you to create a lot of content because you have a lifetime of stories that you can draw from. Of course, we all have a ton of stories, but how can we relate those back to our business?

Laura recommends making sure that you have a set of key messages that you are repeating. Four or five messages that you know you’re always going to talk about. Then start brainstorming stories you have that can relate to those talking points. 

Getting really clear about who you serve and how you serve them means always having a touchpoint to come back to. Define your company values, relate everything back to those, and you’re golden.

Your Like Factor

So once you have people interested with that “know” factor, that’s where you bring in “like.”

On the surface, people can think of “like” as meaning, “I like you, we’re friends. Let’s hang out!” But it’s not just about that.

When we’re talking about business and marketing and branding, the “like factor” goes a little bit deeper than that. It’s about you, as a brand, forming a deeper connection with your potential customers.

You can form that deeper connection by:

1. Sharing your brand values, your mission, and your vision.
2. “Expressing your brand character.” For example, one of Laura’s clients has a restaurant group and they have a mission is all about “sheer joy and delicious food making us the most loved restaurant in the neighborhood.” 

They use that mission as a guide to increase their “like” factor. They empower their employees to give out free meals or to give free cookies on someone’s birthday. They show a lot of people smiling inside of their restaurants. Not necessarily specific food – but just showing happiness.

It’s not as complicated as it might sound. You’re just basically making your actions and your visuals match up with your values and mission. 

It allows you to just tell all your stories through that lens in a really specific way. So those are some kind of the ways that we can get customers to relate to us and just start having an emotional investment. We want them to feel something deeper than, “Oh, that’s a person that sells a product or a service (or ravioli).” We need to make that emotional connection with customers.

Boost your Trust Factor

We can agree: No one is going to buy from anyone that they don’t trust.

Right. You don’t say, “That guy looks super shady, but I still bought his stuff.” 

When you’re getting people to know you and sharing stories of your business that fit your values and mission it’s gonna give off an amazing energy that your audience can really pick up on. It puts you in a space where you feel really good about what you’re talking about. And it makes them feel really excited as well, because they can pick up that energy from you. 

In that case, you’re kind of selling without knowing that you’re selling. And that’s the place that I always recommend people try to come from.

When you’re giving your audience something that they really need your trust factor is going to take off. Providing a service that’s going to help them achieve their goals, or solve their problems, is going to show them that you have something that’s worth paying for. It doesn’t feel like selling. It feels more fun. 

What if people don’t like you?

When you think about that deeper level of “like”, and you’re sharing a distinct point of view on something that’s going to turn some people away. But, the flip side of that is that it’s going to attract a lot of the right people to you.

I talk a lot about attracting people and repelling people with your marketing, but Laura said,

“When you have raving fans, you’re going to have raving lunatics.”

Which I think is a hilarious way to put it!

Laura also stresses that we shouldn’t worry if you put out a real or a post and no one seems to get it or understand it, you don’t have any engagement. 

She reminds us that our stories and posts are gone so fast and no one is going to remember it. And if worse comes to worse, you can delete it. So just go for it!

Consistently Show Up

To build know like, and trust you have to be consistent. If you just put up one story, and maybe it’s even the greatest story ever… If I don’t follow that up with something else, they’re going to move on to something else. 

There are a million reasons we use to not be consistent. Life, kids, jobs, anything and everything can get in the way. But also sometimes, as we said above, your ego can get in the way. If you post something and get crickets you can get in your own head, and start feeling like it doesn’t matter and no one is even listening. 

I talked to Kate Herford about this too, and she mentioned that you never know who’s listening and not actually “engaging.” Keep going for that person! 

What you can control

1. Instead of focusing on what your engagement is, set a goal for actions that you can control. For example, I’m going to post three times this week.
2. Make sure it’s something you can sustainably keep up with.
3. Let the likes and the comments fade to the background.

When you just focus on the things that you can control, then you can feel more accomplished because those are goals you can actually meet. You know I’m all about process over product. If you get crickets on Monday, don’t let it derail you from your Wednesday post. 

Learn from the posts that are getting less engagement and see if there’s a common theme popping up that your audience is skipping over. Tweak your messaging and your content to double down on the stuff that works, and you’ll find it easier to make better content over time.

Your next step:

Now you gotta grab Laura’s awesome worksheet so you can brainstorm those stories that will up your know, like, and trust factor with your audience.

Don’t forget to take some realistic goals for yourself around how much you can show up for your audience on social media. Then make sure you show up regardless of the engagement your posts get. But, don’t be afraid to use any ups or downs in engagement to guide your future content.

More from Laura Rees…

We also talk about the time I was all hopped up on Nyquil and wrote a check for $150 to a complete stranger. He was obviously a total pro at know, like, and trust. Or maybe I’m a complete sucker…you be the judge.

And you’ll hear lots of great examples of how to demonstrate each of the three parts of the KLT factor. So push play on the episode to get the full scoop.