Summary

Most business leaders know trust matters—but very few know how to build it on purpose. Buyers are more cautious, more skeptical, and quicker to walk away, which makes relying on “good intentions” or old playbooks risky at best.

In this episode, Hannah Eisenberg shares the TrustLeader Framework, the result of 25 years working hands-on in B2B marketing and sales, from large software companies to founder-led businesses in the messy middle

You will learn how this framework will help you turn trust into something practical, measurable, and repeatable—so it can actually support growth instead of quietly holding it back.

What You’ll Learn:

• How the TrustLeader Framework turns trust into something you can operationalize
• What trust really means in a business context, and why buyers experience it as risk and vulnerability
• The three phases of trust and what must be true before you can move to the next one
• What the two trust maturity jumps are—and what changes when you reach them
• Why most companies unknowingly build or destroy trust by accident
• How to start building trust intentionally without overwhelming your organization

Welcome to another episode of Lead with Trust.

My name is Hannah Eisenberg and I am so excited to have you here with me today for this very special episode that I have been probably thinking about recording for the last six to eight months.

Because today we're going to go and explore the Trust Leader framework.

The Trust Leader Framework is the core concept of my book Lead with Trust.

And it's really the core of what we do here at Trust Leader.

Now let me frame that a little bit.

If you've never heard about the Trust Leader Framework, why are we even talking about this?

And I won't go too deep into this whole situation that we have right now, but if you are a founder led business or you are a business leader of a small to mid sized B2B company, you are probably struggling a lot right now to start sustain revenue, let alone increase revenue.

I see that.

I work with companies a lot that have between 2 million and 15, 20 million in annual revenue and they are being hit so hard right now, not only because of the global economic situation, that, that is one thing, but because buyers are more distrustful and less patient than they've ever been before.

And we as vendors or as, as companies, we, we just keep applying the same playbook over and over and over, but we're not adjusting to this new increased level of distrust and lack of patience.

So that gap between our buyers and us is crazy increasing.

Actually in last week's episode I talked about how much it takes to overcome that sort of trust gap that is developing.

And if you listen to that episode, it is a crazy amount of content.

Someone has to consume seven hours in fact, in order to feel comfortable enough to trust us to make an initial purchase.

So it's our job as vendors to do anything we can to build trust intentionally and systematically.

And if you're not doing that today, you are having to work so much harder to overcome that gap and it's becoming almost impossible.

So trust is becoming the new currency, it's becoming the new business growth driver.

And the Trust Leader Framework is giving you a step by step methodology to implement this systematically and intentionally in your business.

And it's based on my 25 years of experience in marketing and sales from very, very large software companies all the way down to B2B companies with 2 million in revenue.

Now let's dive right in, into what the framework is and what it isn't before we explore the elements and walk through the entire framework.

So what is the Trust Leader Framework?

The Trust Leader Framework is really a framework I developed in order to make trust tangible.

When we think of trust in business relationships or how trust usually is being built, it's almost built by accident or as a byproduct.

We sort of hope for trust being developed as part of a good customer experience or as part of a good customer marketing campaign, or a salesperson builds rapport and builds trust with that person.

But we don't have anything tangible in place to make sure that we do this with purpose or in a standardized way.

So the trust leader framework is really giving that tangible way of turning this abstract concept of trust into something that we can actually implement, we can measure, we can manage, we can improve, and we can really, truly operationalize throughout our organization.

Now, it's also proactive, and it's a business multiplier.

Proactive is because it builds trust with intention, right?

As I just said, we hope that it's a byproduct or we sort of hope that it's being developed with this framework.

If we implement it, we proactively build trust.

We're not hoping because hope is not a strategy, but we're implementing trust in a systematic way.

And it's a business multiplier because we're doing so systematically.

So marketing becomes more effective, sales cycles become shorter, referrals become easier, like closing deals become easier, and of course, higher profits and revenue.

That's ultimately the goal.

Now, it's also high impact.

And I say that because each step of the framework is designed to compound the work that we've done previously.

So on purpose, there's two maturity jumps, and it's organized in a way that you can follow it step by step.

But everything you do previously becomes the foundation.

And then the results and the impact compound as you go through the framework.

It's also giving you a high resilience engine.

So I know it sounds a bit buzzwordy, but a lot of times when we are developing a marketing strategy or we are developing sales tactics, it's almost like random acts of marketing or sales tool experimentation.

We bought this new tool and now we're implementing this process because that's what the tool needs.

But we're not building actively or proactively for resilience.

And that's what this does, right?

Trust future proofs your business against recessions, against market shifts, about competitors entering the market.

And that is something very, very powerful.

It's also freeing in a way that you, as a founder or CEO, free yourself from everything else that goes on around you.

If you intentionally and systematically build trust, you put almost blinders on and you don't worry about what your competition does.

You don't really worry about what the market says and how they react to the things that you do.

Because those blinders that you put on are the principles that we're going to be talking about for in a minute.

And those truly lead you to the right path.

If you follow those, you know you're on the right path.

You don't have to worry about what everyone else says, left, right, you know, you just can follow your path now.

It's also timeless, and that's probably one of the most favorite things that I like about the framework, because trust in itself is timeless.

LinkedIn might be really important to your strategy today.

Maybe YouTube videos are really important to your strategy today.

But who knows what happens in five years?

Is LinkedIn still going to be around?

Who knows?

YouTube, probably.

But what always is going to be around, always going to be critical to your business, is trust.

You cannot go wrong with building trust.

A few things that make this framework special and different from maybe other frameworks that you've seen is that it's sequential.

So it's deliberately a step by step process.

There's no shortcuts.

It is a lot of hard work.

But as I said, it will be compounding as you go through the framework.

It's also customizable.

So I created a trust Leader assessment.

It's a 45 question deep diagnostic tool.

I'll put the link here and in the show notes and in this diagnostic tool, if you truly answer those questions honestly, it'll give you a snapshot of where you are today.

It identifies trust gaps that you might have and some really good opportunities for some quick wins.

Now, if you've been truly honest with yourself and you, you close those gaps and you seize those opportunities and you take the assessment in six months from now and you see how your score went up, I bet you you will also see the improvement in your business that has been made because of these changes that you have made.

Truly believe that, because I have seen it happen over and over in my work in the last 25 years.

Last but not least, it's actionable and it's action oriented.

Right.

A lot of the concepts around trust are sort of also fuzzy and they're like lofty goals.

But here we're breaking things down in a step by step process, like in the implementation sprints that I'm doing with my customers.

They are going to learn something one week and they're implementing it and we do a momentum session and then the next week they're publishing it, right?

So every two weeks we're getting a key asset out that has to click into the framework in order to progress, in order to make process growth happen, and in order to build trust.

Now, what isn't the framework?

The framework really isn't some kind of magic pill.

Okay?

I 100% believe that implementing this framework will absolutely transform your business.

But there is no magic pill.

I attended a session with Dent the other day about audience building and Mike Reed said you just have to do the grind.

It's simple as that.

It's the foundational stuff that you have to do that you've been keeping avoiding or you're hoping for some better magic tool or whatever it is.

You just have to do the work.

And this framework will tell you which are the right activities to do in the right order.

But you still got to do the work.

And I help you to do that work and I'll show you how to do that.

But the work has to be done.

Secondly, it's not a marketing tactic.

This is a holistic business philosophy and business approach.

It's almost like a business operating system and it's a culture shift.

And without leadership, buying into this and supporting this is not going to happen.

You cannot start this in marketing and work your way through the organization.

You can start maybe the first six months, but in order for the full framework to click and for it to really truly transform your organization, it has to be a full company operating shift.

Okay, last but not least, it's not a short term rescue plan.

What do I mean by that?

If you are desperate right now and you need to have an increase of revenue and 20% in the next three months or you have to shut down your business, this is not it probably better to buy Google Ads, even though I don't think that is really going to help you there.

But you simply.

It's a long term strategy.

It's something that you build over time and invest in and the impact compounds.

Are you going to see dramatic changes in three months and six months?

Absolutely.

But in order to implement the process, implement the entire framework, you will need time.

So this is not a short term rescue plan.

Okay, so now that I've told you what it is and isn't, let's go and step through each of the elements and then let's explore the framework.

So let's talk about the elements of the trust leader framework.

Let's go for each of them first and then I'll walk you through the actual framework and explain to you how it works.

Okay, so the framework is broken up into three phases.

The phases are the orange segments, almost.

Those are the largest units within the framework.

They represent the dimensional jumps that you have to make in order to make progress.

They organize your trust building activities in a logical order so that you can build first transactional fact based, cognitive trust.

Then you deepen that trust into emotional relationship based trust.

And then you transform that trust into unshakable trust.

And I'll tell you in a minute how we're going to get there.

But those are sort of the phases that you go through in the trust leader framework.

Now if we look at each phase, each of the phases has one principle.

Imagine that principle is the negotiable.

That the non negotiable commitment that you have to make in order to be successful in this phase.

It is almost like a prerequisite or a price of admission.

And this lets you filter out all the things that you should say no to.

If you've ever read Dr. Benjamin Hardy, he talks a lot about how a good strategy is what you say no to rather than what you say yes to.

So this helps you to decide the things that you say no to and it helps you to narrow down the things you should say yes to.

Now this acts as a guardrail and it always ensures that you're going to be on the right track.

The last thing I want to say about the principles is that they are compounding, meaning every single time we introduce a principle when it comes to the table, it never gets off the table again.

So the first principle, for example, is complete transparency in the first foundational phase.

Now that moves over and still is in place as we move into the second phase, where we then have as a principle unapologetic customer alignment.

But those two then work together.

Okay, all right, that's what a principle is.

Now, a cornerstone.

A cornerstone is we have three cornerstones within each phase and they're the practical domains or the tangible focus areas of where you build trust in that phase.

And we center things around cornerstones because it turns those vague ideas into, for example, how do you build reliability?

Or how do you communicate effectively that you're capable of doing X, Y and Z?

It turns that into a more actionable concrete project.

We have three cornerstones within a phase.

These are turning our vague ideas into concrete projects and they really help us to organize the work that we have to do.

Okay, so now that we know what cornerstones are, let's talk about maturity jumps and payoffs.

So now you go through the trust leader framework.

Once Right now, most companies that I encounter, about 90%, 95%, are building trust or eroding trust by accident.

That is the first maturity stage or maturity stage zero.

And we need to get to a place by implementing the trust leader framework where they intentionally building trust at a level that their customers expecting them to operate in.

That's the first maturity jump that you make.

So you go from random acts of trust building and hoping for the best to intentionally building trust at a level that your customer is expecting you to operate in.

That is the first time you implement the trust leader framework.

Now every single company on this planet, if they are willing to be ethical and they're not just in it for making quick money and they have a deeper purpose, can make this jump.

Absolutely.

And they will have tremendous benefits from that.

Tremendous payoffs.

Right.

A payoff in the trusted framework is the outcome that you can expect as a result of mastering each of the phases in the trusted framework.

So if you do that, if you only do that first maturity jump, you will already see such a difference.

You will see increase in customer loyalty, you will increase your profit and your revenue.

People will now understand why what you're selling, why you're selling it, what the value of your product is.

I'll get to the payoffs in a second, but there is already an enormous benefit of doing this the first time.

Now there is a small percentage of special companies, let's call them that, And I found in my work that is founder led companies that truly got into this business to solve a bigger problem, to make an impact on the world.

And they're usually high integrity, purpose led leaders.

And they're frustrated because they sort of have to stuff down their vision and their purpose in order to make money and survive and pay the bills and pay salaries.

But they're frustrated by that because they can't figure that out and they have this tension now.

That's what the second maturity jump is for.

And if you are one of those people, this is where the magic happens.

So in my experience, only 10 to 15% can actually do that because you have to put those blinders on.

You have to be completely willing to be transparent.

You have to be willing to unapologetically align yourself with your customers.

You have to be willing to empower them to disrupt your industry.

There's a whole bunch of stuff, but if you do that, you become a trust based market leader, you become a category of one.

I have to hold myself back from telling you the whole story because I want to get to the payoffs in A minute as I walk you through the whole framework.

But this is truly where the magic happens.

And if you implement that, you get to write the rules in your market.

You get to be at that point where you finally where you always wanted to be.

Now let's take a deep breath and let's get into the framework itself.

All right, so let's dive into the trust leader framework and go through it phase by phase, element by element, and I'll map out for you what that journey will look like.

Let's start with the first phase, which is the foundational trust.

Now, in this phase, we are building the cognitive fact based trust that someone needs to feel in order to make that initial purchase.

Right.

Trust here is, might be a little fragile because we're just starting to build that initial trust, but it's definitely enough for them to make the first purchase.

Now, as I said, it's cognitive fact based.

So what we need to prove here is we need to effectively communicate our competence, reliability and integrity.

Meaning I have to effectively communicate, so I have to make the buyer believe by communicating how competent I am.

Because a buyer has always a question of do they have the capabilities, the abilities, the experience, the knowledge, the skills, the technology to do the thing they said they're going to do, Right?

So is all these questions around, is the product good enough?

What are the features?

That is all around competence.

That's the first minimum level that we need to go for.

The second is, are they reliable?

Meaning if you hire a marketing agency, will they deliver on time?

If you bring your toddler to daycare and you pay the daycare, will they show up on time?

Are they going to do the things they said they're going to do in a reliable manner?

There's so many things that we need to prove reliability on because that reduces the risk a buyer feels and that makes them more likely to trust us.

Now, the third element that really ties that up nicely in a bow is integrity.

We need integrity and we need to communicate our integrity effectively as buyers.

And a lot of companies don't do that.

They just have sort of a decal in a boardroom of some company values.

But if we communicate our integrity effectively, what we're telling our buyers is we will make sure that we not only treat you like the last successful customer, but we're going to.

We have moral standards, right?

It's important to us that this works.

It's important to us that you're not going to be disappointed.

It is, you know, critical for us that you succeed and we hold ourselves to those promises that we're making.

So if we have all these three things, we can build that fact based trust.

So not surprisingly, those are the three cornerstones of the first phase.

So competence, reliability and integrity.

The overlying principle of how we're going to be successful in this is complete transparency.

And we define complete transparency as our commitment to being fully open, honest, unbiased, even if it's inconvenient for us.

Even if it feels like, I don't know if I should talk about this potential problem with my product or about this potential pitfall or.

Yes, you should.

You should be completely transparent.

I mean, you can be transparent fault where, you know, you obviously should never reveal any confident information or any of that sort.

But anything that the buyer needs to know needs to be shared.

So that includes pricing, that includes how do I stack up against my competition good and the bad, who am I good fit for and who am I not a good fit for?

That kind of stuff.

All right, so if we implement these three cornerstones and using the overarching principle, we're going to have a payoff at the end of this.

And the first level payoff is that you have really well educated customers, that your customers see you as the most credible source in the market because you're so transparent, factual and honest.

They see you as the go to expert if they have a question.

And you really earn that early authority by educating better than anyone else in the market.

Buyers feel more, they just feel educated rather than pressured.

Which makes you immediately like a magnet for, for your buyers.

Right?

Because the person who, who helps them guide and educates them the most in the best way is automatically seen as a go to expert and people want to work with you.

Now if you are achieving the second maturity jump where you go through the whole framework, the second time, the payoff will be even greater.

Right?

Your transparency, consistency and integrity positions you as a default authority in your category.

You influence how buyers evaluate options, others look to you for guidance.

And your market really shifts because you shape the expectations and you create the standards across your industry.

Now you are the market authority in your space.

Now the second phase is called relational trust.

Relational trust really is all about taking this transactional, cognitive, fact based trust that we just built that is still a bit fragile and we're going to deepen it into emotional and relationship based trust.

And we do that by behaving with empathy, with respect and with benevolence.

Now how does that work?

Well, first, empathy, which is the first cornerstone, allows us to really understand our customers.

At such a deep level, we are willing to really put ourselves in their shoes, to feel and to demonstrate our understanding through our communication behavior.

That makes our buyers feel much more comfortable with us because they feel like these people understand me, they get me.

And if we do that, and if we show empathy in our marketing, in our sales and our customer experience, and even in operations as we are defining the processes from their perspective, not just from our perspective, that truly helps us to draw closer with them.

That's the first sort of stage.

The second is that we show respect.

And respect is our willingness as a business to value our buyer's perspective, even if it differs from ours.

And we treat them with respect in every single interaction.

It also includes though, the fact that we need to respect them enough to do everything in our power to keep their data safe, to make buying experiences as convenient as possible, to just show respectful behavior all throughout.

And the third is benevolence.

Now I know benevolence is sort of a taboo tamer in business, especially in the U.S. but if you care more about the best interest of your customers than maybe even your customers themselves, this will build such a long term fruitful relationship with your customers that it's well worth commercially to be benevolent.

I'm not saying you should run a charity, but you need to care, genuinely care about how the best interest of your, your customers, meaning for example, that you tell someone if they're not a good fit, if they're really not a good fit, you tell them straight up.

Because even if it's costing you the short term sale, taking on a bad fit customer ultimately is going to eat into your profits because it's never going to work out.

They're going to have a lot of customer complaints, they're going to need a lot of help, they might need tweaks to the, to the product.

It's not going to be long term, a profitable customer ever.

So telling them upfront, look, this is not right.

It's benevolent because you have their best interests at heart, but it's also good for you long term.

Now how does that relate to the overall phase in terms of principle?

What's the principle that we have to keep in mind if we are behaving ethically, empathetically, respectfully and benevolent?

Well, the blinders we sort of have to put on or the prerequisite we have to come into this work is unapologetic customer alignment.

We have to be 100% willing to do what's best for the customer to align with their needs, worries, fears, and concerns.

If we do that, we will build emotional relationship, build trust in this segment that will really make a transformation in your business.

Now, if you do this work correctly, the first payoff is what I call customer advocacy.

So now your customers feel genuinely understood, they feel respected, they feel prioritized and they become advocates for your brand.

They speak up on your behalf, they are willing to refer you to their friends and family and they build trust for you amongst their peers.

Nothing is as good as a trust builder, as a personal story or referral to someone else.

And your reputation becomes rooted in that customer alignment because it's genuine.

And you are, you become known as putting your customers interest first.

And if you remember what I just said about that, what keeps people in the distrust, it's the information, interest and power deficit that is solving for the interest deficit.

Now if you go through the framework a second time and you go through that second maturity jump, your payoffs are going to be obviously more elevated and you are becoming what I call a market influence.

Now you're so aligned with your customers and your alignment is so strong that you become that trusted voice of the customer in your market.

You are not having only your customers advocate for you.

You advocate for them in a very strong way.

You're not putting up anymore with unfair business practices.

You call people out, you talk about new standards.

You, you educate on a level that really makes your buyers more aware of what they should have in mind, what they should know to defend their interests.

And your behavior begins to influence how the entire industry treats your customers because you set those higher standards for customer centric businesses.

So that alone is going to create a tribe for you that will almost follow you anywhere.

You have as a.

In monetary terms, right?

In KPI terms, both of those payoffs are very much related to customer loyalty.

So you're going to drastically reduce customer churn.

Lifetime customer value will drastically increase.

People are more willing to try out new products.

If they're happy customers and they trust you in that relationship based way, they're more willing to share feedback with you and give input on the products.

I mean, there's so many different ways this pays off and it's a phenomenal way to deepen that trust.

Okay, let's talk about the last phase of the trust leader framework, which is that transformational phase.

And that is because here we are really talking about having customers align with our values.

There's something interesting going on in human psychology.

If you imagine yourself on a trip by yourself in the middle of nowhere, in a continent you've never been.

And you don't know the language and you don't know your way around your first time there and it's a bit scary.

And someone comes down the street and they wear a sweater with your favorite soccer club logo on it.

Human psychology is programmed to trust that person more because they align with your values.

Right now as a company, if I truly communicate my values in a way that people can actually know what they are and then align themselves, if their values align with mine, it try building happens that is truly powerful because it's based on human psychology.

So this community building, this sort of tribe building happens here in the cornerstone of shared values.

The second cornerstone here in this is that we have customer empowerment.

So customer empowerment is truly about giving our customers the tools and ways to empower them, not only in their purchase and decision making, but throughout their customer experience as well.

Now here is a lot of innovative stuff that can happen.

And as we are progressing with AI, a lot of opportunities open up here.

But for right now, just to make it simple, think self service tools, think a pricing calculator, a product configurator, think of a way that they can log into a partner portal and they can either upgrade their plan easily, cancel their plan easily, maybe they can even have contractual terms that they can switch on and off that are acceptable to you, but would completely change their customer experience with you.

So we're truly talking about empowering someone here.

And the third one is ethical disruption.

So here we're talking about giving or creating innovative disruptions in your marketplace that are born out of the interest to help your customer to truly be disrupting something that is outdated or it's unfair, or it's a unfavorable business practice to the customer.

And now we're disrupting this market ethically.

We're doing things differently.

We're setting the new standards and we are writing the rules that others have.

Now.

If you think about this transformational trust phase here, if you go through the framework the first time, you really shift from being a vendor to a true partner.

And customers are starting to collaborate with you.

They're starting to become involved in your strategic conversations.

You eliminate that power imbalance that is keeping them in distrust, right?

And you make them feel empowered and control and confident in that relationship with you.

Now the relationship becomes resilient and long term.

And your customers really want to stay with you and grow with you because they truly feel that you are their partner in this.

They can trust you on that transformative level.

Now for the second maturity jump, if you go through on the advanced level you will, if you do it right, gain the ultimate trust based market leadership.

And that means you get to write all the rules that others have to follow.

You set those ethical new standards and you influence how the broader market operates.

Your brand becomes that default compass, customers and even competitors will look to you for guidance and trust becomes that sort of defensive competitive advantage where you attract high quality customers, you shape demand and you lead as almost like a category of one in your space.

I just want to leave you today with one thought.

You don't have to implement everything to get a lot of benefits from this framework.

I have created a 90 day starter guide that if you feel inspired what you heard today and you want to start implementing something that you could download that starter guide and you can start today.

I encourage you obviously to get the book and read through the framework in more detail.

And I absolutely would encourage you to take the trust leader assessment and answer those questions as honestly as you can.

Be truly honest with yourself to identify those trust gaps and those opportunities that you have.

And that assessment and the result will give you quick win actions you can do this week and you can just work your way through and implement those and truly start to see some traction of this within your own organization.

Now I hope this was helpful.

If you found it helpful, please give this a like a subscribe and we would love to have a review of the podcast wherever you're listening to with this.

I am so thrilled to have recorded this dream episode.

For me this was so dear and near to my heart.

I truly hope this inspires you as well to build trust intentionally and systematically.

Because ultimately everything in business comes down to trust.

Until next time.