Episode 12
Timeline of Trust: How to Sell When They'll Buy
What if the reason people aren’t buying… isn’t your offer at all?
We’ve been taught to optimize, refine, and fix every detail in our business—from pricing to positioning to platforms. But what if the “problem” isn’t what you’re doing… but when you’re doing it?
In this episode, I’m breaking down the Timeline of Trust—a three-phase framework that shifts how you sell and why your best clients might still be in the “just browsing” phase (and that’s not a problem). If you’ve been spinning your wheels wondering why people love your content but don’t convert, this is going to be a massive relief and a total reframe.
I’m walking you through what happens in your audience’s brain from the moment they discover you, to when they’re ready to buy—and how most sales strategies break that trust without even realizing it. This is your permission slip to stop forcing urgency, and start building connection that converts naturally.
We're not chasing attention. We’re calibrating trust.
What we're talking about:
[02:00] The sneaky habit keeping most entrepreneurs stuck in the “fix it” loop
[03:15] Why awareness ≠ readiness (and why that’s not a failure)
[04:30] The real role of visibility and why browsing is actually good behavior
[06:45] Phase 1: Awareness – what’s really happening when someone “finds” you
[07:30] Phase 2: Alignment – why overselling or disappearing both break trust
[09:30] How to build belief instead of pushing sales
[10:45] Phase 3: Activation – the real reason someone says YES (and what most people get wrong)
[11:30] How to sell without urgency, shame, or gimmicks—and still hit your goals
[12:00] What to calibrate instead of chasing more
Resources Mentioned:
Your Launch Style: https://www.traciepatterson.com/yls
Your Next Steps:
Work with Me: https://www.traciepatterson.com/connect
Ask Me Anything About Business: https://traciepatterson.com/ama
Free training: Build a launch that fits how you actually lead
👉 https://traciepatterson.com/style
Connect on Social: https://www.instagram.com/thetraciepatterson
CREDITS
Music: ColourfulSounds
Podcast Editor: Maia McLachlan
Transcript
Hello, everyone.
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:Tracie here, your resident
business, rebel, and your listening
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:to digital Hello, everyone.
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:Tracie here, your resident business,
rebel, and your listening to
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:Digital Business Your Way podcast.
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:The show that lets true stories
and insider secrets of online
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:entrepreneur life unfold.
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:Our business world is growing and as
an online business coach and digital
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:product creator, I believe you didn't
become an entrepreneur to grin and
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:bear your way through business.
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:So I'll be your guide.
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:As we drop in on coaching
calls, have intimate sit downs
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:with online personalities.
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:You love.
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:And discuss ideas, opportunities and
strategies circulating our online world.
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:So pop in your earbuds, tap,
follow, and join me as I demystify.
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:This thing called business.
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:Hello, hello and welcome to
Digital Business Your Way.
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:I'm Tracie, your resident business
Rebel here to walk you through,
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:well, something that might shift
how you sell hopefully forever.
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:Um, today we're digging into what, what I
call and what I mean, maybe you've heard
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:it called this before, but the timeline
of trust, because let's be real for a bit.
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:Um, it's easy to get stuck in, in a
loop when it comes to selling, right?
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:Why didn't they buy this?
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:What's wrong with my offer?
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:Is it my price?
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:Is it my copy?
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:You know, what, what's, what's happening?
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:Do I not have enough of an audience?
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:What's my reach?
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:Should I be, you know, doing
more re should I be doing ads?
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:Should I be in this community?
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:What, but, but, but, but, right.
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:Always looking for what's wrong.
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:Always trying to figure out what
that next thing is to fix, fix, fix.
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:But what if the answer isn't
about what you're doing wrong,
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:but when you're doing it?
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:Okay, so let's start with a
truth that will hopefully feel
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:like, well, a big old exhale.
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:Not everyone who finds you
is ready to buy from you.
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:Yeah, breathe that one out.
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:It is not a failure.
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:It's human behavior.
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:Human behavior that we do not control.
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:Even with all the algorithms, the bots,
the ais, all the things that are curating
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:feeds and customizing experiences, and
doing all the things in the backend.
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:Humans are ready when humans are ready.
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:Yeah.
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:Today I'm gonna walk you through the
phases of the timeline of trust and how
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:to create sales strategies that honor
where the audience is right instead
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:of, you know, where we wish they are.
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:'cause.
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:When we start with the audience
first, the money follows, right?
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:And time really, I mean, it, it disappears
because we don't focus on that part.
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:We're focusing on the humans.
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:We're focusing on the experimentation
and the fun and the parts that we enjoy.
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:So the rest of it just kind of.
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:Falls by the wayside.
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:It's something that when you're
in the middle of it, it's, it's
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:really hard to grasp, but once you
experience it, it's like, oh my gosh.
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:Yes.
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:And this is so much better.
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:Okay, so let's dive into this part.
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:It's phase one.
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:They find you AKA good old awareness.
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:Yeah.
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:This is where someone enters
your world for the first time.
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:Right.
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:They see your reels.
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:They hear you on a podcast.
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:They download a freebie.
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:They're in a bundle you participated
in, or a summit, or they saw your
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:name on someone else's email.
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:This is that first date energy phase.
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:They're browsing,
curious, sniffing around.
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:They're not here to commit.
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:They're here to see what you're
about, but here's a problem.
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:Too many entrepreneurs expect
people to jump straight to
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:marriage in this phase, right?
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:That's why we often talk about that
whole coffee date kind of energy.
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:They find you on a Tuesday
and you're like, here's my 5K
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:program, one in, and they ghost.
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:But then you're left feeling
like it's a rejection, but that's
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:not really a rejection, is it?
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:That's just that reality of
coming on too strong and being
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:like, whoa, what just happened?
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:And you do the same thing.
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:' cause at this point, your new
person is doing one thing.
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:They're just deciding if you feel
safe, is it safe to be in that space?
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:And I want you to hear me when I say this.
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:Browsing is not bad behavior.
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:It's normal buyer behavior and really
look at you because you do it as well.
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:So expect that from the people
that are looking to buy from you.
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:Right?
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:People are allowed to take their time.
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:They need to take their time.
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:Yeah.
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:Yeah.
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:Would you buy skincare from someone that
you just followed like five minutes ago?
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:Unless it was, you know, one that you
were actively looking to go and get no.
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:Right?
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:Would you hire a coach based on
one single thing that you just saw?
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:No.
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:Not if it was the very first time you'd
ever heard of its existence versus
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:whenever you are seeking that thing
out and then you find the one right.
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:It's a different point.
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:It's like, oh, I'm walking through,
remember those old school things
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:called malls when we were kids?
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:And you know, you're walking through one
and you see a kiosk on your right and then
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:you see all these shops on the left, and
you're looking through windows, and you're
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:going into the doors and you're looking to
see what all these different things are.
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:And you probably look at a few different
things and you touch some different
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:fabric before you ever even go into
the dressing room to try something on,
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:let alone before you actually buy it.
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:Right?
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:So what do we do here?
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:Well, for us, the sellers, we show
up and we let them see us and we
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:give generously, but with boundaries.
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:We don't try to fast track the trust
despite the courses that tell you
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:to, and the books and the podcasts
and all the things that tell you
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:to, there's a natural way to do it
and there's a forced way to do it.
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:So I'm talking about this
forced way, the false way, okay.
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:This is where visibility strategies come
into play is the natural way, right?
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:The freebies.
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:Thoughtful collaborations, SEOs, podcasts,
guesting, showing up consistently in
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:spaces where your people hang out.
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:Awareness is a spark, not the sale.
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:It's where the trust gets that spark,
that initiation, that beginning, not
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:where it's solidified yet, right?
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:So may have that phase two.
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:They listen to you.
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:AKA alignment.
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:So once someone sticks around,
they start paying more attention.
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:This is the phase where your emails,
your podcasts, your Instagram
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:captions, they really start to land.
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:They get that click, right?
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:They're listening now.
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:They're lurking.
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:They're watching how you move,
and you might not even know it.
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:It's where your audience
is doing the silent work of
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:deciding who you are to them.
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:So I want you to jot this down
or tattoo it on your brain.
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:They're deciding if I'm a teacher,
a leader, or a salesperson, I
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:show them I'm all three and I
don't need to convince anyone.
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:Yeah,
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:you're multidimensional and you get to
show up in the role that you need to be
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:in your business as you need to be It.
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:This is the trust window.
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:The moment where someone goes from,
oh, she's so smart to, I trust her, to
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:help me, to actually get me where I'm
trying to be, to help me build that
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:faith and get me through this challenge.
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:This is where so many
people break the trust.
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:By doing one of two things, overselling,
where you start pushing for a buy before
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:the trust is actually solidified, right
before it's strong enough to hold the
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:offer or underselling where you back
off entirely thinking that you have
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:to earn more and that you're not good
enough yet in all of those other pieces.
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:So let's get a different option,
that sacred third option.
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:So instead of selling, let's
focus on building belief.
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:'cause belief is the part that
has to be there above all.
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:Help them see what's possible, reflect
back their patterns, share client shifts.
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:Normalize that confusion and
show them that you get it.
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:Show them that you get it right.
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:This is where you get to share that.
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:You go through these things and
this is how you got through it.
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:Do self-coaching.
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:Talk about that bit of vulnerability.
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:Share the conversations that you've
just had, you know, with anonymity,
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:but the kind of things that you
just talked about that week.
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:Right.
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:The way my coach says, she says,
be your own best client and then
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:show up that way and let other
people see you being that way.
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:Yeah, that's what I call micro activation.
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:It's when someone starts to shift
their mindset because of your content.
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:When your voice becomes a grounding
presence, when they start to
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:believe change is possible.
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:Because you showed up.
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:That's when activation happens.
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:Then we get to walk through
that threshold into phase three.
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:They say, yes, a k, a activation.
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:This is the moment when someone
moves from thinking to taking action
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:from maybe to, yeah, let's go.
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:But here's the key.
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:This moment is not created
by urgency or gimmicks.
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:Because again, that goes
back to breaking it.
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:That's those overselling pieces when
people thought, oh gosh, I was here,
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:but no, this was like an earthquake.
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:The floor's cracking underneath me.
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:Let's get out.
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:This is unsafe, right?
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:Instead, it's created by alignment,
which I know it's a word that can
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:be a bit overused in our space,
but let's say this again, the best
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:sales don't come from pressure.
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:They come from timing that
matches the trust of the audience.
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:Yeah.
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:So appropriate urgency can work,
like limited spaces, exclusivity,
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:those kinds of pieces, right?
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:But the question is, does it align with
how you want to sell and the feeling
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:that you want in your community?
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:Okay.
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:Because it's not about selling from fear.
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:It's never about selling from
shame, and we don't get anybody
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:into that scarcity space, right?
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:We're not faking things.
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:We're inviting.
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:We create our community.
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:Every single time we show
up, we are giving people.
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:A taste of what it's like to work with us.
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:So do you want to leave them with feelings
of scarcity, shame, and fear with heck
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:that that's how it is to work with you?
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:Or do you want them to feel like
they're stepping into a new calibration?
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:They're getting invitations
that they're going into boldness
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:and into freedom, right?
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:So you calibrate your calls to
action to match where someone
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:is on that trust timeline.
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:You do those at all the stages.
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:So if someone is still in phase
one, they're in that awareness,
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:you offer them a free resource
or invite them to an email list.
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:If they're in alignment phase two, then
you show them how your offer connects to
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:what they've already been thinking about.
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:Right?
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:And if it's the phase three, that
activation, then you hold the door open
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:and you'd say, I'd love to walk with you.
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:Here's what walking with you looks
like, so you have something available
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:to people at every single phase, right?
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:That's why you build all of these pieces
and there's a constant flow and influx.
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:These things don't stop and start,
but they happen simultaneously
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:because people are coming to you
at all levels all the time, right?
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:It's not an isolation.
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:If you don't want the pressure
clients, you want prepared clients.
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:Clients who say yes because they
could feel the truth in the way
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:that like I've showed up before
the offer was ever even pitched.
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:Right?
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:So is that how you want people to feel?
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:Do you want people.
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:Who said yes because they could feel
your truth in the way that you showed up
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:before the offer was ever even pitched.
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:You know, that's what I hope people
feel from listening to the podcast.
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:That's why you're hearing my
voice all the time, right?
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:So if you've ever like sold
stuff and you thought, oh my
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:God, where, where are the buyers?
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:I want you to ask this.
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:What phase of trust are the people in?
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:Who were you trying to talk to?
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:What group was it and where were they
at, and was it the right phase of
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:offer for the right phase of trust?
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:Because you've gotta meet
people where they are.
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:Sometimes your people are still browsing,
sometimes they're still listening,
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:sometimes they're still testing the water.
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:It's your job to connect the dots.
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:It's your job to show up to support
them where they are, and then that's
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:how the rest follows with ease.
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:You walk them through the timeline.
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:That's the maturity of business.
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:So if you're nodding along and you want
more of where this came from, invite me to
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:hang out with you in your, in your inbox.
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:Is every week I send out a newsletter.
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:It's part strategy, it's part
behind the scenes, and of course,
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:it's part sales myth busting, but
it's all designed to help you work
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:in a way that actually fits you.
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:You can get the list at
Tracie patterson.com/connect,
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:and you can join the
trust timeline for real.
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:It's where all the good stuff happens,
even some free quarterly coaching calls.
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:Until next time.
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:Be well and have some fun.
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:Thank you for joining me here
on Digital Business Your Way.
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:Be sure to check out the show notes
for all the links mentioned today.
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:And while you're there, I'd love
for you to rate and review the show.
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:And if you have a topic or question you
want me to answer, I want to hear it.
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:Head to Tracie Patterson dot com slash
AMA and ask me anything about business.
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:If I don't know it, I'm bringing
up with one of my guests.
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:And until next week, be
well and have some fun.
