The Trust Recession: How You Can Win Over Skeptical Clients

Our new potential clients are currently experiencing a trust recession, and I can’t blame them.

£20k masterminds positioned as “THE space for you, babe” but where they were treated like a number and perhaps even unfollowed by the host after paying the last invoice.

Online courses that promised the world but where the real value was gated behind a £997 upgrade. 

Agencies squeezing every penny out of small businesses that trusted them with their marketing, only to give them ChatGPT slop.

Coaches who won people over with their popular personal brands and high follower count but turned out to be all vibes and no delivery.

Or who broke confidentiality and rewrote your story in a way that portrayed you as an incompetent victim and them as your saviour, while taking credit for a sale you made without them even knowing about it (yep, this actually happened to me… with an ICF-certified coach!).

Fake Stripe notifications and screenshots.

No wonder there’s a trust recession, especially (but not only) in the marketing and coaching industries!

You’ve probably felt it too: new clients are more hesitant or take longer to invest.

It’s not “just” because of the market, tighter budgets, and cost-of-living crisis (or *cough cough* the world being on fire): 

overall, we’re fed up with hype marketing and got burnt before. But what does that mean for your service-based business? 

And what can you do about it, to keep signing the right clients more easily?

Here’s my take, as a marketing strategist who doesn’t believe in shortcuts and unethical practices.

If you’re an ethical service provider or founder, the current trust recession is both good and bad news for your business

You know you’re legit (and damn brilliant at delivering your services). Your past and current clients know this, too. But the potential ones who haven’t worked with you yet? They don’t.

And the worst part of the current trust recession?

Because of lots of unethical people and “bro/babe marketers”, capable and experienced service providers are now paying the price, too.

And on top of that, tactics and strategies that used to work like a charm are no longer as effective.

But there’s no point in crying about it: we can’t ignore the reality around us (like this trust recession) and continue to do more of the same and magically expect different results.

The good news?

If you’re prepared to make the right changes to your marketing, you can win over new clients more easily, even during the current trust recession.

And I’m about to show you how. Heads-up, though: 

I don’t sugarcoat things, and you might not like some of my advice. In fact, it probably goes against what you’re seeing in your feed (like "just be authentic, and clients will be drawn to you”).

But it’s also what allowed a coaching client to go from never selling her premium £3k offer (even though she was already “being authentic”) to selling it multiple times to people who had never invested in her before.

Or a designer to win a big project from her marketing, telling me she was surprised at how easy it was to sign them and how much she got to charge.

So, if you’re prepared to stop relying so heavily on sporadic referrals and endless touchpoints with undecided prospects, here’s what I recommend. 

How to build trust with your marketing and win over new clients, even during the trust recession 

Avoid fake scarcity

We’ve all seen sales pages with “Normally £997, but you can get it for £97, just for the next 24h”... only to realise that the anxiety-inducing countdown timer reset itself every day.

Or “I only have 2 spots left”, except it was promised to you through a fully automated funnel that runs all year around.

This might have worked in 2020 (although it should have never been a thing, in my opinion). Not anymore.

Don’t forget that, as a service provider, you probably already have real scarcity because there are only so many clients you can work with in one go. Or perhaps you have an early-bird discount or offer that genuinely expires on a specific day. Do mention that, as it’s a great incentive!

But fake scarcity is a one-way ticket to losing your ideal clients’ trust. 

Share client stories and proof (regularly)

We’ve had enough of (fake) Stripe screenshots. Plus, anyone can share inflated claims or random statements, especially with AI.

So, if you want your audience to believe that you can take them from their current challenge to their ideal outcome through your services, the best way to build trust is to show them how you’ve already helped other real-life people who used to be in their shoes.

For example, this can include having case studies on your website, telling those stories in your marketing (like on socials and emails), and sprinkling additional proof in some of your content.

Share your unpolished story and mistakes (but without turning it into pity p*rn)

New clients are no longer trusting those who portray themselves as impeccable superhumans with the most polished Instagram feed. They’re skeptical because… they already got burnt by those very people!

So, consider sharing the most relevant parts of your story and new challenges you’ve faced behind the scenes, including some less glamorous bits.

However, while many people are telling you to share from the wound because it gets more engagement, I’m warning you: be mindful and tactical about it.

And not just because I believe you shouldn’t feel pressured to share anything you don’t want to share, but because I’ve seen it backfire, both in the sense that it destroyed someone’s credibility or it brought them wrong-fit clients.

For example, talking about how you regulated and led yourself as you went from “your business almost failing” to “hitting £8k months” might work well if you literally help clients regulate and lead themselves during challenging business phases. But if, for example, you only help with the strategy side of things, that narrative would bring you clients who are too desperate and dysregulated to implement and commit to your brilliant strategies. And if you do something else entirely (like done-for-you copywriting services)… well, it’d be pretty irrelevant to keep sharing that, wouldn’t it?

Or another example: I’m pretty sure most of us feel like we’re winging the running of our business sometimes. But if you were to share “Confession: I always feel like I’m winging my client work”, sorry but I’m not going to trust you with my money.

So, stick to relevant stories and challenges, and share them in a way that makes your ideal clients think “This person is real, honest, and legit, and I can trust them to lead me / deliver on their promise.”

Avoid unrealistic claims

As women, in particular, we tend to downplay the value we bring and the transformation we help our clients achieve. Don’t you dare do that!

But at the same time, don’t overpromise either.

Your ideal clients have heard it all before, like “I’ll 10x your results” or “Double your income in 2 weeks”. 

During the current trust recession, if something feels too good to be true, they’re not going to bother getting in touch.

(Also, how can someone promise to “10x my results” if they know nothing about my situation?!)

Don’t make it sound too good or easy 

Most of us don’t believe in silver bullets anymore, and those who do… well, they tend to be nightmare clients who expect you to save their entire business or life while they do next to nothing.

Would you rather work with better and more committed clients? Then, help them trust you by mentioning the ‘hard’ or less glamorous parts of your solution.

For example, if you coach, consult, or mentor your clients, talk about what they must be prepared for (like wobbles, time commitments to implement everything, or challenging and ‘stretchy’ moments). I always bang on about how, if someone isn’t fully prepared to change the way they do their marketing and commit to it to get different results, we wouldn’t be a good fit.

If you offer done-for-you services, don’t shy away from sharing why your onboarding or initial strategy phase takes longer than that Fiverr freelancer charging £30 per hour.

The right clients will value it and trust you for it!

Shift your ideal clients’ beliefs (and give them some bitter pills to swallow)

You can’t expect a complete stranger to trust you if all you share in your marketing is a mixture of personal branding content and “10 tips to do this and that”. 

Instead, offer a-ha moments to your specific ideal clients, helping them look at something from a different perspective—even (or better: especially) when it involves showing them the real cause behind their problems or why their current way of thinking/doing is working against them.

This will help them trust that, by hiring you, they will truly change their situation, not end up with yet another temporary patch. 

Freakin’ stand for something

Sticking to safe stances that everyone and their dogs can easily agree with (and then forget about)? Regurgitating what your industry peers are saying? 

Then, you can’t expect high-calibre clients to believe in your authority and trust you to change their situation for good.

Now, I’m not talking about being controversial for the sake of it or for click bait (I hate that, too).

But if you have a different approach or opinion compared to most of the people in your industry, do share it. Confidently. Without apologising for it or justifying it with “I hope I don’t offend anyone but” or “It feels scary to say this but”.

For example, everyone is talking about being magnetic to attract your ideal clients, but they’re conveniently forgetting that magnets don’t just attract: they repel, too. So, to be fully magnetic, you must be prepared to put off the wrong-fit people and potentially get less engagement on social media. Talking about this doesn’t make me particularly popular because most people don’t want to hear it. But it does help me connect with the right ones, including my ideal clients. So, I won’t shut up about it, even when I only get 5 likes.

Make sure your behaviour matches your stances

Nowadays, clients can smell a “do as I say, not as I do” approach, and it’ll break their trust while ruining your credibility. 

A photographer claiming you need professional photos to stand out and succeed with your business but never sharing them for themselves?

A content writer insisting your website needs a freshly updated blog but their latest article is from 7 months ago?

Someone saying they don’t care about the algorithm but then leaving 17 comments underneath their own posts, asking all kinds of irrelevant questions just to get random engagement and boost their reach?

People notice and remember it.

Deliver on your (micro)promises

I bet you do deliver on your promise when working with a client or delivering a project. Otherwise, you wouldn’t receive so many brilliant testimonials and referrals.

But to build trust during the current trust recession, this must start before someone becomes a paying client (and if you don’t deliver on those first micro-promises? They never will).

For example, if your freebie promises a specific outcome, make sure you don’t gate it behind an upsell. If your social media hook teases something, don’t let it be clickbait.

Keep your messaging consistent

Of course, your messaging will change eventually. It should evolve with your business! Just… not all the time.

For example, I’ve seen people go from “you should never build your entire business online” to “how to get clients by going all in on ONE platform”, or go from offering done-for-you services to becoming a coach in a completely different niche overnight.

So, if you’re tweaking your LinkedIn headline every other week, you slag a tactic for months and then position yourself as an expert in the same thing, you keep changing what you stand for, or you’re always churning out new offers without giving anything time to stick… your audience is going to start thinking you don’t actually know what you're doing.

If you’re not clear on your messaging and what to lead with in your marketing, or you can tell it’s not doing justice to the value of your services, we can fix it together in one week with Recalibrate. 

Show up with conviction

“I don’t normally talk about my services buuuuuuuuuuuuut…”

“Keep scrolling if you don’t like promotional posts.”

Never talking about your services or openly inviting your audience to book a call.

Continuing to complain because the algorithm is against you.

Adding endless padding whenever you dare to take a stance.

These (more or less) subtle behaviours are sending the signal that you care more about vanity metrics and validation than reaching and impacting the right people with your message and services.

So, it’s making it harder for the right clients—the ones looking for an authority they can trust with their time, energy, and money—to pick you.

Showing up as a trusted authority—and the only logical option for your ideal clients—uring the trust recession

Yes, most of these points require big mindset shifts and practical changes to how you show up and market your services. 

But as I said before: I don’t sugarcoat things.

We can either keep complaining that “It’s harder to sign new clients” and that “People are more reluctant to invest” or we can change something (and be patient while we give it time to stick).

If you’re prepared to do the latter but your current marketing isn’t doing justice to the value of your services or you’d benefit from the right systemised approach to keep it up (so you can regain hours, headspace, and control while working with more perfect-fit clients):