Left of Trust: How Clients Choose You Before the First Conversation

Interview with Andrew Colsky Meet Andrew Colsky Paul Wright – 11:38 Welcome back to the Link Thru Social Podcast. We're very excited to have another guest on our show today. His name is Andrew Colsky. Andrew didn't set out to become a marketing expert—he became one out of necessity. He's a former trial attorney and mental health professional, and now he's the founder of Be-Picked and creator of the Credibility Generator. He's also the author of Left of Trust, where he explores how professionals can become the trusted expert before the first conversation even happens. As a professional service provider himself, Andrew recognized a gap: how to use online marketing not just to get found, but to be chosen. He built a system to solve that problem and automate the process, helping others turn visibility into credibility and clients. Welcome to the show, Andrew. Andrew Colsky: Well, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Andrew's Background Paul Wright – 11:41 Now tell me, Andrew, I mentioned in my intro that you're a former trial attorney and mental health professional. Why don't you go into a little more detail about yourself and your background? Andrew Colsky: Sure. I think the relevant part for what I'm doing is that I've always been a professional service provider. If you think about trial law, what does that mean? It means standing in front of a jury—a group of people who can look at you and listen to you, but they can't ask you questions or interact with you. So you have to know how to sell your message to them. The same thing applies from a mental health perspective. I was always interested in persuasion—what gets people to make decisions and what gets them to do what they do. Putting all of that together, it was a natural progression when I was trying to market my own professional services. I stopped one day and looked back at how many hours I was spending each week just trying to do the basics. I realized you can't run a professional service business and also do everything necessary to get yourself out there on the internet. That's when I said, "I've got to change this whole model." I developed what's called the Credibility Generator to solve all of the problems I was having, and then I realized other people might want it as well. How the Credibility Generator Builds Trust Paul Wright – 13:05 Wonderful. So, the Credibility Generator—how does it help automate building trust and authority online? Andrew Colsky: That was a really important part for me. It's not just about putting stuff online. It's about putting things online that are intentionally designed to bring you credibility and trust. The way that works—and this is explained more deeply in my book, Left of Trust—is that marketing in general can be kind of like a shotgun approach. You have a product or service, and you're basically saying, "Hey, the more people who hear about it, the greater the chance that somebody might be interested in me." That's a lot of money, time, and effort without anything really targeted. Credibility and trust are the opposite. It's even more important now with the new AI search environment. There are particular people out there who have a particular pain point and need your services. You have to make it so they can find you. But you don't just need to be found. You need to be chosen. If someone is looking for a bankruptcy attorney and you say, "Hi, I'm a bankruptcy attorney," there are a thousand other bankruptcy attorneys saying the same thing. So you have to be found, but you also have to be chosen. The way that works is by understanding the problems your potential clients have. Who is my ideal client? What problems do they have? Then you start putting content on YouTube, LinkedIn, blogs, and other places across the internet that acknowledges the questions they have and provides meaningful answers to those questions. When they're up at three o'clock in the morning, lying in bed and searching on their phone about the problem that's nagging away at them, they're probably not searching for "bankruptcy attorney." They're searching for something like: "Can I keep my house if I don't have enough money?" You have to answer that question. If you provide relevant material that answers their question, they're starting to hone in on you. By the time they've read enough of your information, they've already decided: "This is the person I need to help represent me." The Credibility Generator takes all of that psychological background—and I've spent a lot of time putting it together—and packages it into a system. It's almost point-and-click. You can automatically generate and post YouTube videos. You don't even need to be in front of the camera. You can automatically post blog articles and LinkedIn content. It's all automated, but there's as much opportunity for a human in the loop as you choose. If you want to alter something, add something, or restate something, it's designed to let you do that. But if you don't have the time or desire, it's ready to let you take something that would normally require several hours and turn it into several minutes. Then you're done. Why the Human Touch Still Matters Paul Wright – 16:12 Perfect. It's a great setup that you've put together. I'm really impressed, to be honest with you. I also liked what you said there—you can have things automated, but you can still throw some of your own personal touch into it as well. That's very important. I think a lot of business professionals think, "AI can do everything." And it can do a lot. It can really help us. But you also have to put that personal touch into the way you present yourself online through social media, blogs, and everything else. What are some of the big mistakes that lawyers or other professionals—and we're not just talking about lawyers here, we're talking about business professionals in general—are making when trying to market themselves online? The Two Biggest Online Marketing Mistakes Andrew Colsky – 17:13 I've had to answer this question several times, and there are two specific mistakes that I see over and over. Number one: The biggest mistake they make is that they're so overwhelmed with what to do, how to do it, and how to go about it that they do nothing. That's mistake number one. Doing nothing is the worst thing you can do. Mistake number two: They go online like all of us and start searching: "Hey, I need to get more clients and get myself out there. What do I do? How do I do it? How do you guys do it?" You can look up the forums yourself, and you'll see what I'm saying. What they get are a lot of people responding with: "Well, this is what I did. I got a great website and really focused on SEO, SEO, SEO. Everything is SEO." SEO is great. SEO is important. But SEO is not going to get you picked. SEO may help get you found, along with a thousand other people who are also paying people to do SEO for them, but it's not necessarily going to get you picked. They miss out on the entire second half of the equation: Credibility and trust. Those are the two biggest mistakes. Cognitive Trust vs. Affective Trust Paul Wright – 18:29 Most professionals build their marketing from the inside out—providing credentials, experience, results. You say that's exactly backwards. What should they be building from, and why does the direction matter so much? Andrew Colsky – 18:46 As you can tell, I put a lot of psychology into the development of this whole process. There are two types of trust: cognitive trust and affective trust. Cognitive trust is trust based on logic and facts. For example, a lawyer might say: "I went to a good school. I've had good success. I have these credentials." That's nice, and it's important at the right time. But that's not necessarily going to get you the client initially because they don't know anything about you, your skills, or whether you can handle their particular problem. Affective trust is the feeling. It's the part where people can feel comfortable knowing: "Hey, this person speaks my language. He understands what it's like to be lying here at three o'clock in the morning with this problem and not knowing whether I have a solution." He's given me information online that shows he's dealt with these problems before. He's talked about different ways I can get through it. He can shepherd me through the process and get me back to the thing that I—and every single person on this planet—am constantly looking for: Comfort. We always want to return to a state of comfort. When professionals focus on that, that's what sets people apart. That affective trust is the first thing that starts drawing people in. Then, eventually, they evaluate your credentials. Where to Find Andrew Colsky Paul Wright – 20:19 That's a very good point. As a business professional, you really have to think about the fact that there may be hundreds or thousands of people in your field. You have to stand out. You've brought up some amazing points, Andrew, and I really appreciate you coming on the show today. Your website is Be-Picked.com, and I encourage everyone to check out the website and see the programs Andrew has available. Where else can we find you on social media, Andrew? Andrew Colsky – 21:00 I've tried really hard to make it easy for people. If you go to Be-Picked.com, you can get access to our YouTube channel, our blog, our podcasts, and LinkedIn. We're in all the places where professionals would normally be because our market is professional service providers. I'll also mention that if you're listening to this and this type of problem sounds like something you might have, we have a free tool on the homepage of our website. You can answer 15 questions, and it will score your answers and give you a report showing where your credibility gaps might be. It might say: "You're doing well here, but you need to focus more over here." At least then you know where to start and what to focus on instead of taking that shotgun approach of: "Oh my God, it's so overwhelming. I'll just do nothing." Closing Paul Wright – 22:04 Wonderful. That's Be-Picked.com. Andrew Colsky, I appreciate you coming on the Link Thru Social Podcast today, and I wish you all the best. I encourage all of our listeners and viewers to check out Be-Picked.com. Andrew Colsky, have a great day. Thanks for joining us. Andrew Colsky – 22:27 Thank you, Paul.