Learn why buyers do their own research instead of talking to sales—and how missing information creates distrust.

If you have noticed buyers avoiding sales conversations, doing their own research, or questioning everything you say, you are not imagining it. Buyer skepticism is at an all-time high, driven by misinformation, past experiences, and a growing lack of trust in business leaders. This conversation dives into the mindset shifts and practical strategies B2B leaders need to reduce uncertainty, overcome epistemic vigilance, and earn trust before a buyer ever speaks to sales.

📘 Recommended Resources

Lead with Trust: https://www.trustleader.co/lead-with-trust-book

Berg, Dickhaut & McCabe (1995) — the original Trust Game experiment.

Epistemic Vigilance research

⏰Episode Timestamps:

00:00 The Importance of Transparency in Trust Building

09:21 Understanding Complete Transparency

11:51 The Role of Epistemic Vigilance

14:00 Building Foundational Trust

18:21 Practical Steps for Transparency

🧠 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why trust cannot be built long-term without complete transparency
• How epistemic vigilance shapes modern buyer behavior
• What information buyers need to make independent, confident decisions
• How transparency signals competence, reliability, and integrity
• What practical transparency looks like in real B2B organizations

👤 About the Host

Hannah Eisenberg is the founder of TrustLeader and creator of the TrustLeader Framework. With 25+ years of B2B marketing and sales experience, including a decade at SAP Global Marketing and 10+ years as a HubSpot partner, she helps leaders worldwide achieve market leadership by making trust their most significant competitive advantage.

🔗 Connect With Me

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannaheisenberg/

🎧 Listen to the Podcast

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@trustleader-lead-with-trust

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/dk/podcast/lead-with-trust/id1732848496?l=da

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2LYVbwkrkTuJKh3mHGNLBH

Captivate.fm: https://feeds.captivate.fm/leadwithtrustpodcast/

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

Summary

Buyers have more information, more access, and more control than ever before—yet they have less confidence than ever, decisions are delayed, and post-purchase regret is rising. In this episode of Lead with Trust, Hannah Eisenberg explains why the traditional 7–11–4 rule no longer reflects how trust forms in modern B2B buying. She introduces the much larger and morphed trust gap leaders face today: not a lack of exposure, but a lack of belief and emotional safety. This episode offers a more straightforward way to think about trust as risk reduction, not persuasion.

What You’ll Learn

• What the 7–11–4 rule was actually describing—and why it no longer explains buyer trust
• Why more of the same content will increase hesitation instead of confidence
• Why buyers struggle to know what to believe
• Why epistemic trust has become the hidden bottleneck in B2B decisions
• How validation reduces the risk of being wrong
• Why emotional safety is what ultimately turns belief into action

Resources:

• B2B buyers consume 13+ pieces of content before making a decision. Source: Demand Gen Report / FocusVision
• 70% of the B2B buying journey happens independently before contacting sales. Source: Forrester / SiriusDecisions
• 75% of buyers prefer a rep-free buying experience. Source: Gartner
• 56% of major B2B purchases end in regret. Source: Gartner
• 86% of B2B deals stall during the buying process. Source: Forrester
• ZMOT study showed buyers doubled the number of sources consulted (5.2 → 10.4) Source: Google ZMOT (2011, 2021 update)

Most B2B leaders know trust is essential—but few can clearly define it, operationalize it, or measure it.

In this episode, Hannah Eisenberg breaks down the Trust Seesaw, a core concept from her book Lead with Trust and the foundation of the TrustLeader Framework, to show why buyers hesitate and how companies can systematically overcome distrust and build deep, lasting trust.

You’ll learn the three deficits that create distrust with your buyers, how to eliminate them through intentional processes, and what it takes to rise beyond customer expectations into true Trust Advantage.

If you’ve ever wondered why deals stall, why customers default to “safe” options, or how to become the vendor buyers actively prefer, this episode gives you the roadmap.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why distrust is the default emotional starting point for modern B2B buyers

• The three deficits—information, interest, and power—that quietly derail decisions

• How to close these deficits and reach Trust Equilibrium, and then create your Trust Advantage

• Why culture and processes act as the fulcrum of trust-building

• What separates trusted companies from true trust-based market leaders

• How organizations can progress from transparency to authority, advocacy to influence, and fairness to leadership

Trust matters in every B2B relationship, but most leaders struggle to define it in a way that actually guides decisions. In this episode, Hannah Eisenberg explains why trust feels so hard to articulate and offers a practical definition built for business environments. She breaks down how vulnerability and perceived risk shape customer decisions and introduces the TrustLeader Compass—a simple tool for diagnosing and improving trust in your key relationships. This conversation gives you a clear, actionable way to build stronger, more dependable partnerships.

• Why trust feels subjective, contextual, and difficult to pin down.
• A practical definition of trust tailored to B2B decision-making.
• How vulnerability and perceived risk determine whether trust forms.
• How trust influences buying decisions more than product or price.
• The four directions of the TrustLeader Compass and how to use them.

How to identify the next step to move any relationship toward unshakable trust.

Most B2B leaders are right now frustrated by the lack of leads coming in. They blame marketing for being inefficient or sales for being lazy. But in reality, the root cause isn’t your marketing strategy or your sales tactics. In reality, you have a trust gap problem. Modern buyers behave in fundamentally new ways, and traditional go-to-market systems have not kept up.

You will learn why your GTM feels harder than it should, how low trust quietly slows every part of the buyer journey, and why solving this requires a mindset shift — not more tactics. If you are ready to understand what is actually driving your stalled deals, unpredictable inbound, and price pressure, this conversation will give you the clarity you have been missing.

• Why most revenue challenges are not marketing or sales issues, but trust issues.
• How modern buyer behavior creates a wider trust gap than ever before.
• The three deficits (information, interest, power) that shape trust in every B2B decision.
• How low trust shows up operationally across marketing, sales, and customer experience.
• Why no amount of tactical optimization can compensate for a trust deficit.
• The mindset shift required to turn trust into a measurable driver of growth.

In this episode of Lead with Trust, Marcus Sheridan — bestselling author of They Ask, You Answer and Endless Customers — joins Hannah Eisenberg to deliver a wake-up call for leaders still clinging to outdated marketing playbooks.

Marcus explains why the old “content is king” formula no longer drives growth in the age of AI, zero-click search, and omnichannel buyers — and what companies must do now to earn and keep customer trust.

• Why your 2020 marketing strategy is holding you back — and how to fix it
• How to stop outsourcing your voice and start building in-house trust
• Why imperfection and speed beat polish and delay
• How to practice Ethical Disruption — breaking industry norms that no longer serve your buyers
• A simple 90-day roadmap to rebuild your marketing for the new era

Website: marcussheridan.com

LinkedIn: Marcus Sheridan

Your old playbook won’t save you — but the TrustLeader Framework can.

Take the free TrustLeader Assessment to:

• Identify your organization’s biggest trust gaps
• Understand where you fall across the 3 layers of trust
• Get a personalized roadmap for your next 90 days

👉 Take the Free TrustLeader Assessment

Today’s buyers make over 80% of their buying decisions before ever talking to sales—and 75% prefer a rep-free experience. Yet most B2B companies still hide their pricing behind forms or vague “contact us” messages. In this episode, Hannah Eisenberg breaks down why transparency in pricing has become one of the most powerful trust signals in modern marketing. You’ll learn how to show pricing safely, position it with confidence, and create a pricing experience that educates and converts before the first sales conversation ever happens.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why hiding your pricing damages buyer trust and costs you a qualified pipeline
• How transparent pricing helps you show up in both human and AI-assisted searches
• The essential pricing elements every B2B website should cover—from cost drivers to ROI
• Practical ways to write or redesign your pricing page without “locking yourself in”
• How to use pricing articles and calculators to educate buyers and speed up sales cycles
• The link between transparent pricing and the TrustLeader Framework principle of Complete Transparency