Allegiance Capital: Building Trust At Lightening Speed
I’ve already explained why I think the concept of a funnel is a broken concept here. The TL;DR: the physical construct of a funnel has gravity working for it. Your internet funnel does not.
How do you create gravity?
A compelling reason for someone to move.
How do you keep them moving without getting distracted, lost or confused?
Allegiance Capital.
Allegiance Capital is a foundational principle within Stealth Influence1. There are two really important parts to it:
Understanding The Rocky Road
Building Allegiance Capital
“The Rocky Road” and How To Communicate With Your Audience Better [4:30]
Influence starts with effective communication. Most of us are terrible at it - it’s called “the Rocky Road from Action To Intention”. This is another “Force Multiplier” - it will make everything you do more effective.
Here’s an excerpt from The Letter2:
The Rockiest of Roads
(…The Biggest Pitfall of All)
“Our emotions and cognitions are so vivid, so comfortable, so perfectly catered to us, it is no wonder that we so confidently rely on them in formulating our behavior and in perceiving the behavior of others. Yet, with our eyes half-closed, with every step we take away from the real world into our imaginations, we create a reality that is more and more idiosyncratic, and, in so doing, we widen the communication gap between ourselves and others. “
-Elizabeth Louise Newton
One of the texts I keep at my desk at all times it called “The Rocky Road From Actions To Intentions”. It’s a dissertation written by Elizabeth Newton, a doctorate student at Stanford in 1990.
Newton recruited 80 Stanford graduate students, gave them a list of 25 popular songs, and asked them to tap 3 tunes with their fingers. The subjects were then asked to estimate what percentage of the audience would be able to name the tune they were tapping.
The subjects guessed that, on average, the audience would be able to guess the tune 50% of the time. The guesses range from 10% to 95%. In reality, the audience was able to guess the tune 2.5% of the time - a rate that was outside the entire range of estimates. Not only had all these Stanford graduate students overestimated their ability to communicate what is in their heads, they grossly overestimated it.
In the second study, Newton had them tap the tune and observe the listener as it was being tapped. Now that the tapper has tapped the tune and seen the response from the listener, what did they feel the probability was that the listener understood the tune? 50% again. Reality? The listener was able to guess the tune 3% of the time.
Not only do we grossly overestimate our ability to communicate with others, but we also grossly overestimate how well we have communicated after the communication has taken place.
This is, by and large, because when the tappers are tapping they have the accompaniments in their head to fill in the gaps, and they assume the listener is hearing some of what they are hearing. “The Rocky Road From Actions To Intentions” highlights the first pitfall: communication.
More accurately, the illusion of communication.
Far too often, business owners make the mistake of thinking they are communicating effectively. This is especially true online.
If people aren’t moving through a process the way you expect them, zoom out and think about how what you think is sweet, sweet music sounds like random tapping to your prospect or customer.
Allegiance Capital: How To Build Trust at Lightning Speed [7:00]
Sales start with trust. Implementation starts with trust. Retention and referrals are entirely trust-based. Here’s how to make everything you do fill up the “trust” account.
Every single step of the way you need to answer these three questions for your prospect or customer:
Where am I?
Am I in the right place?
What should I do next?
and if you can…
What will happen after I do that? This is the magic if you can get ahead of their feelings and emotions.
Life is busy, it’s distracting, notifications are going off, kids are crying, and the pizza man just showed up…who knows what else is going on? In a distracted world, you have to remind people where they are and why. You have to remind them of what they should do next.
Here’s an example of super basic allegiance capital baked into a funnel…
…that is getting over 80% open rates with thousands of opt-ins.
Steps You Can Take Right Now:
If you want to experience R3 while you’re learning it, check out the R3 Experience. It’s two emails and two texts over two days. It will show you what’s happening as it’s happening. Experience is the best teacher. You can go through the R3 experience at ExperienceR3.com here.
Go through your entire process and remove every step that is not necessary. Complexity kills momentum and creates uncertainty. Uncertainty erodes trust.
Go through your new, simplified process and answer the three or four questions above at every step of the way. Nothing less, nothing more.
When you make new content, sales pages, or posts remember to simply tell them what to expect when they respond to your CTA
And that’s it.
After you’ve experienced it, you can learn how and why it works with the full R3 system (it’s a really expensive book).
It’s a Force Multiplier3, which means EVERYTHING will be amplified, immediately.
Live to learn. Give to earn.
Allegiance Capital is a foundational principle of Stealth Influence. The Stealth Influence overview can be found right here. It also explains how to get the full Stealth Influence masterclass and resources if you want ‘em…
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Stepping into the arena, engaging the field
Reference: Allegiance Capital
What I heard: there are 3 questions to basic allegiance capital. Why am I here? Am I in the right place? What should I do next?
What I did: I started very simply. I started to ask and repeat to my patients why they came into my office. Then I actually stated “you are in the right place” I can help with xyz (or sent them elsewhere if I couldn’t). And for the third question, I would tell them what to do next but also what to expect.
What happened: The what to expect was a little new, it takes me 30 seconds to say that 1 of 3 things will happen after this first visit. The first thing is that you will get home and feel like nothing happened because we all jump right back into normal life, the second thing that can happen is you feel great until you wake up tomorrow and wonder what the heck happened and why you’re so sore because your body is working on your new alignment. The third thing and what is most common is that you feel great for a day or so and then it slowly starts to sink back to how it felt originally. Each of these 3 things is important because that feedback helps me determine the course of care you need.
Reflect and share: That last piece is what I have added in and the response has been phenomenal. I’ve done it the past 2 weeks on my new patients so my sample size is only around 20. Hearing the “yea it lasted about a day, like you told me it would” and realizing that there is more trust there now by my being proactive instead of reactively explaining why is refreshing and time saving. And the rest of the care recommendations conversation goes much more smoothly.
I use the allegiance capitol framework in every communication (emails, landing pages, social media posts, etc.). It has, indeed, been a HUGE engagement force multiplier. If you’re ready to get real about really connecting with your audience, this article is worth your time.