I don’t try to earn a stranger’s trust in one message. I build respect before anyone pays me. I find it an uphill battle to earn authority after someone has already become a client, and that’s usually where difficult client relationships start.
I’m Lillian Pierson, a fractional CMO and licensed Professional Engineer, and I work the trust problem from the inside. My own audience passed 750,000 followers organically, with no ad spend.
The short version: a stranger starts to trust you when they keep seeing people who are relevant to them, who clearly know the work, and who clearly don’t need the sale. Here is how I run that in practice.
- Be obvious in seconds: a stranger gives you about seven seconds to work out who you are, and every interaction afterwards gets filtered through that first impression.
- Show who you are and what you know: expertise on its own is not enough, because people need to resonate with you as a human before they trust you with their business.
- Contact fewer people with more care: a handful of researched, individually written messages a day beats volume.
- Borrow trust: a warm introduction gets you further than your best cold message.
- Show up without needing the sale: this one carries more weight than everything else on the list.
- Never pitch someone who isn’t ready: a mistimed pitch costs you credibility you then have to rebuild.
1. Be obvious in seconds about who you serve
A stranger gives you maybe seven seconds to figure out who you are. Every interaction after that gets filtered through that first impression, so stay specific about who you serve and how you help them.
Vagueness doesn’t widen the net. It turns away the people who would actually want to work with you. When I tightened my own positioning to one sentence about engineering growth for technical companies, the people who did not fit stopped enquiring, and the people who did fit arrived already understanding what I do.
2. Show them both who you are and what you know
When a prospect looks you up, you want them to find two separate things. The first is your story, your beliefs and where you’re headed. The second is your process, your experience and your results.
Expertise alone won’t close the gap. People need to resonate with you as a human before they trust you with their business. That’s why a speaking credit and a founder’s account of working with you do different jobs, and you need both.
"Lillian’s knowledge of data was a huge asset in moderating a panel we did at SXSW on the topic. Her expertise enabled her to answer audience questions with ease and generate additional discussion. She was a pleasure to work with, very responsive and understanding of our needs. We look forward to working with her again should the occasion arise!"
– Kristin Montalbano, Director of Digital Publicity & Media Relations, National Geographic Channel [1]
"We are building a very powerful spreadsheet product and we partnered with Lillian to get that product to market. As a technical founder, I was pretty naive around what it really would take to get a big product to market. working with Lillian was really, really, a critical part of us getting to the next level in our business. I would definitely recommend working with her."
– Tony Garvan, Founder & CEO, SheetRocks [1]
If you are deciding how to resource this, the choice between a fractional CMO, a GTM engineer, or an agency changes who the market hears from, which is itself a trust signal.
3. Reach out to fewer people, with far more care
I don’t do mass messaging. It strips out any chance of real connection, and the recipient can always tell.
When I do outbound, I keep it to a handful of people a day. I research each one before I reach out, and every message is written for that person. Fewer messages, each one specific, will out-perform a large send every time, and they won’t cost you the reputation that a bad send does.
4. Borrow trust whenever you can
If someone I know has worked with a prospect, I ask for a direct introduction. A warm referral gets me further than my best cold message ever could, because the trust is already established and simply transfers.
This is the cheapest trust available to you, and it’s the one most founders leave on the table.
5. Show up without needing the sale
This matters more than anything else on the list. Before a conversation, I ask myself one question. What would I tell this person if I didn’t need the money?
Sometimes the answer is a useful resource. Sometimes it’s a referral to someone else who fits better. Sometimes it’s telling them plainly that now isn’t the right time to hire me. People remember that, and they come back.
6. Get into real conversations
Trust grows when people feel seen and heard, so I focus on one-to-one dialogue. On a call, I stay with the problem as it exists today instead of rushing to my solution.
"Her approach is characterized by a genuine curiosity and a commitment to understanding every facet of our brand. This has enabled her to craft strategies that are not only effective in bringing our product to market but also in ensuring that it resonates with our target audience."
– Matt Brown, Head of Global Growth, SingleStore [1]
Staying with the current problem is also how you find out what the customer actually wants, which is a different question from what they first asked for. A working voice-of-customer feedback loop turns those conversations into something you can act on repeatedly.
7. Never pitch someone who isn’t ready
A mistimed pitch costs you credibility. If the answer is no, that’s fine. I note the real reason.
Later I follow up with something they can actually use, never a "just checking in". Then I wait. The follow-up that carries a useful resource is the one that gets answered, and the reason I can send it is that I wrote down why the timing was wrong in the first place.
8. Invest in the long game
Cold outreach can work in the short term. What lasts is a steady stream of people who already know you, because they keep seeing you in the places they pay attention to. That’s why I split my time between outreach and content.
Trust built this way compounds, and it’s measurable. Track it against your revenue efficiency benchmarks rather than treating it as a brand exercise.
What this produces
When you build respect before the sale, it shows up afterwards as results your client will put their name to.
"Through Lillian’s service, we got incredible value. More specifically, her outreach delivered over 1 million views and 45,000 engagements in 3 months. We hope to bring her on again for next year’s campaign."
– Kevin Allen, Manager, IBM Developer Content Acquisition [1]
"Since March, I closed 15 contracts valued at $310K. I also pre-sold $60K worth of annual contracts for my SaaS company. 67% has been pure profit."
– Kam Lee, Founder, Finetooth Analytics [1]
Key Takeaway: A polished trust-building campaign seems like the answer, but it often represents a trap, because it signals that you need something from them. The reliable path is consistent visibility in the places your buyers already pay attention, plus conversations where you have no immediate stake.
I provide the marketing leadership that gets tech companies to that position. I work from the KPIs and from a customer-first view, so the trust-building is measurable rather than decorative. You can see how I structure that in my review of fractional CMO services.
