How to Build Customer Trust Faster With Better Conversations

Announcer: You're listening to Underestimated, the podcast that helps overwhelmed small business owners turn their size into their unfair advantage so they can grow without burning out. Now, here's your host, Shawna Suckow.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: Do you wish you had a way to build trust quicker with clients, with customers, with vendors, with your kids, through better conversations? Well, if you answered yes to that, then you are in the right place. This is your episode. I am so happy to have my friend and fellow speaker Molly Ketcham on the show today.

Molly Ketcham: Yay! Hello.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: She is an expert in this. She's got a whole framework that we're going to dig into today. But I met you, Molly, when I came to speak at your chapter of National Speakers Association, where you were and are the president in Ohio. I just remember you as being so engaging and so conversational. What we're going to talk about today is something that you embody and you live. It's not just something you teach.

Molly Ketcham: Thank you.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: I'm going to read your bio here. Molly is a keynote speaker who helps leaders and teams build trust through better conversations. She is a classically trained pianist, and she uses music as a metaphor to show how every conversation creates an emotional experience. With more than 20 years in the meetings and events industry, she blends practical business experience, engaging storytelling and audience interaction. Yes, she does. She's a Distinguished Toastmaster, serves as president of NSA Ohio, as I mentioned, and is passionate about helping people create conversations others remember. So that's a little bit about you on paper. Let's find out about something that you mentioned to me, and that is you made your future husband, excuse me, your future husband late for your first date. Talk about that.

Molly Ketcham: Well, the reason that I talk about curiosity is because I ask a lot of questions. On our first date, he wasn't late to pick me up. We were late to our date. My choice was dinner and the symphony because I'm a pianist, right? Symphony was right up my alley. At dinner, I asked so many questions we were late to the symphony. That is the reason we were late.

He, bless his soul, answered all the questions that I had for him. He still married me years later, thankfully. But what's really funny is that when we got to the symphony, we were late, and the usher said, "Sorry, folks. You are going to have to wait in the lobby until they finish the first piece." Well, I started asking the usher questions. How long have you worked here? What's your favorite part? Have you always enjoyed this music?

Tim later confessed to me he was so glad that there was someone else to answer my questions. He was so tired of answering all my questions. So that is the story of being late to the symphony.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: He's never been a stranger. He's so conversational, which brings me to why I wanted you on my show, because my audience is small business owners and I'm constantly talking about building trust quickly. We have such a narrow window.

I saw a post that you made, and I know what you speak about, but I did not know about your framework called the C.A.R.A. Code. Let's start off by talking about that. What is the C.A.R.A. Code?

Molly Ketcham: The C.A.R.A. Code is a guide for a conversation. Like you said, sometimes you only get a moment with a customer, or in a busy day with a teammate, to really make a difference. The C.A.R.A. Code guides you through this conversation.

I found this correlation between being a pianist, I love music, and I noticed that music can create an emotional experience for you. Think about your favorite song. When you listen to it, sometimes you get chills or you get excited. Maybe it relaxes you. You can use music to help create the emotion that you need. Maybe you need pumped up for that next sales call that you have, or you need relaxed at the end of the day.

I realized that music creates this emotional experience, and I always felt like a great conversation did the same thing. When you walk away from a great conversation, have you ever done that and you're like, "Man, that was fun"?

Shawna Suckow, CSP: Yeah. Right with you, actually.

Molly Ketcham: Thank you. Well, it's the same thing. I started to research what happens in the brain when you're listening to a song, and I realized it is very similar to a great conversation. After doing this research, I identified four steps that I could share with other people so that they could create that emotional experience in someone else faster. When you create the emotional experience that someone wants, they trust you. They feel understood, like they've been heard, and that creates influence. That's how the framework was developed. I would love to share with you what these four letters stand for.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: Please. As an aside, as you're just talking about songs, I stopped listening to sad music during COVID because I am so connected to music as well that it created a visceral response in my body when I would listen to sad songs. So I don't listen. I turn them off if it comes on Sirius FM, whatever, XM. I just don't. Molly Ketcham: A thousand percent. The music you listen to can put you in the mood that you desire or one that you don't. That's such great awareness. When you engage in a conversation with someone, the faster you can get to what it is that they need, what is that emotional experience that they need in that moment, then you can be that song for them.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: Oh my gosh, that's great.

Molly Ketcham: Right? In the same way as you are listening to the music, you can be the song for someone else.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: Oh my goodness. Okay, I keep talking about merch. Maybe I need merch, but you need merch. "Be the song for someone else." I see T-shirts. I see bumper stickers. I see tattoos.

That was a long aside. I apologize. Back to the C.A.R.A. Code. Tell us more about it.

Molly Ketcham: Okay. The C.A.R.A. Code, C-A-R-A, is how you spell it. Some people are named Cara, so you might tend to think that it's Cara. It could be either one. I say C.A.R.A. because it has a beautiful translation to other languages, which I can share with you at the end.

First is curiosity. Just like when a song starts off, it sets the emotional tone for where it's going, curiosity sets the tone for the conversation. The more genuine and meaningful the question is that you ask, the more someone can share their authentic self with you. They can feel your genuine interest in them. So C starts with curiosity. That opens the door for the conversation.

Then, as they are responding to you, the first A is attunement. I chose the word attunement instead of just listening because attunement is really listening beyond the words. Yes, you need to understand the words they're saying, but as you know, we say a lot more than just the words that come out of our mouth. We say it with our body language, with our emotional state and with our eye contact, if we're making it or not.

As you're listening, really truly listening, you've set your agenda to the side because what you're doing is trying to immerse yourself in their experience, whatever they're describing to you. You are trying to feel that and be in that so that you can ask another question and respond accordingly.

It's so hard when we have our own agenda in mind and what we're doing is thinking, "Okay, I know what I'm going to say next," or, "They said this, so here's my response." But if you can just put that aside and really feel what it is that they're saying with their whole self, then you're attuning to them.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: I apologize for interrupting. Bad C.A.R.A., bad C.A.R.A. If we put this in the context of a small business owner, I would like people who are listening to think about if a customer comes to you and maybe they're unhappy with something that you did or didn't do. The first one is curiosity, and then the second one is attunement, putting yourself in their shoes, not just waiting to give your excuse.

Molly Ketcham: Exactly. Please interject the analogy as I'm describing it because I think this is really helpful.

You're listening. You're putting yourself in their shoes so that you can truly understand where they're coming from. That allows you to respond with resonance. The R is resonance. I chose the word resonance because of the musical tie to it. When we respond in a way where someone feels like you understand where they're coming from and you hear them, you can be resonating on the same frequency.

If that's a little too spiritual or woo-woo, it really is just a matter of saying, "I see where you're coming from. I get it." You don't have to agree with them. Maybe in the scenario that you've painted, you have a great explanation for why something happened the way that it did. They don't care, right? They just want you to see and hear them, hear their frustration or their pain, and respond to that.

It could also be a "tell me more" statement. Maybe you need to know a little bit more, so tell me more. Ask a deeper follow-up question. Respond in a way that says, "Okay, they see where I'm coming from. They hear what I'm saying."

Once you've created that, because boy, when you respond with resonance, they feel understood. They feel seen. That is connection, right? That's that moment. It could be fleeting, or you can go deeper in it, but that moment of connection is so powerful. That's where trust starts to develop.

If you want to keep going with it, you want to build on that, then the last step in the framework is amplification. In music, we frequently think of amplification as being louder, but it can also mean being repetitive. In a song, a composer will use a motive, a motif, like a phrase of notes, and they'll repeat it throughout the song so that you start to recognize it. Every time you recognize it, it means a little bit more.

In a conversation, amplification is repeating what is meaningful to them. Later on, come back to that meaningful thing. Or you can do it in the moment. You can say, "I see where you're coming from," and amplify it there. You can go deeper.

Or you can come back to it a week later. Let's say your teammate or one of your employees says something that they're struggling with. It can be negative or it can be a positive thing. They celebrated something. Come back to that a few days later and say, "Hey, I know that this was really important to you. How did that turn out?" Then they're saying, "Okay, I'm that important." Amplification is the final step.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: I love all of that, especially for small businesses because I keep saying now is the time to be small. Everything you're talking about, big companies struggle with and they try to script it.

I just called a major internet provider because I was having an issue, and it clearly was scripted. Everything that they were saying back to me: "That sounds very frustrating." They weren't hearing me. They were just waiting to insert their cues, and then they repeated it back to me. It was very inauthentic.

Small businesses have the opportunity to do exactly what you're saying and have it be meaningful. As I have said before, things go wrong. We both come from the meetings and events background. Things are going to go wrong. It's just how you handle it.

If you've got an unhappy customer in front of you and you use this C.A.R.A. framework, that can turn into the most loyal customer you've ever had because they just want to feel seen and heard.

Molly Ketcham: Exactly. I learned this in my first leadership role. If you've ever been an employee who was promoted into a leadership role because they were doing a great job, you can relate to where I was coming from, because I was like, "Well, clearly I'm doing a great job. I should teach other people how to do their job."

That's the mentality that I went into that position with, and I quickly learned that that's not how you build trust with your team. It's not about giving information. It is really learning about the other person. It's learning how they operate best, what they value, what is meaningful to them, so that you can create that experience for them at work.

You can find those things out by using the C.A.R.A. Code. It's just a matter of being curious and then listening and then responding in a way that says, "I know a project you might be interested in," or, "Yes, we'll make sure that we manage your schedule so that you can do this meaningful thing for you that you want to take time for." That's how I first learned about the importance of understanding people.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: Yeah, it's great for retention of employees. It's great for retention of customers because you're seeing them, you're hearing them, and as humans, that's what we want.

Sometimes if I complain to a business, there's nothing that I want other than to be heard, and maybe so that it changes for the next person. But really, it's just, hear me so that you know that there was a breakdown in whatever. That's it. I don't want a discount. I don't want my food for free at the restaurant. It's more than that.

Molly Ketcham: Imagine how loyal you are to those business owners that you know care about you. They know you. They care about what you need and what you want. This is how you figure those things out.

I've always known that understanding, well, I learned how important it was to understand myself first. That's kind of how the self-awareness is where this all stemmed from. Once I understood, "Okay, I value these things, and I operate in this way, and I get stressed by these things," I realized that not everyone is the same as me.

They don't value the same things. They don't operate the same way. They don't get stressed the same way. So how do they operate? What do they value? How are they stressed out? That made me curious.

Once I started figuring those things out, you lead better. You sell better. You know what someone wants so you're not guessing. You can deliver it because now you know, because you've asked these meaningful questions and you've learned these things about them.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: I love it. I love it all. We're so attuned.

I talk about removing the professional veneer that separates us as humans in a business transaction, because if we're too professional and we keep everything scripted and perfect, it doesn't allow the humanity to seep in, and the humanity is what builds the trust.

You're talking about really hearing someone and being empathetic, hearing it from their perspective, standing in their shoes, and not just being ready to recite the script. Every small business has an edge here over the huge corporations that have call centers and the like, because you're replicable.

Molly Ketcham: You're absolutely right. Yes, you can be curious. Use that curiosity to understand people.

If it is a big corporation and somebody breaks the script, I did have this with another company, and somebody broke the script and we started to have a conversation about it. I could tell they were really curious and they were really empathetic, and it stood out as being so odd as opposed to being the norm.

If you can make this your norm, you're going to win customers. You're going to win employees. You're going to keep both longer.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: I love the whole framework. Now, I know something interesting about you. I know that you are a classically trained pianist, which now the audience knows as well from your bio, but you have been known to deliver a keynote with a grand piano as part of the show. Talk about that because I think that's just fascinating to me.

Molly Ketcham: Thank you. Yes, I have always wanted to play on stage again. I did it in high school, and I've always wanted to do that. When I started to get into this research about music and conversation, now I have this great tool to demonstrate how similar the music and the conversation are. I developed the presentation with the piano. Through each of those steps, I explain the arc of the song and how similar it is to the arc of a conversation.

With each step, I demonstrate it on the piano. We have an aha moment and then correlate that to the conversation. We have a little fun. The songs that I choose to demonstrate with are fun.

We have a little moment of resonance, which I feel is very similar to a duet. I've had people come on stage and play a little duet with me. There's some audience participation in that regard as well. The piano certainly brings a fun element to the keynote.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: If you had, going back to the C.A.R.A. Code, one takeaway that is more important than all the others to leave the audience with, what would that be?

Molly Ketcham: I would say the most important thing is curiosity because that's how it all begins.

I was recently presenting to a group of meeting planners, and it was specifically about curiosity. I was sharing how to be more curious because that's a question: How do we become more curious?

You can exercise a process of first noticing. Notice what is happening with the other person. Then wonder about it. Then ask the question.

I said, "What is a reason why we don't exercise curiosity? Why do we not practice being more curious with others in the business setting?" The biggest pushback that came back was, "I don't want to cross the boundary of becoming too personal," that professional-personal line that we think we can't cross.

Maybe in a small business owner setting, there's a little bit more leeway there than the corporate setting that these folks came from. But I'd like to make a distinction between personal questions and meaningful questions, because you can ask a meaningful question without getting into someone's family history or politics or religion and all of that.

You can ask, "What do you love about your job?" That is a meaningful question. The answer will reveal what is most important to them. You could ask, "What do you love about this experience?" You could ask, "What was the most successful part of that project for you, that experience, that buying experience, whatever it is? What was most successful for you? What was most meaningful for you?"

You're not getting into any family history there. You're just asking what is most valuable to them, what's meaningful.

Asking meaningful questions will really get you quicker results. It gives you an opportunity to then attune to what they're feeling and saying and respond in a way that resonates with them. That's what I would say.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: Fabulous. This is so helpful. Where can people learn more about you?

Molly Ketcham: My website is mollyketcham.com, with an M at the end, mollyketcham.com. If your business is interested in a presentation that helps people move into trust faster during a conversation, I would love to share more. You can learn more about that on the website. I'm also on LinkedIn. I share a lot on social media, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: Yes, follow her on LinkedIn for sure. You have a resource around this. How do they get that? Tell us about that. Molly Ketcham: There is a PDF download with five powerful questions. If you're wondering where to start, this guide will help you so that you can start to feel what that meaningful question feels like. There are five powerful questions on there, and the site is go.mollyketcham.com/curiosity.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: We'll put that link up in the captions. Great.

You said earlier that you would tell us what C.A.R.A. means. It means something beautiful. What does that mean?

Molly Ketcham: The very first language translation that I learned was the Spanish translation of cara, which means face. It's a great reminder to bring your full face, your full humanity, to every conversation.

I shared this with someone who's Italian, and he said, "Well, you know what cara means in Italian?" I said, "What?" He said, "Dear."

Shawna Suckow, CSP: You know this. You know I'm Italian. Yes, my Italian father. Yes, I do.

Molly Ketcham: It's something that we hold dear. So now it's a reminder to treat the person in front of you as someone that you hold dear.

Then I finished a keynote presentation where I shared these things on stage, and as I walked off someone said, "Well, I'm from Ireland, and in Gaelic cara means friend."

Shawna Suckow, CSP: Oh my gosh. That's amazing.

Molly Ketcham: All these words sort of encapsulate the whole meaning behind the C.A.R.A. Code, which is to treat that person in front of you as a friend, someone you hold dear. Bring your full humanity to that conversation, and you'll be amazed where it will take you.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: That is beautiful. I love that.

I have one last question.

Molly Ketcham: Okay.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: Very important. Cats or dogs?

Molly Ketcham: Oh, Shawna. First of all, I know you, and my first thought is, should I say dogs because I know Shawna is a dog person?

Shawna Suckow, CSP: Yes. Yes, you should.

Molly Ketcham: My second thought is I am going to say dogs because I'm a dog person. So there you go.

Shawna Suckow, CSP: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Molly Ketcham, and thank you for tuning in. This has been another episode of Underestimated.

Announcer: We will catch you next time. Thanks for listening to Underestimated, hosted by Shawna Suckow. To connect with Shawna, go to thebuyerinsider.com.