Others are still hung up on the funnel: awareness, nurture, decision. (Fundamentals of this are still very true, but to only focus on this as a strategy is so damn narrow minded in 2026…just saying).
Every damn person on this planet is nuanced and shaped by culture so, sure, generationally speaking we have similarities and beliefs but y’all I was born in ‘93 (millennial) and half the time I don’t want receipt/proof/timelines I just wanna know that 2 of my friends thought the product or service was good enough (apparently a big Gen Z trait).
WHERE AM I GOING WITH THIS?
What motivates people to buy still hasn’t changed: it’s trust. And trust can happen in an INSANT, or it could take time.
Selling a product?
Selling a service?
The trust math is NOT the same. Once you see the difference, I swear you'll start noticing it everywhere.
Trust isn't a generation. Trust is a risk calculation, and what you're selling determines how fast that calculation gets made.
MOST of what gets sold as the aforementioned “modern marketing strategy” is really just an argument about WHO to target, when the actual “major key” (DJ Khaled anyone) is understanding HOW trust forms differently depending on what you're asking someone to buy.
The research! I have it! (Skip the bullets section if you don’t need to be convinced further, though). Across basically every major trust study of the last few years (Nielsen, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group) the story doesn't change: people trust people, not ads.
- Nielsen's global trust research has CONSISTENTLY found that close to 9 in 10 consumers trust recommendations from people they know above any other form of marketing message.
- McKinsey has said word of mouth is the deciding factor behind 20-50% of ALL purchasing decisions, not just impulse buys, ALL of them. (!!!)
- BCG puts word of mouth at 2 to 10 times more effective than paid advertising.
None of THIS is new. What is new is how fast that trust can now travel (hi, group chats, Reddit threads, and the algorithm deciding your cousin’s opinion matters more than your media plan).
Where I think the ~ funnel purists ~ miss: trust doesn't behave the same way across every purchase. It SCALES with risk.
Buying a product, trust can happen in an instant, because the stakes are low and the decision is reversible. You can return it, because ya didn't marry it. What that moves you from scrolling to checkout is almost ALWAYS borrowed trust: someone else already did the risk assessment for you. A friend's text, a review with a photo attached, a 12-second UGC clip on TikTok of an internet stranger saying “okay this actually works.” You're not trusting the BRAND. You're trusting the PERSON who vouched for it. That's why traditional ads keep losing. Most consumers flat out don't find them credible anymore, but they'll trust a rando's unboxing video without blinking.
For your business: if you sell a product, your job isn't to convince people YOU'RE trustworthy. It's to engineer more moments where someone ELSE can vouch for you. Reviews, UGC, referral loops, social proof at the point of decision, not at the top of a funnel three weeks earlier where nobody remembers it.
Buying a service is a completely different trust equation, because the stakes are higher and the decision usually isn't reversible. You can't return six months with the wrong trainer, a botched rebrand, or an agency relationship gone sideways (ask me how I know lol, okay don't, that's a different newsletter). Because the risk is bigger, the trust has to be EARNED. This is authority-building, not popularity-building. It's case studies, process transparency, how someone talks about a mistake they made, because precision about failure is somehow more convincing than a highlight reel of wins. Local service providers: plumbers, contractors, consultants, agencies… basically live or die on this. There's no “verified purchase” badge for whether someone's good at their job. There's only repetition and reputation.
For your business: if you sell a service, stop trying to go viral and start trying to be RIGHT, consistently, in public. Trust here compounds slowly: through the way you talk about your own work, the receipts you're willing to show, the founders who show up before they're asked to.
If you're taking notes: trust isn't generational, and it isn't a funnel stage. It's risk-calibrated. Low-risk, reversible purchase? Borrowed trust is enough; someone else's word will do the heavy lifting. High-risk, hard-to-reverse purchase? Trust has to be built directly, and it can't be rushed, faked, or outsourced to an influencer with a discount code.
Ask yourself: what AM I actually selling, and have I built the right KIND of trust for it?
