Working Harder Than Ever and Getting Nowhere?
You sent 50 emails to new prospects last week, but only three were opened. One replied, "Not interested.” And the other two? Left on “read.”
So you make 40 cold calls. 30 go straight to voicemail. The other 10 pick up, but they’re doing everything they can to get off the phone before you finish your second sentence.
You finally get someone on the phone who seems willing to talk, but you can hear it in their voice - they're skeptical. They've heard it all before. You sound like everyone else, and they tell you they'll "think about it." Then they ghost you.
Here's the truth: it's probably not your pitch. It's not your product. It's that prospects don't trust you - in fact, they don't trust anyone selling anything right now.
They’re so burnt out on fake guarantees and false promises that they just don’t know who to trust. Welcome to the trust recession.
In this article, we’re going to talk about why trust is being lost and what you can do about it.
What Is the Trust Recession?
Think of the trust recession as a growing gap between you and your prospects driven by skepticism. It's like someone leaning away from you, arms crossed, waiting to hear “the catch.” Not because you did anything wrong, but because they've been burned so many times that they assume you're just like everyone else.
Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. How many calls from telemarketers did you get last week? I know I got at least 30. The reason I know this is because I went back and blocked all the ones listed as telemarketers, robodialers, or spam. And that’s not including emails, texts, social media messages, and other channels.
You’ve probably experienced the same thing.
Just like us, prospects are on guard. They’ve been burned before. They've bought solutions that didn't work. They've been pitched by reps who overpromised and underdelivered. They've been spammed by mass emails, robo-called at dinner, and bombarded with generic LinkedIn messages from people who clearly didn't do their homework.
So when you reach out - even if you're different, even if you're genuinely trying to help - they lump you in with everyone else.
Understanding the Trust Recession: Why It's Happening Now
Here's what changed.
First, everything became commoditized. Ari Galper discusses this in his book, “The Rise of AI, The Decline of Trust” (available for free on his website; this isn’t a sponsored link). Your prospects hear what you do and see you as “just another option.” They're comparing you to five other vendors before you even get on a discovery call or present a proposal.
Second, they're doing their own research. They're reading reviews, watching demos on YouTube, reading articles on your blog, and lurking in Reddit threads before deciding whether to show up to a meeting with you or gracefully cancel.
For years, we’ve used The Rule of Seven in B2B sales and marketing. The rule was based on 1930s research that showed people didn’t make purchases until they had an average of 7 touchpoints with the brand. These could include calls, emails, ads, social interactions, or engagement on their website.
Today, research shows that this number has increased dramatically, with some data providers reporting that it took an average of 29 (28.87) touchpoints to make a sale.
Third (and this is the big one), AI tools have made it easier to scale outreach, but they've also made it easier to scale bad outreach: Robo-callers. Mass email blasts. Templatized LinkedIn messages that say "Hey [First Name], I noticed you work at [Company]." Your prospects can smell this stuff from a mile away, and they’re not impressed.
Sending a mass email to your audience without proper segmentation or targeting is about as useless as shouting into a void,and when every message feels the same, trust erodes fast.
The Role of Relationships (And Why AI Alone Won't Save You)
Here's what most people miss about the trust recession: the solution isn't to work harder. It's to work smarter by focusing on context, personalization, and building relationships.
This is what makes referrals unique—and such an important part of any effective growth strategy. Referrals reflect the trust someone has in you. When someone refers you, they're vouching for you (even if it’s only in a small way). That's gold in a trust recession.
But you can't get good referrals if you're leading with robotic, templatized outreach. Starting with messages that feel like spam doesn’t build trust - in fact, that will get you “blocked.”
Think about your last good conversation with a prospect. What made it good? If I were to guess, it probably included three things: you asked a lot of great questions, you truly tried to understand their situation, and you connected with them like a human being.
That's the bar now. Not clever subject lines. Not flashy videos. Just good research, relevance, and respect.
Why Your Outreach Isn't Working
Let's talk about what's not working.
You've probably tried one (or all) of these:
Purchased a lead list and sent 1,000 cold emails with mostly generic messaging
Used an auto-dialer to blast through 100 calls a day
Sent LinkedIn connection requests with a pitch in the first message
Here's what may have happened: for the most part, prospects ignored you. Or worse, they blocked you. And after all that work, you have little to show for it and a quota still breathing down your neck.
When you use tools that prioritize volume over personalization, you're making the distance between you and your prospects worse. When your outreach feels automated, your prospects assume you don't care about them—and they're right.
The irony? You're working harder than ever. Sending more emails, making more calls, posting more on LinkedIn. But you're getting worse results because your prospects can't tell you apart from the noise.
The Need for a Solid Personalization Strategy
So what's the answer?
Personalization. But not the fake kind. Not "Hey [First Name], I saw you work in [Industry]." The real kind. The kind that shows you actually looked at their business and understand their world.
Here's what that looks like in practice.
Instead of sending a generic email about your HVAC maintenance services to every commercial property owner in your territory, you look at their property first. They have a 17-year-old building, no recently pulled permits, and it looks like the HVAC unit is probably due for replacement. You mention that in your outreach. Suddenly, you're not spam - you're relevant.
Instead of cold calling a facilities manager and asking if they have "any pain points" with their current vendor, you know from the data that they just pulled a permit for a build-out and will probably need construction cleaning services and maybe even a janitorial contract. You lead with that. You're not guessing, you’ve done your research, and you're informed.
This is where buyer intent signals and property intelligence become game-changers. When you know what's happening at a property before you reach out, your conversation starts on a warm note instead of a cold one.
Tools like Convex provide access to this kind of intelligence, including permit history, building attributes such as square footage, use, tenant makeup, and contact data for verified decision-makers. When you combine that with signals that show who's actively in-market and searching for your solution, you're not just reaching out to anyone. You're reaching out to the right people at the right time with the right message.
That's how you cut through the noise and get attention in a trust recession.
How to Get Out of the Trust Recession: A Day in the Life
Let's walk through what this looks like in real life.
Put yourself in the shoes of a new commercial roofing rep. You've got a quota to hit, and you're tired of chasing leads that go nowhere.
The old way: You buy a list of commercial property owners. You send them all the same email about how you offer "industry-leading roofing solutions with competitive pricing." You get a 2% open rate and 2-3 replies. You follow up three times. Still nothing. You move on to the next list and repeat the process.
The new way: You log into your property intelligence platform and filter for commercial properties in your area with roofs over 20 years old. You can see that one of them—a 50,000-square-foot warehouse—pulled a permit for HVAC work six months ago. That tells you they're investing in the building.
You pull up the decision-maker using verified contact data. You see that they're the facilities director, and Generative AI crafts a personalized message that acknowledges the recent HVAC work and mentions that with an aging roof, they might want to consider a preventive inspection before the next heavy rain season.
You send the email. They reply within an hour. Not because your email was clever, but because it was relevant. You booked a site visit that afternoon.
Or, say for example their reply is, “We’re good, just signed a new roofing contract last week.” While this is disappointing, it’s still a good outcome - because you generated a response that told you where to invest your time.
That's the difference. You went from noise to signal. From generic to specific. From cold to warm.
What This Looks Like at Scale
Here's the thing: you can do this once or twice and get lucky. But to break out of the trust recession for good, you need to do it consistently.
That means having systems in place that give you:
Buyer intent signals to know who's actively looking for your services
Property intelligence to understand the building before you reach out
Verified contact data so you're talking to the right person, not chasing contact details
Generative AI to help you write personalized outreach at scale (without sounding like a robot)
When you combine these tools, the game shifts. You send fewer emails, but they get opened. You make fewer calls, but they turn into conversations.
And your prospects? They can tell the difference.
The Bottom Line
The trust recession is real. Your prospects are skeptical, and they have every right to be. They've been burned by too many reps who treated them like a number instead of a person.
But here's the opportunity: most of your competitors are still stuck in the old playbook. They're still sending mass emails and making spray-and-pray calls. They're still wondering why it's not working.
You don't have to be like them.
When you lead with relevance, use data to inform your outreach, and treat your prospects as people rather than names on a list, you break through, build trust, and book meetings.
The trust recession doesn't have to hurt your sales. It just means you have to sell differently.
Ready to see how property intelligence and buyer intent signals can transform your prospecting?Click this link to schedule a demo and see Convex in action. Discover how teams are leveraging our platform to overcome the trust recession and secure more qualified meetings.
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