The Most Dangerous Word in Business Right Now

And what a marketing psychologist taught me about the difference between trust as a buzzword and trust as a foundation.

I had a recent conversation that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

Her name is Chelsea Burns. She runs something called The Marketing Psychologist — a business built entirely around ethical branding and non-manipulative marketing. One year old. Already working with affordable housing developers and is a trainer at the Cialdini Institute (Robert Cialdini author of Influence).

I asked her how she got there so fast. Her answer reframed something I thought I already understood.

The 95% Nobody Talks About

Chelsea spent 17 years in in-house marketing — nonprofits, higher ed, commercial real estate — VP-level by her early 30s. Then she went back to school. Applied psychology, USC. And somewhere in the overlap between those two worlds, she noticed a gap so obvious it should have been embarrassing for the industry.

Most marketing is built to target the 5% of decision-making that’s conscious. The rational brain. The part people think they use when they choose.

The other 95%? Subconscious. Emotional. Relational.

Her mission, as she put it, is to recenter business around how humans actually think, not how executives wish humans thought. Belonging. Consent. Reciprocity. Trust. As architecture.

Why “Trust” Is About to Become Meaningless

Here’s the part that stopped me mid-sentence.

Chelsea said businesses are starting to adopt the language of trust. And she’s watching it happen with a kind of cautious dread.

Not because trust isn’t important, it’s the whole point. But because the moment a word becomes ubiquitous, it loses precision. And precision, she argued, is everything.

She’s writing a book about it right now. The core thesis: an entrepreneur’s motivation for trust is integrity. A VP of Sales’ motivation for trust is revenue. Same word.

Completely different psychological constructs. If your marketing speaks to one as if they’re the other, you’ve already lost.

This is where I leaned in hard.

I work with senior leaders as an executive thought partner. A space that sits somewhere between coaching and consulting, deliberately distinct from both. What I do in that room depends entirely on understanding what someone actually wants, not just what they say they want. Chelsea is doing the same work on the brand side. She’s not fixing marketing. She’s translating psychology into business behavior.

On Building Without Advertising

I asked about growth. Because the client list; from early-stage founders to global manufacturers, doesn’t happen by accident.

She laughed a little.

“I’ve done zero advertising. Zero pitching in my content.”

What she did instead: 12 to 15 connection calls per week for months. No agenda. No pitch. Just genuine curiosity and a commitment to mutual value. She accepted every podcast invite she got. She wrote articles. One of those articles turned into a significant client.

She called her strategic edge “peripheral partnerships” — people who work alongside her ideal client but aren’t in direct competition. Advocates who send the right people her way because there’s no threat in doing so, only benefit.

That hit me. Because it’s how I’ve always worked, but I hadn’t named it that cleanly before. The people who aren’t your clients are often the most powerful connectors to your clients. Build those relationships first.

The Executive Isolation Problem

There was a moment in our conversation that I think deserves its own piece someday.

I said something about how, when you’re in a high-level role, the most intellectually honest conversations you have tend to happen outside the organization. Your most stimulating thinking partner isn’t usually on your leadership team — it’s someone with no stake in the outcome.

Chelsea didn’t just agree. She confirmed it’s baked into the work she does too.

Senior leaders are surrounded by people who need something from them. Direct reports. Boards. Donors. Funders. Everyone in the room has a position. Which means no one in the room can actually tell them what they need to hear.

That’s the space I occupy. That’s the space Chelsea is mapping from the marketing side. The executive thought partner as a category isn’t a luxury. It’s a structural need that organizations haven’t figured out how to fill internally because by definition, it can’t be filled internally.

What I’m Taking Forward

Chelsea Burns is speaking to our alliance group on March 19th. We’re also exploring a keynote and workshop collaboration for the Contagious Culture Conference. The synergy is real.

But more than the collaboration, what I’m carrying from this conversation is this:

The work that matters in marketing, in leadership, in advancement — is always below the surface. It’s not about the tactic. It’s not about the channel. It’s not even about the offer.

It’s about whether the person in front of you feels seen as a human being before they feel targeted as a customer.

Chelsea built a business on that premise. In one year. I’d say the evidence is pretty

compelling.

Dr. Daniel Freeman, Ed.D. is the founder of The Executive Thought Partner — a confidential advisory space for senior leaders navigating complexity, transition, and growth. Connect at FundraiseWithDan.com.