Trust Takes Courage, and Someone Has to Go First, with Lyndsey Maddox

Episode 184

Today’s episode is part of our special series exploring one of the most critical — and sometimes challenging — dynamics inside the agency sales process: trust and distrust.

Over the coming weeks, you’ll hear from agency leaders who are leaning into this issue — sharing real stories, lessons learned, and how they’re building trust at every stage of their business development journey.

These conversations are more than just episodes. They’re also shaping the research foundation for our next book, The Trust Architecture, and for a set of Field Guides we’ll be sharing with our community soon.

If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you know that at Predictive ROI, we help agencies sell more of what they do. And what we’ve seen time and again — across hundreds of agencies — is that trust, or the lack of it, is often the single biggest factor determining whether your sales pipeline flows or stalls.

When trust is present — conversations feel easy, opportunities open up, and right-fit prospects move forward.

But when trust is missing — friction builds, uncertainty creeps in, and momentum disappears.

That’s exactly why today’s conversation is such a great fit for this series.

Our special guest expert is Lyndsey Maddox, CEO of Digital Third Coast, a digital marketing agency founded in 2007 with a mission to make a measurable difference.

Lyndsey joined the agency back in 2009 and has played just about every role on her way to the CEO seat. Along the way, she discovered her passion for helping clients win new business by being found at the exact right moment.

For Lyndsey, good marketing isn’t about what you spend or where you place it — it’s about what you get in return.

She understands how visibility and credibility intersect — and how the right strategies can transform expertise into influence and trust into measurable growth.
I’m also joined by my colleague and co-host, Hannah Roth, our Director of Strategy and resident Mad Scientist here at Predictive.
Hannah works in the trenches every day alongside our clients — helping them build trust at scale — and she leads all of our experiments inside the Predictive Lab.

What you will learn in this episode: 

• What “trust as a two-way street” looks like in every agency relationship — from right-fit clients to your own team
• The power of showing up consistently, owning your wins and your losses in biz dev
• The power of showing up consistently, owning your wins — and your losses — in biz dev
• Why making “deposits” into your trust bank is key to filling your pipeline with right-fit prospects
• The steps Lyndsey’s team takes in their sales process to set expectations and prove their authority
• How to turn expertise into visibility
• Why authenticity and human stories will matter even more as AI raises credibility challenges

Resources:

• Website: www.digitalthirdcoast.net
• LinkedIn Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyndseykramer/
• LinkedIn Business: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-third-coast-internet-marketing/