Estimated read time: 4 mins

Do you ever start writing an email, write 600 words, and then realize the idea you’re trying to communicate needs wayyyyy more space than a single email? 

Tell me I’m not alone. 

As business owners we are builders in more than one sense.

We’re building assets, reputations, and teams, sure. 

But we’re also building beliefs. I mean think about it, is anyone going to buy from you if they don’t believe — at least a little bit — that what you’re selling will help them? 

The science of belief change is so fun to nerd out on. 

The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is based on the idea that there are 2 main channels through which we process information that then influences our beliefs: 

1. Central route processing: Involves careful, thoughtful consideration of arguments. Belief changes that occur via this route tend to be more enduring, as people critically analyze and reflect on the information.

2. Peripheral route processing: Involves more superficial, emotional, or heuristic-based processing. Belief changes here may be more temporary and easily swayed by factors like the credibility of the communicator or emotional appeal.

In either case, belief change typically happens suuuuuper slowly. 

Credible information that conflicts with firmly held beliefs throws us into a cognitive dissonance tizzy. 

Incremental shifts are really the only way our brains feel safe to accommodate new belief structures. 

If you want to take people from curious to committed, you need to become a belief builder, let’s 🌮-bout how.

What you’ll learn in this article:

🍵💲The 3 things your audience NEEDS to believe if they’re going to buy from you 

🍵💲How to reverse engineer your conversion events based on preliminary beliefs 

🍵💲A collection of crazy stories to shift your belief that you can’t make bank with a course 

The tea: how to build belief bridges

Okay, so you’re a belief builder. Before you bust out your hammer and chisel, let’s clarify what beliefs you’re cultivating here… 

Your audience needs to believe that: 

1. You are the person who can help them achieve . 

You’re the expert. You give a shit. You’re cool and relatable, and at a place where they want to be. (Swap you with your product or brand if you’re not a personality based business) 

2. Your approach (or product) works. It’s proven. It makes logical sense that they need this in their life. 

Your potential customer needs to believe that it’ll make a positive difference. It’s different from other stuff they’ve seen. The message around it makes them FEEL something. 

3. They need this right NOW. 

If they think it’s possible to put this off or that it’s not a priority, it’s bye Felicia, until they get to a point on their own where the pain of continuing to struggle outweighs the pain of pulling out their credit card.

YOU are the architect of this whole journey. Massive responsibility. I know. I’m sorry. 

Building bridges isn’t easy. 

Lots of people will tell you it is but it takes work. If you love what you do, it might not feel like work — but it’s still a learning process. 

Everything you do, from the moment you’ve got someone’s attention, is a “belief brick”. And in the end, only they can cross the bridge you build for them. 

Even if you’ve done everything right — a 5% conversion rate is still considered stellar because people are… complicated. 

But building your bridge doesn’t have to be (cue the “just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy” quote). 

Start by simply making a giant list of what your ideal client or customer believes. 

And then talk about their beliefs in your messaging with a mission to change.their.minds. 

What I like about quizzes is they give you an opportunity to affirm the positive beliefs your audience already holds about themselves. 

This reflection builds trust and gives you a pass to start building real intimacy and understanding (because you can ask questions about what they believe and turn to your analytics for real data). 

But a quiz isn’t typically enough to radically shift someone’s beliefs. That’s what “conversion events” are for. 

A conversion event could be something like a webinar or training, or it can be more elaborate. 

Because I love getting meta 🤓 let’s take a look at the very conversion event I’ve been promoting for the last few weeks — Amy Porterfield’s Course Confident Bootcamp — and how it’s designed to shift the beliefs of participants from “maybeeee I could create a course” to “F yes I’ve got this”… 

Beliefs participants start with: 

❌ This seems complicated, I’m not sure I’m cut out for this 
❌ I’ll tackle this when I have more time 
❌ My ideas aren’t good enough
❌ I’m too busy, this seems overwhelming 
❌ I don’t have the time to create and launch a course 
❌ I need a team and a big budget to make this happen 

The content inside of Course Confident is designed to address and shift these beliefs with… 

✅ Messaging to affirm their emotional — “Make the 4 key decisions that will move you OUT of overwhelm”
✅ Messaging to address the human desire to wait for the ~perfect~ time — “Stop delaying the money you could be making”
✅ A whole lesson plan DESIGNED to tackle the most common objections/beliefs: what will it be about? What will I charge? How will I build an audience? (Adjacent testimonials that back each thing up) 
✅ An embedded calendar on the landing page to show this is doable in a small amount of time 
✅ Tons of testimonials speaking to Amy’s way to simplify what before felt hella complicated 

Once you’ve got your own list of pre-existing beliefs, you can design your own conversion event around what’s required to shift them. 

One last thing… 

If you’re in the midst of building your bridge, I want you to know you’re doing a great job. I wish I could pour you a celebratory Mimosa myself. 

Brick by brick, you will get there.

Sip on this…  

🧋I really do…

🧋These stories from real life course creators are the cure to your imposter syndrome, check ‘em out.