[Music]
[Music]
like many entrepreneurs I grew up in a
family of small business owners in fact
my parents bought a retail store on my
seventh birthday but it wasn’t just any
store it was a Hallmark store literally
everyone I knew growing up cared enough
to send the very best so when I ventured
out into the business world helping to
build companies I quickly found that not
everybody cared this much in fact I was
bought out of a business for $35 before
being fired and I watched as disgruntled
business partners sent letters from
their attorneys to the offices next door
to them and I’ve experienced the
betrayal of embezzlement from somebody I
considered a friend but all this caused
me to evaluate the role that Trust plays
and it’s nothing like you expect it to
be Trust is not a measure of how many
customers a business has there are
plenty of companies with thousands of
customers that don’t even want to do
business with them but there are a few
companies that are truly loved and we
can represent the value of trust we see
in a very simple equation first we learn
to trust personally through our own
interactions and experiences whether
it’s with a person or a product then we
add to or subtract the value we see in a
brand now these two are actually quite
different for example I may not have
experienced foodborne illness from a
restaurant but knowing that others have
affects my view of trust in that come in
that restaurants brand personal and
brand trust are then multiplied by
innovation where we gauge how the
products themselves build trust
typically by their uniqueness
which we call innovation but in order to
create personal trust businesses
typically hire experts and they call
these experts salespeople now the
unfortunate reality is that these
assassins of trust often miss their mark
because because we’re looking for trust
more than we are expertise now you’ve
probably experienced this I was recently
in another country in which I only spoke
a few words of the language and what do
you do when you’re lost you look for
someone that looks like you do
hopefully dresses like you do and and
hopefully speaks English
but in this case I was approached by a
couple as they walked left and right
down cobblestone streets and as they
approached me they were seeking a pub
for dinner now I’ve been in Copenhagen
for a total of two hours so immediately
I became their personal concierge and I
shared with them the full extent of my
knowledge well I actually passed a pub a
couple blocks back and I’m confident
that they went there because you see
people are pursuing trust more than they
are a local with expertise but that’s
often how we start business
relationships looking for familiarity in
order to gain knowledge but the way we
build trust personally is the same
whether it’s with a person or a product
and psychologists tell us that we walk
through this progression where we look
at the attraction of the romance stage
and the struggle in a power struggle
stage and we reach this stage of
stability where we gauge whether or not
a product would be reliable and finally
we reach a stage of commitment where
we’re willing to invest significantly in
that product but beyond this stage lies
a stage where very few of us venture a
stage called co-creation now co-creation
happens when we as customers take an
active role in the building of a product
and I can think of no better example
right now than what some are referring
to as the IKEA effect and for those of
you unfamiliar there is a relatively
large Swedish furniture store of which
the closest to us is about three hours
that direction and this unusually large
store creates cheap foreigner
sure that you need to assemble yourself
that’s correct you upon making your
purchase become an amateur furniture
builder using rudimentary tools and
stick figure directions but something
happens in this process as you are
creating this piece you become more
attached to it and eventually you look
down at this relatively poorly
constructed piece of furniture and you
tell others I built that
something amazing happens there because
we don’t trust people that try to sell
to us but we do trust people that want
to create with us
you see brands create trust differently
than people do a brand and it’s very
core is a story and every story contains
certain elements a character setting
rising action you know their conclusion
and you remember the story art from
school right but most brands do a great
job of telling the beginning of their
story or they tell you about their
characters but and they in general tell
you a pretty good idea of how the end of
the story works where they tell you
about how that product would do things
for you but you see most brands do a
horrible job of telling the middle part
of their story and I believe that that’s
why we don’t trust them you see most
brands aren’t willing to be vulnerable
with us and tell us about conflict and
that’s where we live in the bulk of a
story
you see most marketers above all don’t
want to talk about conflict but I
recently visited a restaurant in
Pittsburgh that does just that at the
conflict kitchen they serve conflict and
it’s elevated them to a top yelp
reviewed restaurant you see they only
serve food from countries the u.s. is in
conflict with but that they don’t stop
there you see they also invite people
with connections to those countries to
share their stories with patrons you see
is the conflict that has brought them
emotion substance and even customers but
most brands run from these examples in
their story but in 2002 when mini cooper
decided to bring their cars to the
United States people said just one thing
about their brand they said those cars
will never sell here they’re far too
small but rather than run from the
action in their story and dodge this
disadvantage Mini Cooper ran an ad
campaign saying it’s not small its mini
see
they broadcast to the market that it was
smaller than small and they doubled down
engaging in their whole story and they
literally ran billboards with mini
coopers on the top of Suburbans to
emphasize their point you see we crave
this kind of authenticity in brands so
it should come as no surprise to us when
a trusted brand of a hundred years gets
beat up by a start-up that’s willing to
be vulnerable with their story now it
could be the world’s leader in sports or
America’s most trusted car but bragging
about historical success is not how we
build trust in a brand but rather as we
look to the future we look at how brands
and products themselves create trust see
today we can connect with a product
before it’s ever been built if an
innovator decides to use crowdfunding
they can upload a video submit a
description and get us to go as far as
to even invest in that product before
it’s been built but innovation is far
more than just this kind of explanation
you see I grew up going to the hardware
store with my father and when we would
go to the store he would take great care
to look for a product that he said was
built to last and I grew up thinking
that a product and it’s very core
function should be to earn this kind of
a reputation of being built to last that
is that it always performs like it did
the day it was created but being built
to last
isn’t what builds trust in products
today we don’t buy products for what
they always have been we buy innovations
for what they will be and we wait in
line for the latest Apple iPhone because
of what it will be and we trust
companies like Apple because we know
that within a month they’ll release an
update making that product better than
in the day it launched and technology
companies have conditioned us with
pay-as-you-go models these monthly fees
in direct relationship to their updates
and every time one of us signs up for
one of these subscriptions we’re asking
a technology company to promise to
continue to innovate and when I asked my
Amazon Alexa whether I’m asking her for
the weather or I’m asking her to turn on
the lights if she wants to gain more
trust she can do that by learning a new
skill you see
technology companies and most companies
stop and ask when will this product be
done but truly innovative companies
never stop asking their customers for
feedback knowing that they could be
better tomorrow
because innovative companies realize
that if they stop this promise of
innovation is broken an innovative
companies realize that they depend on a
social proof that proof being that we
don’t buy products for products
themselves
you see we buy into a community of
customers that invest in that product
and this community of customers are the
same community that builds recipes for
my patio grill they assemble playlists
for me on Spotify and they even tell me
which Airbnb I should stay at you see
Trust has always been the hardest and
most important thing in business and we
don’t need companies creating the latest
sales gimmick we need companies being
vulnerable with their story willing to
pursue constant innovation it’s time we
built more companies that our loved ones
that embrace a currency of trust
you
[Music]
like many entrepreneurs I grew up in a
family of small business owners in fact
my parents bought a retail store on my
seventh birthday but it wasn’t just any
store it was a Hallmark store literally
everyone I knew growing up cared enough
to send the very best so when I ventured
out into the business world helping to
build companies I quickly found that not
everybody cared this much in fact I was
bought out of a business for $35 before
being fired and I watched as disgruntled
business partners sent letters from
their attorneys to the offices next door
to them and I’ve experienced the
betrayal of embezzlement from somebody I
considered a friend but all this caused
me to evaluate the role that Trust plays
and it’s nothing like you expect it to
be Trust is not a measure of how many
customers a business has there are
plenty of companies with thousands of
customers that don’t even want to do
business with them but there are a few
companies that are truly loved and we
can represent the value of trust we see
in a very simple equation first we learn
to trust personally through our own
interactions and experiences whether
it’s with a person or a product then we
add to or subtract the value we see in a
brand now these two are actually quite
different for example I may not have
experienced foodborne illness from a
restaurant but knowing that others have
affects my view of trust in that come in
that restaurants brand personal and
brand trust are then multiplied by
innovation where we gauge how the
products themselves build trust
typically by their uniqueness
which we call innovation but in order to
create personal trust businesses
typically hire experts and they call
these experts salespeople now the
unfortunate reality is that these
assassins of trust often miss their mark
because because we’re looking for trust
more than we are expertise now you’ve
probably experienced this I was recently
in another country in which I only spoke
a few words of the language and what do
you do when you’re lost you look for
someone that looks like you do
hopefully dresses like you do and and
hopefully speaks English
but in this case I was approached by a
couple as they walked left and right
down cobblestone streets and as they
approached me they were seeking a pub
for dinner now I’ve been in Copenhagen
for a total of two hours so immediately
I became their personal concierge and I
shared with them the full extent of my
knowledge well I actually passed a pub a
couple blocks back and I’m confident
that they went there because you see
people are pursuing trust more than they
are a local with expertise but that’s
often how we start business
relationships looking for familiarity in
order to gain knowledge but the way we
build trust personally is the same
whether it’s with a person or a product
and psychologists tell us that we walk
through this progression where we look
at the attraction of the romance stage
and the struggle in a power struggle
stage and we reach this stage of
stability where we gauge whether or not
a product would be reliable and finally
we reach a stage of commitment where
we’re willing to invest significantly in
that product but beyond this stage lies
a stage where very few of us venture a
stage called co-creation now co-creation
happens when we as customers take an
active role in the building of a product
and I can think of no better example
right now than what some are referring
to as the IKEA effect and for those of
you unfamiliar there is a relatively
large Swedish furniture store of which
the closest to us is about three hours
that direction and this unusually large
store creates cheap foreigner
sure that you need to assemble yourself
that’s correct you upon making your
purchase become an amateur furniture
builder using rudimentary tools and
stick figure directions but something
happens in this process as you are
creating this piece you become more
attached to it and eventually you look
down at this relatively poorly
constructed piece of furniture and you
tell others I built that
something amazing happens there because
we don’t trust people that try to sell
to us but we do trust people that want
to create with us
you see brands create trust differently
than people do a brand and it’s very
core is a story and every story contains
certain elements a character setting
rising action you know their conclusion
and you remember the story art from
school right but most brands do a great
job of telling the beginning of their
story or they tell you about their
characters but and they in general tell
you a pretty good idea of how the end of
the story works where they tell you
about how that product would do things
for you but you see most brands do a
horrible job of telling the middle part
of their story and I believe that that’s
why we don’t trust them you see most
brands aren’t willing to be vulnerable
with us and tell us about conflict and
that’s where we live in the bulk of a
story
you see most marketers above all don’t
want to talk about conflict but I
recently visited a restaurant in
Pittsburgh that does just that at the
conflict kitchen they serve conflict and
it’s elevated them to a top yelp
reviewed restaurant you see they only
serve food from countries the u.s. is in
conflict with but that they don’t stop
there you see they also invite people
with connections to those countries to
share their stories with patrons you see
is the conflict that has brought them
emotion substance and even customers but
most brands run from these examples in
their story but in 2002 when mini cooper
decided to bring their cars to the
United States people said just one thing
about their brand they said those cars
will never sell here they’re far too
small but rather than run from the
action in their story and dodge this
disadvantage Mini Cooper ran an ad
campaign saying it’s not small its mini
see
they broadcast to the market that it was
smaller than small and they doubled down
engaging in their whole story and they
literally ran billboards with mini
coopers on the top of Suburbans to
emphasize their point you see we crave
this kind of authenticity in brands so
it should come as no surprise to us when
a trusted brand of a hundred years gets
beat up by a start-up that’s willing to
be vulnerable with their story now it
could be the world’s leader in sports or
America’s most trusted car but bragging
about historical success is not how we
build trust in a brand but rather as we
look to the future we look at how brands
and products themselves create trust see
today we can connect with a product
before it’s ever been built if an
innovator decides to use crowdfunding
they can upload a video submit a
description and get us to go as far as
to even invest in that product before
it’s been built but innovation is far
more than just this kind of explanation
you see I grew up going to the hardware
store with my father and when we would
go to the store he would take great care
to look for a product that he said was
built to last and I grew up thinking
that a product and it’s very core
function should be to earn this kind of
a reputation of being built to last that
is that it always performs like it did
the day it was created but being built
to last
isn’t what builds trust in products
today we don’t buy products for what
they always have been we buy innovations
for what they will be and we wait in
line for the latest Apple iPhone because
of what it will be and we trust
companies like Apple because we know
that within a month they’ll release an
update making that product better than
in the day it launched and technology
companies have conditioned us with
pay-as-you-go models these monthly fees
in direct relationship to their updates
and every time one of us signs up for
one of these subscriptions we’re asking
a technology company to promise to
continue to innovate and when I asked my
Amazon Alexa whether I’m asking her for
the weather or I’m asking her to turn on
the lights if she wants to gain more
trust she can do that by learning a new
skill you see
technology companies and most companies
stop and ask when will this product be
done but truly innovative companies
never stop asking their customers for
feedback knowing that they could be
better tomorrow
because innovative companies realize
that if they stop this promise of
innovation is broken an innovative
companies realize that they depend on a
social proof that proof being that we
don’t buy products for products
themselves
you see we buy into a community of
customers that invest in that product
and this community of customers are the
same community that builds recipes for
my patio grill they assemble playlists
for me on Spotify and they even tell me
which Airbnb I should stay at you see
Trust has always been the hardest and
most important thing in business and we
don’t need companies creating the latest
sales gimmick we need companies being
vulnerable with their story willing to
pursue constant innovation it’s time we
built more companies that our loved ones
that embrace a currency of trust
you
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