Trust Agents – A Real Life Case Study

My good friends Julien Smith and Chris Brogan are writing a whole book called Trust Agents.

C.C. Chapman & Chris Brogan But while they will take thousands of words and dive into much greater detail then I am about to, I wanted to explain quickly and to the point how the economy of trust works in my little corner of the world.

This happened less then 20 minutes ago, but I wanted to share before I got distracted by something else.

    • Chris Brogan is someone I know.
    • I’ve met Chris face-to-face (bonus points)
    • I see a tweet from Chris talking about a hotel in NYC
    • I’m getting on a train in the morning to go to NYC so it gets my attention
    • I click on it and read a blog post that Chris has written raving about The Roger Smith Hotel and he mentions that they have a “blogger discount.” (more bonus points)
    • Chris speaks positively about the hotel and his experience there
    • The next time I’m in NYC, you can be sure I’m going to check out the hotel as an option

      All of this does not matter one bit if I don’t trust Chris. I do trust him so it all matters.

      It’s not that hard to figure out and yet so many brands don’t understand that you can’t buy this. Sure, there are pay per posts and other ways, but it is NOT the same.

      You may be able to buy exposure, but you have to earn trust.

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      This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Rambles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

      • Uh oh! Hope I'm not the one that opens the pay-per-post can of worms. ;)

        The truth about this all is that trust manifests in different ways. I've spoken to @Julien a couple of times and have seen him speak at PodCamp Montreal. He seems genuine and @MitchJoel also speaks highly of him. That circle extends de facto extends my trust to @ChrisBrogan. I've never met him. But anyway to make a long story short it's a small world and we're all hyper-looking forward to reading Trust Agents!! Homegrown successes can inspire many around us in a positive way.

        One more note about trust.. thinking waaaay out of the ballpark here.. I want to live in a society that is trustworthy. Surely we can all agree. So I'm really looking forward to reading Trust Agents to see if there is any context relating to life, the world, friendships, etc. That's the root issue. We'll NEVER be able to trust everyone, or every situation, or anything for that matter. That's naive. But I wanted to throw it into the conversation anyway.
      • hey nice! i like how you lay it out point by point. none of it can be measured in a traditional way but it's true that each of those points matters.

        another thing to mention is that, in each of these points, there was an opportunity for failure. so if chris hadn't done all of this right, he wouldn't have left that impact. :)
      • Well crap. I'm calling Wiley. There's no reason to write the book now that you've laid it out. : )

        Rob's not wrong to ask about the negative potential of influence and the like. I'm sure there are purists who say that a good rate is a natural way to curry favor.

        I don't care. Honestly, I don't care. Because what I got out of the experience went beyond a rate. I got a real warm welcome. I got really nice people who were really nice to EVERYONE that came in the door. I got people who noticed really little details, and fixed them if they were wrong.

        It was a magical event for me, and I'm going to sing it to the rafters.

        So, you're spot on. Trust is important. When one is leery of my trust, that's perfectly fine, because they trust someone else. No harm here.
      • People ask me if it's for work that I travel so often. It's hard to answer. No, I don't tecnhically travel for work, but meeting people in person develops trust, and that does help with my work*. 95% of the emails I get start with "X referred me to you" or "X speaks highly of you".

        Would it be the same if I was just a guy on the internet who does websites, instead of "Nico, whom I had a beer with"? I doubt it.

        * Ok, I don't travel only to build trust, but it's a very nice perk!
      • Chris Scelza
        This is very true, which explains why I am inclined to purchase the book when it is released.

        Building the trust solely online or through other correspondence takes quite a bit of time. Past performance and ratings given by the masses help, but nothing beats face time.

        If LinkedIn had an indicator of whether or not people have met in person (an IRL indicator? Ha.), it may provide more insight into the levels of connections these contacts have with each other. That would shed a whole new light on them.
      • C.C. - Thank you for the follow-up mention and your trust in CB.!
        We are learning as we go - your mention along with Chris's and Lisa de Bruin A.K.A. @winedivergirl are just forcing us to climb the learning curve faster !
        Thank you all for the 'push' !
      • I take social media so much for granted, and this is a perfect example why. I can't count how many times I have had a similar exchange with people... even those I only know online.

        I am always struggling when people ask me why I twitter, or podcast, or do any of my other online obsessions. I'll remember these excanges in the future.
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