What is the Trust Economy?

What is the trust economy? It has been popularized by a woman by the name of Rachel Botsman, who a few years ago wrote a book and did a TED talk. The title of her TED talk was “The Currency of the New Economy is Trust.” (The TedTalk video is at the end of this post if you want to check it out.)

What does she mean by that? The best way to explain this is to give you an example:

There’s a website called Airbnb.com. You’ve probably heard of it. On Airbnb.com, I can rent out a room in my house to a guest. Now, how does someone decide if they want to rent your room or someone’s room down the street? It’s really about the online reviews. What do the reviews of people who have stayed there before say? What have they said about you? What was the experience like? What was the relationship like to the person that owned the home? Airbnb is being popularized all over the world. Cities like Paris, San Francisco, New York, even places in Colorado.

There’re a few key aspects, I think, that are important about the trust economy.

First of all, that it’s driven by technology. The fact that we have this great technology now and we’re able to connect this way is really driving the whole trust economy.

Second, we realize is that the trust is contextual. What do I mean by that? What I mean is, just because I trust to rent a room from you on Airbnb doesn’t mean I trust you to put together a piece of furniture for me from IKEA.

Finally, learn that it’s based on collaborative consumption. Sites like Airbnb.com and companies like Uber, where I’m able to take my vehicle and able to consume the use of that vehicle with others. It’s a collaboration of consumption.

What do we learn from the trust economy?

It’s Not About the Technology:

A couple things that we learn from this, that it’s not just about the technology. The technology is just a tool that helps people connect and build relationships. Ultimately, it’s still about building relationships. That will never change.

Reputation has Value:

We also learn that your reputation has value, real, strong, actual dollar and cents value.

Reputation is Online:

We also learn that your reputation shows up in many different places. One of those places is online reviews on third-party review sites. What is your reputation online? What does it look like?

It’s the whole reason why we developed Review Me Marketing, to help you be able to take control of your online reputation and to build it and grow it and protect it.

If you’re using Review Me Marketing, congratulations. You are taking charge of it.

If you’re not sure about it, or maybe you’re not getting the most out of it and you’re not getting the most out of your online reviews, then let’s have a conversation and come up with some strategies and ideas that help you build your online reviews and help you build the value of your reputation so that people will trust you faster and be willing to take the next step with you so your business will grow and you’ll grow your clients and your customers easier, faster, and better than before. Thank you.