Trust is the new currency for business

Trust was once an expensive pursuit

Banks were built from luxurious materials in bold architectural forms, with sturdy marble pillars and adornments to provide the most powerful declarations of solidity, tradition and trustworthiness – and to project a sense of enduring history. Trust, more than anything, came from being purposefully wasteful.

And think about the hospitality industry. Historically, hotels found success through standardization – guaranteeing a level of comfort and quality under an umbrella brand or chain, often built on emblems of safety, trust and tradition.

But this is all changing!

There is a new business currency. It can’t be found at the local bank, or purchased for any price

Today people get into cars with complete strangers, sleep in the beds of people they never met, hiring someone on TaskRabbit and lend money to others on the other side of the world. A powerful new currency is emerging – and it’s based on trust.

What’s striking about the shared economy is not the technology that has made it possible, but the vast changes it has triggered in society. It has brought a renewed sense of community, engendered more collaboration, sparked new thinking and put a premium on trust, tapping into a need that transcends boundaries and is still rife with opportunity.

If companies not working to build and demonstrate it, then the future might be about to leave them behind, as trust is quickly becoming the global – and most-valued – currency of modern time.

There is a new business currency. It can’t be found at the local bank, or purchased for any price. Trust is the most important currency

Trust is the most powerful currency in business

In the pre-digital age, the advertising that helped build brands was expensive. Just as banks spent big money on marble columns, anything in TV commercials exuded an aura of quality, stemming from the feeling that advertising had a high production value and air time was limited.

Compare that to today’s decentralized and fragmented media landscape. What becomes of brand-driven trust when consumers read news stories that their friends like and share with them, buy products because of reviews and stay at hotels they find tagged on Instagram?

The modern language of trust is a slick user interface, a decent booking flow and impactful images; above all, it’s great reviews, ratings and influence.

In this new world, consumers “trust score” will be the only metric that they need in order to make decisions on how to do business, and with whom. It effectively becomes the new credit score.

The question is what are companies doing to actively build trust with their customers? In a world where branding is less what the company say and more the collective experiences of everyone using it, companies can’t simply rely on marketing to meet the challenge for them in the future.

Good luck with the journey!

In a networked world, trust is the most important currency – Eric Schmidt

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