{"id":1657,"date":"2020-09-13T05:55:39","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T12:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scot.fun\/damentals\/?p=1657"},"modified":"2020-09-16T16:26:15","modified_gmt":"2020-09-16T23:26:15","slug":"the-amazon-river-of-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scot.fun\/damentals\/the-amazon-river-of-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"The Amazon River of Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Amazon wanted to be the most trusted source of reviews. They wanted customers to come to them first to understand what people are really saying about products. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t what their competitors were doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other e-commerce vendors only wanted to share favorable reviews because people buy things with favorable reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon wasn’t going for the cheap shallow branding of “we have good things, buy from us.” They were going for a deeper relationship. “We will always help you with your purchasing decisions even if it’s not good for us.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, a 5 star rating on a product actually means something on Amazon, and it was hard-earned trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can be pretty dumb<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As freelancers and small businesses in entertainment, we often see the purchase point, but we don’t see the relationship that the customer has had with us leading up to the purchase. We don’t see all the times they’ve noticed us or heard about us. We don’t hear about all the things that remind them of us. We don’t know what history they’ve had with our competition, so it all seems like alchemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This alchemical feeling means we have no real agency. We got paid for our work by luck, and so we pursue new promotions waiting for that same luck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check out someone bigger<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

An easy exercise for exposing how much trust matters is to look at someone who we think is better than us in our field. How does this person or company appear to us? How many hundreds of times have we seen them? How many times have they consistently proven to deliver? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don’t have to worry that they are “better” than us because our customers probably don’t have the same relationship with this “better” company than ours. This dig into our trust process demonstrates that our concept of value doesn’t come from one email blast, one website, or one instagram post. We trust that Mercedes Benz is a luxury brand<\/a> because of a lifetime of indoctrination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Channel the Amazon approach<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Amazon treated reviews as a tool for its users. What tools do we supply to our potential customers? What services do we offer, not to drive sales, not to get fans, but to get gatekeepers one step closer to trusting us? How can we be the very first (and last) stop for our fans when they want to do something? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s much nicer to have someone in a park say “here’s a shady umbrella to relax under” than “listen to my music and you can buy some through 4 different download sources!” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, it’s less direct. Yes it’s more work. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But it is work that translates into trust. It’s fun to provide good service, and its actually desirable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazon wanted to be the most trusted source of reviews. They wanted customers to come to them first to understand what people are really saying about products. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t what their competitors were doing. Other e-commerce vendors only wanted to share favorable reviews because people buy things with favorable reviews. Amazon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":1664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158666434799935_26707174888":"","twitter_aToyMjM4MTQzMDs=_22381430":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scot.fun\/damentals\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/falls.jpg?fit=2000%2C1154&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pc33gc-qJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2372,"url":"https:\/\/www.scot.fun\/damentals\/not-for-everyone-entertainment-long-tail\/","url_meta":{"origin":1657,"position":0},"title":"Not for Everyone: Entertainment Long Tail","author":"scot","date":"February 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"A lot of us keep struggling to be popular. 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