Revolutionary Character

Trust.

It may be the single most important word in business.

I just finished an in depth interview with Professor Tamar Fankel of Boston University Law School which I'll be posting next month.

But you can get a preview here and now...

Tamar has been a professor at Boston University since 1968 and it currently a Faculty Fellow at the Beekman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She chaired the forum that led to the creation of ICANN, the Internet naming system.

Despite of her Internet credentials, Tamar is best known for her work in securities law. She was a pioneer in helping define law in the fields of both securitization and mutual funds.

Quite an impressive career to say the least.

So what is Tamar focusing on now?

Trust.

A book she published on the subject just came out from Oxford University Press. It's called "Trust and Honesty: America's Business Culture at a Crossroad."

You'll hear more about this book and the ideas in it in depth when we publish the interview with her, but it's not too early to start thinking about how trust applies to your business.

It's all about trust

Going back to the start of this article, trust may be the single most important word in business. 

I'm not talking about being blind trust. Healthy skepticism is one of the most important tools in the entrepreneur's tool kit.

I'm talking about being trustworthy. Literally: worthy of trust.

And no, I don't mean a new sales technique or copywriting tactic. I mean being worthy of trust.

Internet marketing is a very new field. Many people have been attracted to it because of the low cost of entry, the ability it gives to sell-at-a-distance, and the anonymity it provides (or seems to provide.)

Being a new, and largely unregulated, marketplace, the Internet has attracted a lot of bad players. In this way, it's not unlike any other industry or field of human endeavor.

The problem is that in the Internet marketing field many of these bad players are often looked up to by beginners as the model of how to conduct business online because of their supposed (usually self-reported) success. 

This problem is like the proverbial elephant sitting in the living room that no one wants to talk about, but make no mistake: it's costing us all dearly.

What bad players cost us all

When businesses behave unethically or in a "screw the consumer" way on the Internet, it effects everyone who sells on the Internet. It diminishes the level of trust buyers have for the medium. It reduces opt-ins. It reduces sales. It reduces profits. And it reduces the ability of good players to reach prospects and customers who need their  products and services.

In her book, Tamar points out that in markets where dishonesty becomes institutionalized,  distrust reaches epidemic proportions and economic activity grinds to a halt. 

A classic example is the Third World nation where nothing can be accomplished without bribes and no property is safe from corrupt officials. Countries that do not get a grip on corruption-accepting attitudes like this can never make long term economic progress.

Is the Internet in danger of degenerating to this point?

Maybe, maybe not, but as Tamar points out, it's the culture that a community develops that determines its long term prospects.

What kind of culture is forming around Internet marketing?

This is not an idle question, but if we don't like the answer, what, if anything, can we do to change things for the better?

Tamar has three recommendations:

1) Don't bury your head in the sand and hide from the subject,
2) Bring it out into the light and discuss is openly, and
3) Realize that culture is malleable, changeable. It's not carved in stone. If we don't like the way things are, or where they're headed, we can do something about it.

Coincidentally this morning I saw a review in the New York Times for a book called "Revolutionary Characters." It's about the nature of the people who made the American Revolution possible. (You know, the one we celebrated yesterday.)

The book asks: Why are the leaders of today so inferior to the leaders of 1776?

The reviewer says: "Mr. Wood (the author) points out that it was the trust George Washington inspired in people 'that enabled the new government to survive' its tumultuous and fragile early years."

Am I saying that players in the Internet marketing world should look more to people like George Washington and Bejamin Franklin for inspiration and less to people like Donald (gag) Trump and his Internet marketing equivalents?

Yes, I guess that's exactly what I'm saying.

It has to begin somewhere. It might as well begin with us, now

Comments

[Ken McCarthy]

Hi all,

I've just completed another interview to my series on this subject: the co-author of "Snakes in Suits" Robert Babiak.

He consults with big companies on how to detect and deal with scammers and con artists among their own employees.

I also just found out about a company based in Boston - Business Intelligence Advisors - that big investors hire when they need to know if a CEO is telling the truth or not. The company hires former FBI and CIA agents to do the work.

This company was the cover story in the June 26 issue of Barron's. (Sorry. I have no link.)

I'll be posting the whole series of the interviews I'm doing on this subject some time in late July or early August. They will contain practical suggestions we all can use to make better decisions about who we do and don't get involved with in business.

No quick fix, but some definite wisdom that would normally be hard to get anywhere else.

[Janet Beatrice]

I agree that we shouldn't name names of those we don't like. In fact, I unsubscribed from a good newsletter when I got endless emails asking why I hadn't signed up for the writer's $5,000 bootcamp (I think you can guess why).

But could we name names of those we do trust? I'd love to hear some. Today I got a very good email from David Frey and I've enjoyed Robert Middleton as well.

Also, I encourage everyone here to sign the "ethical business pledge" that Shel Horowitz has published at www.principledprofits.com. I have a whole page devoted to it on my own website.

[Mark Attwood]

Hi Ken
I'm a latecomer to comment on this post, but...absolutely spot on. I have a handful of people in life that I have trusted on issues about life. My Dad taught me about how to be a decent human being, a mad German chef who I love to death taught me how to cook from the heart (and gave me a bit of philosphy on the way)...there's a couple of others, but it's a short list! Embarking on this internet marketing journey has been the best trip of my life (outside of raising a family) and I've done a few things in my time (RAF pilot, wrote and perfomed in a number of UK TV comedy shows, published poet, publisher etc). When I got into the internet properly, I was sucking in every piece of info I could get. Got my fingers burnt because I was indiscriminately buying everything that came my way. Got information overload. Burnt a few brain cells. Then, I found Perry Marshall and very quickly found you. I even came to Perry's seminar to meet him and you, so I could shake you by the hand, but also to look into the eyes of these guys that I had built up a "trust" relationship without ever meeting. Your system home study course transformed my life - talk about overdelivery for the price! I apologise for being long winded here, but about an hour before I read this post, I emailed a friend of mine and told him to stop what he was about to do (he's putting some online video up for his financial services business) and do X,Y,and Z that I had learnt from "the only guy on this planet whose internet marketing advice I trust with my life". Trust is what it's all about, Ken, and you've got mine.

[Dave Pipitone]

There is a new book on business ethics available from Louis DeThomasis, "Doing Right in a Shrinking World: How Corporate America can Balance Ethics and Profits in a Changing Economy." The author interviewed CEOs of 10 multi-million dollar businesses and talks about the global shifts that are occuring and how an ethical business can make significant impacts upon society. The book is published by Greenleaf Book Group Press. A very good read.