I am back, after an absolutely CRAZY holiday season. I thought this one would be fairly quiet, with no family visiting and no big travel plans. But somehow the last few weeks have been nuts. I think it has abated somewhat, but I’m kind of afraid to say so for fear or jinxing it!
This week my husband shared with me a thread he had read on Twitter. and I think it has implications far beyond what the original poster addressed.
Here's the link to the original thread Losing Trust .
A quick TL;DR for those who don't want to stop and read the thread: What causes a sudden, precipitous drop in business/readership/viewership? Often the people in charge of the business will see it as a reaction to an incident, a change in product, or a price hike. But that can be a gross oversimplification of what is really happening.
The author of this thread is a business advisor who says it more often in the result of continued small changes over a period of time, leading to a tipping point which he calls the "Thermocline of Trust."
(A thermocline is scientific term for the temperature layers in a body of water, the point where there is a sudden sharp drop in temperature.)
His thesis is that there is a similar point in the erosion of trust in a business caused by those repeated small changes that finally becomes complete. At that point the customer no longer trusts the business and they are lost. Permanently, and with little to no hope of regaining that trust.
You've all probably experienced this as a customer. A business that has increased prices year after year, just a little, until they have become too expensive for the service they are providing? A product that has declined in quality, just a little, over a long period of time?
A personal example:
I grew up in Southern California, and was a huge fan of Disneyland. I have many fond memories from the time I was a little kid going with my parents, to a special date that included a romantic dinner at the Blue Bayou, to taking my own children when they were little, and going back with my son when he was just out of college himself.
But I doubt I will ever return. I think I have reached my Thermocline of Trust with Disney. Prices have risen to well beyond my budget, the parks now require reservations even after you pay the exorbitant entry fee, the lines for rides have Byzantine structures, require their own reservations, and the wait can last for hours, parking is ugly expensive, and even with the reservation system and all its rules the place is still extremely crowded.
Each of these changes has been gradual, and at each step I still would have considered a return trip to be possible. But the cumulative effect is that I no longer trust that Disney can provide an enjoyable experience and I doubt that I will ever return to the park. Well, unless I win that billion-dollar Powerball and can afford to rent the whole place out for a family party!
Honestly, this thermocline analogy makes a lot of sense. But I think it applies to far more than a customer base. I think it applies to nearly every human interaction.
Think about it. Have you lost a friend not because of a huge falling-out, but because little things eroded your trust until you reached a point where you no longer trusted them and knew you would not change your mind? Irreconcilable differences as grounds for divorce are likely one or both parties losing trust in the other.
How does this apply to creative pursuits? I think it means we have to be honest with ourselves and our audiences. If we continue to make small compromises in our work, if our quality declines, we may lose our audience.
This isn't to say we shouldn't make changes. Far from it.
But it does mean that we have to be honest with ourselves about why we are making those changes, and to accept that it may limit our audience IF THAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU.
And that's the bottom line. You have to trust yourself to know whether an audience is important and to act accordingly. If it is important, then you have to play fair with that audience, to give them the quality they have come to expect, and to keep their trust.
Because ultimately trust is almost impossible to regain once it is lost.