Expect to hear this question from time to time after you’ve denied a request to someone who may have never even read the book but has heard you discussing it.
They’ve asked you to do anything from serving on a committee, to donating time and/or money to a cause, to providing them with an endorsement or introduction, to … to … well, you get the picture. Each of these are terrific, when warranted and appropriate. However, in this case, for whatever reason you have determined, it wouldn’t be the correct action for you to take.
In the previous post, we discussed the false premise that being a Go-Giver means you have to give away your product or service for free and have absolutely no concern for making a profit.
This time, we’ll look at the equally invalid idea that being a Go-Giver means acting contrary to your own interests, if doing so entails either a break from your personal value system or having to be some kind of self-sacrificing martyr in order to do another’s will. In other words, that you must say yes upon fear of being guilted.
It absolutely does not mean that!
Please don’t misunderstand. Doing for others is wonderful, even at times doing something you would rather not do. And so long as it’s a choice you are making of your own free will, and it aligns with your personal value system and sense of right and wrong, that’s fine.
That’s not necessarily being a Go-Giver, and it’s not not being a Go-Giver, either. It just is what it is: nice, kind and generous … and the world certainly needs more of that.
But if, in order to be more productive, or to refrain from doing something that would violate your sense of what’s right, or even just to maintain your sanity or for any other reason, you feel you must say no to someone’s request, that’s okay. You can do that without fear of not being a Go-Giver.
The person who challenges you on your “no” by insinuating otherwise might not even necessarily be a manipulative person. He or she simply might not understand. You have the opportunity to educate them in a way that is of benefit to both of you.
Oh, and while a Go-Giver does have to say no sometimes (often regretfully so), they also know that how you say it can make all the difference in the world to the other person’s feelings. Saying no with tact, kindness and class certainly is an attribute of a Go-Giver.
And when saying no, they do so without a feeling of guilt. (Okay, maybe just a bit because … let’s face it, it’s natural to want to please others).
Following the Five Laws as defined in the book will add great value to your life and the lives of others around you. At the same time, it”s important to keep in mind what being a Go-Giver really is — and just as importantly, what it isn’t.
The other day we woke up today to find we were on CNBC! Its web site, that is.
The network’s online book review column, “Bullish on Books,” featured a guest post by Bob Burg and me, entitled “Everything You Learned About Sales Is Backwards.”
Bullish on Books is the creation of Gloria McDonough-Taub, CNBC’s Editor of Blogs. Here is how Gloria describes her task:
“I read recently that about 11,000 business books are published per year. That’s a lot of books! You don’t have time to read all of them, but I’m trying. Here at Bullish on Books I will be your guide to the best business books on the market today.”
According to her bio, in Gloria’s 30-ish years of television experience (including local and national news, documentaries, talk shows and syndication) she has interviewed “presidents, pundits, and pampered princesses” — and now she just wants “to kick back and read a good book.” We’re honored and delighted that Go-Givers Sell More turned out to be one of them.
John and I are always delighted to receive the many emails from readers who share with us how utilizing the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success has helped them add value to the lives of others, and created more prosperity for themselves and their loved ones, as well.
Of course, while a Go-Giver doesn’t “give to get” but “gives to give,” they also know that doing this creates a benevolent context for success; the powerful seeds of goodwill they’ve cultivated will come back to them many times over, in the form of direct business and referrals.
Yet we also receive letters that, while well-intended, proceed from a false premise, and a potentially dangerous one at that:
“Being a Go-Giver means giving yourself and your product or service away for free, without any concern for making a profit.”
Folks, it absolutely does not mean that!
There’s a time and place to give things away for free. Sometimes, it’s a smart marketing strategy: give people a sample, and they’ll be in a better position to decide if they want to buy. (John and I provide a free download of Chapter 1 of each of our books for just that reason.)
That’s not being a Go-Giver, and it’s not not being a Go-Giver. It just is what it is.
Being a Go-Giver, in and of itself, has nothing to do with giving things away for free.
Being a Go-Giver means you tap into the Five Laws shared in the book. You provide more in value than you take in payment; you touch many lives with that value; you put other people’s interests first; you operate from a foundation of authenticity; and you allow yourself to receive.
That last one – receiving – is often the point in all this that gets forgotten.
A Twitter friend wrote me the other day saying that a customer of hers sent her a nasty email complaining that she was charging too much for her product. My friend had decided that, “in the Go-Giver spirit,” she would not charge the person at all.
“DON’T YOU DARE DO THAT!…”
… is what I wanted to write back, but I didn’t. I was a bit gentler and tactful. I explained that perhaps she was confusing being a Go-Giver with being a doormat or whipping post.
I asked if, with her normal price, she was providing significantly more in value than what she was charging, while still making a significant profit. She said, “Yes, absolutely.”
In that case, I suggested, she was already being a Go-Giver. She simply needed to effectively communicate that value to her customer. She agreed, and that’s exactly what she did.
Another case in point: Jennifer Ledbetter, aka PotPieGirl, recently promoted our book on her affiliate marketing site, and one of her readers upbraided her for including an affiliate link, as if there were something somehow wrong with her making a profit — when earning a profit through affiliate marketing is the whole point of her site!
It can be so easy to fall into the trap of this false dilemma (what we call in the new book a “treacherous dichotomy”) that says you are either in business to serve others or you’re in it for the money.
As if one excluded the other. It doesn’t — no more than giving excludes receiving.
Please don’t buy into this treacherous dichotomy, this guilt-tripped dualism. It’s a bad sale, and enough people are probably trying to sell you on it already — don’t do it to yourself.
In my next post, we’ll look at a second false premise regarding the term Go-Giver and how it can result in people trying to guilt you into living very unproductively. And we’ll discuss the solution, as well.
Bob and I often say on interviews that readers tell us, “The first four laws, those felt comfortable — but that fifth law? That Law of Receptivity? Man, that one made me squirm.”
It’s quite amazing, how deeply ingrained it seems to be, in so many of us, that it’s good to be a giver, but not okay to receive. (How did you respond the last time someone gave you a big fat compliment?)
The other day we received the following note from a reader; I cried when I read it. After you read it, I’ll share my response.
Yesterday, I attended a group led by [a friend]. During that group, The Go-Giver was mentioned; I was curious and purchased the book. My curiosity was piqued because I have been told numerous times that I am a giver and not a taker.
As dinner was cooking, my husband and son were occupied, so I opened the book, planning to read a page or two before dinner. To my amazement, I was swept away — I read your book, no, not read, I absorbed your book in one night.
I was amazed by two things. One was that the individuals who said I was a giver and not a taker were right. I do give, and I don’t take. But what no one ever told me was that it is okay to receive.
I have given and given, never accepting anything in return. If someone did something nice for me in return, I always felt guilty or responded with, “Please, I couldn’t possibly accept,” until they stopped trying. I have given and not accepted anything in return for so long that I have lost myself along the way.
Just like your character Debra Davenport once was, I am a failed real estate agent. I have never even had a client, never mind a sale, but it is because I have tried to be someone I am not and have been focused on the end result. I have felt invisible and insignificant — I cried when I read your book, which may sound stupid, but my life is almost in ruins, and I now feel that I can turn that around.
My first step: realizing that I add value in my personal and social life. I plan on “becoming” Joe. What I mean by that is I am going to use the laws and I am going to apply one each day, starting today.
I am reading the book for a second time, it is so uplifting. I plan on making some changes, big and small!
I wanted to thank you for this gift that you have given me.
Sincerely,
(name withheld) Real Estate Agent
In my note back to her, I wrote, “If we never heard from a single soul, never got a single note from any other reader but this one from you, it would have been worth all the effort to write and publish the book.”
It would be hard to be much more excited than we are right now. It’s finally here: Launch Day.
The official release date for Go-Givers Sell More is … drum roll … today, Thursday the 18th. We’ve been hearing about sightings in airport bookshops, and rumors of the book being shipped by Amazon and others in the past few days. Last night the book plunged to #200 on Amazon (lower numbers are better, #1 is best of all), and dropping fast.
It’s happening.
Our aim is to make the biggest splash we can. We don’t just want to release a book — we want to have an impact on the way people do business worldwide. For us, that means hitting the New York Times bestseller list this week. And you can help. How?
By buying your copy this week. (Read: today—i.e., right now!)
We promised you a link that would gives you a handful of special bonuses for ordering now. (One of those bonuses, an ebook on “Living, Leading and Leaving a Legacy,” John is just now putting the finishing touches on — it is not and will not be available anywhere else. Another includes Bob interviewing Thom Scott on his “Marketing from the Heart” system. Yet another is Bob’s 268-page book Winning without Intimidation.) Here is that link:
With the big launch of Go-Givers Sell More less than three weeks away, the timing is perfect for the completion of our new website.
Hats off to Kathy Zader of Zoom Strategies who did a MAGNIFICENT job creating the site, putting it together, and going back-and-forth with us (and, when I say “us” I really mean, John, who was involved with the site creation from the “Give-Go”) until it was “jes’ right.”
So, feel free to visit www.GoGiversSellMore.com. You’ll see a place where you can download Chapter One of the new book, as well as links to The Go-Giver Award, The Go-Giver Scrapbook, and other fun places where our Go-Giver Community of friends and Ambassadors can visit, hang out, and share their thoughts with us.
This site isn’t just John’s and mine. It’s all of ours. And, we hope you enjoy it.
A few weeks ago we promised to unroll a new web site. Here it is: The Go-Giver Scrapbook. (… cue sounds of champagne corks popping …)
The Scrapbook is devoted to you and your experiences. The idea behind this new site is to provide a place to highlight your stories about how utilizing the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success has made a difference in your relationships, your business, your organization, your life.
Why? Because it’s fun — and also because your story will inspire hundreds, perhaps thousands of others to gain new and creative ideas for how they can make a fulfilling and productive shift in their lives, too!
We’ve started the Scrapbook with a half dozen entries from friends, a few of them taken from our new book Go-Givers Sell More (which releases less than three weeks from now!) — and we’ll keep adding more.
We’d love to add yours.
P.S. To send us your story for the Scrapbook, just click on the Your Story button at the top of the site.
Still a few weeks away from the Big Launch, we thought it might be fun to give you a sneak peek of what’s actually in the new book.
Go-Givers Sell More is not a parable or actual sequel to the first book. (We are writing a true sequel, but that’s still a ways off.) Instead, it is more like a Go-Giver Companion: a collection of short essay-like chapters about applying the Go-Giver principles to real-world situations (especially in the context of sales and selling), punctuated by several dozen real-life stories of people we know who live these principles.
It is divided into five sections (no surprise there!), and here are the chapter titles:
Part I. The Law of Value
1. Create Value
2. MacGuffin
3. Giving
4. Money
5. The Paradox
6. Your Economy
Part II. The Law of Compensation
7. Touch Lives
8. People
9. Rapport
10. Skills
11. Curiosity
12. Maturity
Part III. The Law of Influence
13. Build Networks
14. Fuzzy Influence
15. The Perfect “Pitch”
16. Great Questions
17. Follow-Through
18. Your Serve
19. Posture
20. The Competition
Part IV. The Law of Authenticity
21. Be Real
22. Present
23. Undersell
24. Listen
25. Objections
26. The “Close”
27. Silence
Part V. The Law of Receptivity
28. Stay Open
29. Left Field
30. Crisis
31. Trust
We’re bet you’re probably wondering either a) what a “MacGuffin” is, or b) what it has to do with sales. Or, what “fuzzy influence” is supposed to mean — or why there is a whole chapter on “silence,” and another on “left field,” and one on “crisis” …
Stay tuned — we will answer these questions (and many more) soon: the Big Launch is just 24 days away!
The many emails John and I have received over the two years that The Go-Giver has been in print have been a huge inspiration to us. In fact, we have shared many of your stories during media interviews, from stage, and even (a few dozen of them) in our soon-to-be released book, Go-Givers Sell More.
We love sharing stories about people who, after reading The Go-Giver, decided to shift their focus from getting to giving, constantly and consistently adding value to the lives of others, and experienced a significant increase in their own personal success — both financially and, often, in other ways as well.
We love these emails — and we invite you to keep ’em coming.
In fact, we’ve created an online forum for the exclusive purpose of sharing those stories with others.
So we invite you to let us and the entire Go-Giver community know about how utilizing the Five Laws of The Go-Giver has made a difference for you.
On January 21 (next Thursday) we are officially launching the Go-Giver Scrapbook, a new web page devoted to highlighting your stories about how utilizing the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success has made a difference in your relationships, your business, your organization, your life.
John and Kathy have been working diligently on creating the perfect design for this new site, and we’d love to see your story up there when it launches!
The Scrapbook will be organized by category, depending on which of the Laws and what sort of life circumstance your story embodies: we’ll have one category for each law, as well as categories for Business, Family, Relationships, Organizations, and more. (And one story may be tagged under more than one category.)
Imagine your own story empowering and encouraging thousands of other people to apply these laws in their own lives! Talk about creating the proverbial bigger pie.
If you have a story you’d like to submit, just click the “Contact” button above and send it to either one of us by email.
