Bob Burg (@BobBurg) is the co-author of The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea, a parable with dynamic business principles and life lessons that we can all apply with great effect.
The Cheat Sheet:
- Why the world isn’t dog-eat-dog.
- The Five Laws of Stratospheric Success — how they apply to your business and personal life.
- How we add value without giving away the bank and hurting our own business or interests.
- How we give without being obsessed with the results.
- As the old adage goes: how you do anything is the way you do everything.
- And so much more…
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Do you work to survive, to save, or to serve? Are you a go-getter or a go-giver? What are the differences, is one better than other other, and how do the two concepts fit together?
The Go-Giver, Expanded Edition: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea co-author Bob Burg joins us to talk about ways we can focus on helping others without sacrificing our own success in the process.
More About This Show
The business world (particularly sales) gets a reputation for being cutthroat and dog-eat-dog. Lately, it seems the approach has softened while the underlying principle remains — professionals will post YouTube videos and tweet about how their line of work is all about abundance and sharing, but there’s still an element of opportunism lurking just under the surface.
In The Go-Giver, Expanded Edition: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea Bob Burg and John David Mann tell us why this approach is not only wrong, but self-defeating.
“Not that there aren’t some short-term victories,” says Bob. “But…it’s hard to be a real nasty person and really do well. It’s just the world isn’t set up for that to happen in its natural state. But when people are brought up to believe that — that’s what they see on TV and in the movies — they kind of get an idea that that’s what it is.”
Bob and John knew they were on the right track when, upon publication of The Go-Giver, a number of highly successful people let them know the lessons from the book aligned exactly with how they chose to do business and lived their lives.
“You can’t be a son of a gun at work and a nice person at home. It doesn’t work out that way,” says Bob. “You are what you are. How you do anything is pretty much the way you do everything.”
The Five Laws of Stratospheric Success
The Five Laws of Stratospheric Success are based on an overriding premise of the book, which is simply that shifting your focus from getting to giving — constantly and consistently creating value for others — is not only a nice way to live life and do business, but it’s very profitable (in finances and/or happiness) as well.
The Law of Value
Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. The key is realizing that price and value are two different things. Price is a dollar amount; value is desirability to the end user. Always strive to provide more in “use value” to your customer than what you charge them–while still making a healthy profit.
The Law of Compensation
Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them. While The Law of Value discusses the value you provide, The Law of Compensation shows you how to get well compensated for the value you provide. You do so by touching the lives of a lot of people.
The Law of Influence
Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first. The golden rule of business is that all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like, and trust. There’s no quicker, more powerful, or more effective method of eliciting those feelings in others than by focusing on putting their interests first.
The Law of Authenticity
The greatest gift you have to offer is yourself. The most significant way you have of adding value to others’ lives is by honoring your own nature — by being genuine and not trying to be someone you’re not. Consciously or not, people can tell when you’re not being authentic, and it interferes with your interaction just as surely as if you broke off an electrical current. You cannot truly give to another person unless you’re being authentic.
The Law of Receptivity
The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving. This is what really brings it home. It says that receiving is good — it’s great — because it is a natural result of giving.
For many, this is the hardest of the five to enact. If you’re giving but not open to receiving, it’s easy to feel like an unappreciated martyr when the exchange is uneven. Striking a balance is key — because you don’t want to work just half the equation, and you don’t want to get stuck keeping score.
Listen to this episode of The Art of Charm in its entirety to learn more about why you don’t need to be an entrepreneur to be entrepreneurial, the difference between buyer profits and seller profits, the difference between intrinsic value and market value, why “authentic” and “transparent” aren’t necessarily interchangeable terms, hear the headline you’ll never read, why our minds aim for subjective truths (i.e. beliefs), the Five Elements of Value (excellence, consistency, attention, empathy, and appreciation), working with the variables of empathy, why Bob thinks teachers, nurses, and people in other valuable but traditionally underpaid professions would fare better if education adhered to the rules of free enterprise, creating a benevolent context for success, how to avoid go-takers, and lots more.
THANKS, BOB BURG!
Resources from this episode:
- The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea by Bob Burg and John David Mann
- Other books by Bob Burg
- Bob Burg’s website
- Bob Burg at Facebook
- Bob Burg at Twitter
- How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Psycho-Cybernetics, A New Way to Get More Living Out of Life by Maxwell Maltz
You’ll also like:
- The Art of Charm Challenge (click here or text 38470 in the US)
- The Art of Charm Bootcamps
- Best of The Art of Charm Podcast
- The Art of Charm Toolbox
- The Art of Charm Toolbox for Women
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