Giving Is The True Heart of Sales — Review of Go-Givers Sell More
Book Authors: Bob Burg & John David Mann
“Great salespeople never try to convince anyone of anything.”
Intro
Go-Givers Sell More is a book I read a few years ago when trying to figure out how to make some additional money possibly doing some network marketing. I was uncomfortable with many of the approaches and wanted to find a way to sell that jived with my values. So I bought this book on Amazon. It was a short, quick read. It’s a sequel to The Go-Giver, a business fable, but this book dives deeper into each of the topics providing examples and explanation that you don’t get just from the fable. (I actually, in unusual order, read this book first).
Below are listed Burg and Mann’s laws of success. Take a look:
THE FIVE LAWS OF STRATOSPHERIC SUCCESS
The Law of Value
Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.The Law of Compensation
Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.The Law of Influence
Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.The Law of Authenticity
The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.The Law of Receptivity
The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.
Each of these laws is important and builds upon the other ones. Each chapter is based on a principle under one of the laws and provides a quote from The Go-Giver as well as real examples of the principles in action.
Chapters are very short and the entire book could easily be read in one day or one long flight to or from home.
Ratings
- Likelihood of recommending a friend to read? 📚📚📚📚📚
- Likelihood of recommending a friend to purchase? 💰💰💰💰
- Positive Influence: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Time to read (more stars is more time)? 🗿
- How related to business? 🕴️🕴️🕴️🕴️🕴
“‘I’m no good at selling!’ Have you ever heard someone say that, or perhaps said it yourself? We hear it all the time. Everyone who is not in sales thinks, ‘I could NEVER sell.’
Truth is, most people who are in sales secretly think the same thing.
There is a reason people feel this way: most of us look at sales BACKWARD. We may see it as convincing people to do something they don’t want to do. But it isn’t; it’s about learning what people DO want to do and helping them do that. Or, we may think it’s about taking advantage of others — while in fact, it’s about giving other people MORE advantage.
But the biggest inversion of all, the great upside-down misconception about sales, is that it is an effort to GET something from others. The truth is that sales at its best — that is, at its most effective — is precisely the opposite: it is about GIVING.”
Two or Three Favorite Things
‘So you’re saying I should trust everyone?’ you might ask. ‘I don’t want to be a cynic, but isn’t that naive? Not everyone is trustworthy!’
Living in a state of trust is not the same as being naive. It’s important to proceed with your eyes wide open to the practical realities of life. There are people who will try to take advantage of you…
But as you continue focusing on creating value for others and practice living in trust, something else remarkable happens: you become an ever better judge of character. Surprising, but true. Living in trust turns out to be virtually the opposite of being naive: you become more perceptive, not less.
Why? Because you are practicing the law of Receptivity. Being receptive means you are open, and being open means you increasingly see things as they are, not as you wish they were or fear they might be.
Just as being a trusting person does not mean being naive, being receptive does not mean being passive. Being a Go-Giver doesn’t mean you can’t also be a go-getter.
If there is an opposite to Go-Giver, it is the person who lives on the constant lookout for how the world can serve them; the person who feels, “The world owes me, big time!” — you might say, a go-taker. And one trait go-takers universally share is a profound lack of trust — in anyone or anything.
Go-getters, on the other hand, take the initiative and make things happen, rather than waiting around hoping for things to go their way. Go-getters get things done. In fact, everyone we know who is a genuine Go-Giver is also a powerful go-getter.”
That was a long quote, but a good one and one I feel is critical. It’s all too easy and I know too many people who are too insecure to be able to give and receive freely and they end up go-takers. It’s hard for them to trust others, and they feel like they should always have more than they do. That’s why learning and seeking to serve, seeking to give more value than you receive, trusting and being grateful is so critical. It changes how you act. And your new views translate to new actions that lead to new results.
When you care about others and providing them value, that instills action to try and make others’ lives better.
If people want to do business with those they know, like, and trust, they generally do not want to do business with those who appear to need them too much. If being pushy and aggressive repels people (and it does), then so does being overly eager and needy…
Emotional clarity is your understanding that there is a difference between your economic need (which is real) and your emotional need for this person to be the solution to that economic need. Emotional discipline is your ability to hold onto that clarity and consistently choose your responses to each situation, rather than reacting compulsively.
There is a word for this combination of clarity and discipline: posture.
By posture we don’t mean acting phony, pretending to be someone you’re not, or ‘fake it till you make it.’ Quite the contrary. By posture we mean shaking off doubts and insecurities and stepping into the truth of who you are and the value of what you have to offer, without emotional attachment to any specific outcome…
It’s helpful here to remember that the conscious mind can hold only one thought at a time. The only way to succumb to the sense of feeling needy is when your focus is on yourself. So let’s ask ourselves a different question. The question before you is not whether you need this person to be interested in your MacGuffin, the question is, do they need your MacGuffin?
I liked this point because I feel like it’s personally applicable. I have had a few times I’ve felt needy and it’s because I was focusing on myself. I like the distinction Mann and Burg make between economic need and emotional need. The neediness comes in from expecting this individual to be the answer to the economic need. Money is needed, but that particular individual does not have to be the one to help with it. The discipline to hold that thought allows one to maintain the necessary posture to help the individual and possibly make a sale. The same idea is definitely applicable to relationships (no one wants to date the needy guy or girl) and job searching (employers are looking to hire people who can contribute and help them, not someone desperate for any job).
“Interesting: when you appreciate people, you appreciate. And when you don’t, you depreciate.
You want to increase your own worth? Appreciate.”
Personal Impact
This book has had a pretty profound impact on me personally. The simplicity of focusing on others and being authentic resonate deeply and excite me to create value for others. I know it helped me to be less insecure and a little more giving. Now, it wasn’t so profound that it completely changed me in every way, but I definitely attached myself to the idea of being a Go-Giver and trying to create value for others. I know that that is real contribution. It’s truly doing good, and I truly believe that when you do good, you will often receive good, most often from unexpected places. You just have to be willing to work and to be open to receiving them.
“Here is the heart of the matter: we have learned to view giving and receiving, altruism and self-interest, as two conflicting and contradictory states, at odds with each other, the one noble and the other selfish. But this is not how the genuinely successful see it, nor is it how they live their lives.
The genuinely successful view living with generosity as an integral part of creating success, not as something that comes out of success or that you can begin doing only after you’ve become successful — and they see receiving as an integral part of generosity. They eagerly receive, delight in the receiving — and just as eagerly pass it on. They don’t stop the flow, they join in with the flow…
…In truth, we each receive all manner of gifts, constantly and throughout the day. Genuine Go-Givers do not focus only on giving: they are also intensely aware of the gifts they receive. Indeed, they delight in the gifts they receive. And that is why they continue to receive so much.”
Final Thoughts
It’s not about you: it’s about them.
If there is anything that sums up the message of this book it’s that phrase. You want to be good at sales? Do you want to sell yourself to the company you’d love to work for? Then focus on how you will bring value to them and stop worrying about yourself. “Forget yourself and go to work” is a famous quote of a father to his missionary son in my church. It is a reflection of that when things are uncomfortable or hard, it’s often because we are focusing too much on ourselves. If we can get outside ourselves and see how we can improve others’ lives without focus on our return in that moment, then we will reap the great benefits of giving. And they are many. Go-Givers really do sell more and more importantly, live more abundantly.
