109 - The Go-Giver with Author Bob Burg (Part 2)
The Go-Giver-The 5 Laws Of Stratospheric Success Part 2
Courage Cast Interview with Bob Burg Author of The Go-Giver Book
Courage Cast Podcast - Faith, Inspiration and Motivation for Today
Hosted by Eric Nordhoff - Christian entrepreneur, encourager and leader of the Courageous Community
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How to have business success interview with Bob Burg
Eric: This is courage cast. Faith, inspiration, and motivation for today. Hey friends this is Eric Nordhoff and you're listening to another episode of Courage Cast, I hope you're having a great day and I hope you're enjoying the series with Bob Burg, the co-author of 'The Go Giver', a little story about a powerful business idea. In this episode we're going to continue my conversation, it's a four part conversation with Bob and in this episode we dive further into the book, of course. We discuss the behind the scenes character development and why some of these messages are in there. What led up to these messages, and we expand on the points of the book. We expand on the five laws of stratospheric success. Without further ado let's dive into it, let's jump into it, I keep saying 'dive' and 'jump', I'm sorry but that's just may way of saying let's get to it. This is second part my interview with Bob Burg. Let's dive into the Go Giver. Of course we've got the five laws, the law of value, the law of compensation, the law of influence, the law of authenticity, and the law of receptivity. Which law do you believe is the hardest to understand and put into practice and why?
Giving and receiving
Bob: Well, probably the most difficult for most people to put into practice is the law of receptivity, and that's because we hear so. We get so many bad messages, negative messages from the world about money, about success, about success, about prosperity. That gets into the mind, that gets into the psyche and to the unconscious and so there are so many, I won't even say mixed messages about money, more negative messages about money. I think that's one of the most difficult things, and we often hear people say that, "The first four laws, wow, got them right away. The fifth law took me a while to really get my arms around," and we've actually heard people say that that chapter in the book gave them permission, for the first time in their lives to understand why it was righteous to receive. Why it was good to receive. Of course we take that as a compliment, but we feel badly that that is the way of the world. That someone who's out there looking to provide value to the world is looked down upon so often.
The foundational principle is the law of value. This one which says, "Your true worth is determined by how much you give in value than you take in payment." It's a little counter-intuitive and sounds almost counterproductive when you first hear it. "What, give more in value than I take in payment? I'd go broke that way, wouldn't I?" We simply ... we have to understand the difference between price and value. Price is a dollar figure, it's a dollar amount, it's finite, it is what it is. Now, value on the other hand is the relative worth, or desirability of a thing, of something to the end user of beholder. In other words, what is it about this thing, this product, service, concept, idea that brings so much value or so much worth to the other person that they will gladly exchange their money for it, and be ecstatic that they did, while you make a very healthy profit? It might be someone in your network marketing organization and they have a ... could be personal care, or weight management, or lawyers who knows? Whatever it is the product itself, this person who's purchasing it, let's say as a retail customer, they are purchasing it because they believe that the value they are receiving for it is greater than the financial price they're paying for it.
When we talk about sales and we talk about selling we need to ask the question what is selling? So many people say, "Oh, I can't sell. I don't want to sell. I don't like selling." Well, that because they're looking at selling as something you do to someone, not as something you do for someone. People often think, "Well sales is trying to convince someone to buy something they don't want or need." No, that's called being a con artist, that's not being a sales person. I define selling, Eric, simply as this, it's discovering what the other person wants, needs, or desires, and helping them to get it. When you do that now we reframe selling, we look at selling in a totally different way. I often say when I speak at a conference, "Nobody is going to buy from you because you have quota to meet. They're not going to buy from you because you need the money, and they're not even going from you because you have a great product or service that you think they'd benefit by. They're going to buy from you because they understand that it is more valuable to them to do so than to not do so."
In a free market based economy characterized by no one being forced to do business with anyone else that's the only reason why they should buy from you, and that's great because it ensure that we, the sales person, are always going to have our focus in the right place. That this them. That's why we say that money is simply an echo of value. It's the thunder to value's lightening, right. When you focus on the other person, not focused on building your business, not focused on making the sale, not focused on the money but focused on bringing value to them, and they know that's your focus much more open to you so that your product ... then it's up to you of course to connect the benefits of your product or service with their wants, needs, and desires. That's what the law of value is all about.
How to succeed in sales
Eric: Yeah. I love the word discovering that you used right in the beginning because it's almost like an investigation. It's getting curious about the other person. It's about asking questions. I'm always much more comfortable asking other people questions than I am talking about myself. I learned very early on in Dale Carnegie human effectiveness, the importance of asking questions, and getting to an understanding, a deep understanding. The other person is sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop always, okay. "Okay, he's asking questions, where is this going? When is the pitch coming? When is going to ask me for my money?" Hopefully, by the time you've asked enough questions the guard has come down enough that the other person really does truly feel that they've been heard, and that they've been listened to, so that you can then offer them something that they sure do need and want.
Bob: Sure. Well, one of my old mentors Harry Brown, who I know for a while lived in Yorktown of Nashville. He used to say that if you've done your discovery correctly, and you've done the right job of matching the benefits of your product or service with what that person wants, then the close is simply a natural extension. You're simply asking that person to take action on something that they've already told you they want to do. That's all it is. It's really all about genuinely and authentically caring about that other person. Simon Sinek in his great book 'Leaders Eat Last', to me provided the best definition of the essence of trust. He said, "Trust is a biological reaction to the belief that someone has our well-being at heart." I think people know, and this whether at [again 00:08:24], whether it's your prospective customer, or whether it's 2000, or 20,000 people, or 50 people, or five people on your team who you are leading, they have got to know, that they've got to believe that you have their well-being at heart.
How stay at home moms can do this part-time business
Eric: That's huge. I really hope our team heard that. This whole concept of trust is a big deal because we talk in the Courage Cast, and the courageous community about fear, and how fear gets in the way of trust. We can't trust another person if we don't believe that they have our best interest in mind, because then our guard will always be up. I love it. I want to talk about specifically our audience, the people that listen to podcast, people that are on our team, I'd say 99% of them are part time, stay-at-home moms. Many of them have busy families, many of them struggle when they hear someone talk about "Business" and they will recoil when they begin to find themselves start using these business principles because it just doesn't feel like them. This is something that the good old boys do. This sort of a man's world, and how men typically will go about doing business, but speak to stay-at-home moms, speak to ... Try to as best you can put yourself in their shoes, where they're coming from. They have authentic relationships with other women, other moms, and how do you speak the go-giver principles into them? Is it a good fit for them, and why?
Bob: Well, it's a fantastic fit, just from all the feedback I receive, because really it is about relationships. I mean that is what it's about. There is no natural dichotomy between friendship and business, because remember if your goal in business is to serve your customers, and your customers can be, again, retail customers or your customers can be team members. If your business goal is to serve your customers, you're making friends out of them. I think what we need to do ... If we hear a word like business and recoil, I think what we need to do is tell ourselves a different story about it. Just like Nicole Martin in the book, who we call the CEO, who grew up with the idea that you're either wealthy or you are righteous, right. She had to tell herself a different story, because she had an opportunity to find a way to serve millions, and millions of people with the product that she developed. The educational product, and she almost sabotaged herself, but instead she told herself a different story.
She said, "Yeah, it's business and great," and by the way business, and again, in a free market-based environment where it's always voluntary. People voluntarily do business with one another. It's the most benevolent form of economics, the most benevolent form a society can take, because again it's always people doing business willingly with one another. That's a great feeling to have, so embrace that. Embrace it, it's a business, it's a fun business, it's a relationship based business, and what are doing? You're helping people, you're helping them build self confidence. You're helping them feel good physically, feel good about themselves. You're helping them financially, and so yeah I think it's something to celebrate. Feel good about it, start telling your story, start telling that story of, "This is something I'm doing that's really, really good for these other people and my friends," and what will happen is a natural response will be, people will be interested in this product as well because of the benefits.
Eric: Well, that's a good place to stop with Bob Burg. My conversation with the co-author of 'The Go Giver'. Love hearing these inside stories, these insights, and further expansion of the book and what went on, and what his deeper meaning was behind the book. Tomorrow it's going to be just like it, we're going to dive into some other things that he had intended with the book, or even hadn't intended with the book that will be surprising what the response was like. I'm excited to share with you more of my conversation with Bob Burg and we'll get to that tomorrow. Then of course on Friday we'll finish up with the fourth part of my conversation.
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That's it for me friends. If you like what we're talking about here you can share about it and participate in the conversation at courageouscommunity.com, go to the Facebook group there and start talking about you like. What you didn't like, what impacted you about what Bob said in this interview, in this part of the conversation. Also give us a rating and review on iTunes, share, and subscribe on iTunes. That's the best way to listen. I love hearing your reviews, and the more reviews we have the more people find us, find the courage cast and participate. Thanks so much friends for your involvement in that, and sharing that, and lastly if you would like, you can sign up for our email list, and we will send you a free one-hour download of 'Who I am in Christ', that you can listen to and resonate with what God says about you in scripture. What he says about Himself and what He says about you, and you'll hopefully be able to see faith rise and fear be diminished. That's the goal, is for all of us to have the courage to press on and pursue the things that we are doing. The ordinary becoming extra-ordinary, so I appreciate you friends, thanks for listening, and I'll be back again on another episode of Courage cast.