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1. SCMHRDBook ReviewGo-Givers Sell MoreAvijit Kumar Singh2010C12<br />BOOK REVIEW<br />Title: Go-Givers Sell More<br />Author: Bob Burg and John David Mann<br />Publisher: Penguin Group<br />Published Date: February 2010<br />Edition: 2nd edition, 7th Reprint 2010<br />Pages: 193<br />ISBN: 1-59-184308-1<br />GO-GIVERS SELL MORE<br />“Most people just laugh when they hear that the secret to success is giving. Then again, most people are nowhere near as successful as they wish they were.”<br />‘Go-givers sell more’ is bound to inspire many readers with its message that switching one’s focus from getting to giving is not only a more gratifying option to live, but a more profitable way as well. Many people wonder, “Do these lessons stand up against the difficult challenges of everyday real-world trade?” Go-Givers Sell More answers that question very well!<br />It is a powerful and effective approach to selling, Go-Givers Sell More completely revolutionizes the way the people have traditionally viewed sales. The great upside-down myth about sales is that it is an effort to get something from the others. The truth is that the sales -as more precisely is the contrary: is about giving. <br />Bob Burg and John David Mann point out that most people believe they would never be successful in sales. They also make the startling revelation that many current members of the sales profession harbor that secret belief themselves. The authors recognize the problem as sales people having the entire idea of sales backwards. . In fact their whole concept can be summed up in one oft used biblical phrase; Give and you will receive.<br /> For the authors, this backwards approach considers sales as getting people to do something almost against their will, through convincing sales pitches and manipulation. Because this concept is based on taking advantage of others, it fails. The authors provide the paradigm changing idea that sales is about giving advantage to others.<br />The writing is style is formal, interesting and short paragraphed. The entire text is composed in straightforward prose, in bite-sized chapters like mini-essays on the principles, as opposed to story format. With its interesting content flow, the book turns the conventional sales process on its head. Punctuated by stories of real-life salespeople who have become rich, successful and content, Go-Givers Sell More offers tips and strategies that anyone can start applying right away in their sales career - and in their life. The authors’ idea of giving value from the very beginning builds positive, trusting relationships that not only increase sales, but build long term customers who also share in the giving process. The old adversarial, zero sum game mentality that has been part of sales thinking for much too long gets a thorough rebuilding in this fine book. Along with creating value, the giving process touches people's lives in a positive and beneficial way that leads to their greater happiness.<br />A short term loss can often be the doorway to a long term gain. But, it should not be viewed in that light. Just give, and you might be surprised at the results.<br />Organized around The Go-Giver’s Five Laws of Stratospheric Success, this companion volume reveals a powerful approach to business and sales based on five steps: add value throughout; open the deal; talk less listen more; ask great questions; stay open.<br />#1. The Law of Value: Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment#2. The Law of Compensation: Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them#3. The Law of Influence: Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first#4. The Law of Authenticity: The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself#5. The Law of Receptivity: The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving<br />“Great salespeople are not great because they have mastered ‘the close,’ or because they give a dazzling presentation, or because they could shoot holes in any customer objection from fifty paces. Genuinely great salespeople are great because they create a vast and spreading sphere of good will wherever they go. They enrich, enhance and add value to people’s lives. They make people happier.<br />“But the most remarkable thing about great salespeople is that they are not all that rare. In fact, you can find them everywhere—because being a great salesperson doesn’t require mastery of complex or elaborate skills. This is very good news, because it means that anyone can be great in sales. It means you can be great in sales..<br />The Law Of Value – Your true worth is determined by how much more value you give then in value you take in payment. What I got out of this chapter was just to be a value river. Flow with value day in and day out. Make value your middle name and hold it close. Where you see you can give more value do it, don’t even think about it and don’t keep score. What goes around comes around and the more value you put out the more it comes back to you.<br />In the dialogue in the book, it comes out that giving to get is not the proper strategy either, but rather giving out of the love of giving. In other words, giving to give is something you “do,” while giving because you love to give is something you are…who you “be.” As we’ve noticed in several of the past Daily Grams, you must be before you can do with any integrity. Quoting from The Go-Giver parable, “…but the point isn’t to [exceed people's expectations so they will] pay you more, it’s to give them more…because you love to. It’s a way of life. When you do, then very, very profitable things begin to happen.” The author sums it all up by noting, “All the great fortunes in the world have been created by men and women who had a greater passion for what they were giving–their product, service, or idea–than for what they were getting. And many of those great fortunes have been squandered by others who had a greater passion for what they were getting than what they were giving.”<br />The Law of Compensation – Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them. This law goes hand-in-hand with the law of value. The law of compensation is what you make now but if you increase your value your compensation will increase also.<br />This helps explain the troubling disparity between what good teachers, nurses, et al., earn when compared to athletes, rock stars, and the like. Again, “compensation is directly proportional to how many lives you touch.” That doesn’t mean that teachers and other dedicated people servants are worth less…just that they are compensated less simply because they touch relatively few lives in comparison to rock stars and other highly visible people. Kind of a hard pill to swallow, but I believe that if you will stop and reflect on it a bit, you’ll see that, like it or not, it seems to hold up in real life.<br />Find a way, or ways, to serve lots of people. Given the astounding rise in the number of millionaires in this country each succeeding year, people are demonstrating that there are a growing number of ways to “serve more people.” And no, most are not rock stars, nor highly visible. Indeed, we live in exciting times.<br />The Law of Influence – Your Influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first. Influence is something that everyone respects. Influence is not easily earned and is not a title. It is something that is something that is earned by being abundantly authentic and abundantly giving. When you are abundantly giving and abundantly giving you will gain more influence because people respect you when you give to them and stay true to yourself. The greatest influencers in the world have mastered these two things.<br />Influence is something that we often forget about as Entrepreneur’s. We always have 100′s of projects going on and millions of things flying through our subconscious and conscious mind (at least that’s how I feel).However, influence is something that we often take for granted and don’t actually think about as we usually focus on creating great content <br />The Law of Authenticity -The Most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself. The more authentic you are the more people want to get to know you and help you out in any way they can. The more authentic and true you stay to yourself the more transparent you and your business is and it allows more people to want to do business with you. It’s like doing business with a friend compared to doing business with a car-salesman you just met. It just make’s sense!<br />The only real “if only” is if only I would start to celebrate the way God made me. According to the Law of Authenticity, one of the keys to “stratospheric success” is being yourself…being authentic. You have to believe that people will be more impacted by the real you than by the false you that you are always pretending to be. Here’s some of what The Go-Giver has to say about this:<br />“Reaching any goal you set takes ten percent specific knowledge or technical skills–ten percent, max. The other ninety-plus percent is people skills. And what’s the foundation of all people skills? Liking people? Caring about people? Being a good listener? Those are all helpful, but they’re not the core of it. The core of it is who you are. It starts with you. As long s you’re trying to be someone else, or putting on some act or behavior someone else taught you, you have no possibility of truly reaching people…. You want people skills? Then be a person.”For some of us, this law may well be the hardest to follow.<br />The Law of Receptivity – The Key to effective giving it to stay open to receiving. The giving process initiates the receiving process and it usually costs more but that doesn’t mean it’s more important than receiving. You need to receive in order to be able to give, If you cannot receive how can you keep that cycle going and give? you haven’t received anything to GIVE! By being a great receiver you increase your value and when you do that you are able to give more to the world. So be open to receiving along with being a great giver.<br />I have never seen a commentary nor heard a sermon that explores this from the point of view that for someone to give, someone else must receive. To take it to the extreme, if everybody literally refused to receive because they were holding out for the blessing that comes from giving, there would be nobody left to give to. It would all come to a screeching halt! Ridiculous, isn’t it?<br />Quoting from The Go-Giver, “Receiving is the natural result of giving. If you give and then try to stop the receiving that comes back, you’re like King Canute watching the tide roll out and commanding it not to come back in. It has to come back in, just as your heart has to contract after relaxing.” Continuing to quote, “…the secret to success…to gaining it, to having it, is to give, give, give. The secret to getting is giving. And the secret to giving is making yourself open to receiving.” Remember, the more you have, the more you have available to give. Don’t shut off the flow.<br />It is a switch in mindset that allows for this law to work-<br />As you are familiar with if you have ever spoken with a successful individual, one of the main traits that these people have is that of generosity. They also see that receiving is the other side of the spectrum of giving and are open to receiving. These people eagerly receive and delight in the reception just as they eagerly give and are delighted to pass on what they learn. Instead of going against the flow of the universe, they merely join in with the flow.<br />Attitude of Gratitude- Something that I often overlooked was all of the great things in my life, the great people and the great opportunities that I have. I definitely have taken a lot of it for granted and didn’t take the time to appreciate all that life had to offer. I am so appreciative of all that I have, my family and friends, my health, a place to live, an opportunity to get a college education, the ability to network and help people like you and the opportunities to leave a legacy behind.<br />By being grateful for what we already have, this helps us get into a state of being more receptive when it is our time to receive the compensation for our work or even the acknowledgements from our work.<br />What I’ve learned is that Genuine Go-Givers don’t only focus on giving…they’d be crazy for doing that! They are also aware of the gifts that they receive and are delighted by these gifts!<br />Bob Burg and David Mann in their latest book put forward the idea that Go-Givers sell more of whatever it is that you are selling. I am in complete agreement. A major error that people make when thinking about the ‘Go-Giver’ philosophy is that it is just a case of ‘I scratch your back, and you scratch mine.’<br />WRONG, give with an open heart and expect nothing in return. The less you expect, the greater the rewards! Giving has a connotation involving things of monetary value. That is completely wrong. Giving can be offering advice, giving can be help, giving can be donating time. Give freely and see what happens.<br />I must say this was an awesome book; it’s definitely worth the read! I got so much out of it!.Here are a few lines I really loved from the book:<br />“Get busy Living, or Get busy dying.” – I fully agree with “You are either growing or dying” and this sums it up real well! Get busy on one of the two!<br />“Create Value, Touch people’s lives, build networks, Be Real, Stay open.” – This is something we should all be saying daily! it’s a code to live by!<br />I have a few major leanings and thought provoking examples in the ‘Go-Givers sell more’ that I just can’t get past — and that would lead me to classify the book as a “must-read” title instead of a “nice-to-read” classic.<br />Go-Givers Sell More is a book that I can recommend. You may not think of yourself as being in sales. Yet, we all are, we may be selling ideas, we may be selling expertise, we may be selling just plain old hard work, but we are selling.<br />