Business
You Get What You Give
I belong to a marketing listserve and a member posted an email he received from Chris Cardell, a marketing consultant. While Chris succumbs at times to a roaring bout of hubris in his message, he reminded me of a simple, golden principle: you get what you give. It’s a powerful idea and appropriate for this time of year. And if you think about it, giving and getting are never in direct proportion to a fixed ratio; we’ve all experienced the time where a small amount of giving yielded a far greater amount of joy, fulfillment, and solace.
Here’s one poignant snippets:
I made the prime purpose of my business to give, give, give. To add incredible value to the lives of people that I came into contact with. I gave everyone who was interested tons of great information on how to grow their business. I sent them information in the post. I emailed them. I chatted to them on the phone. Some became clients, some didn’t. It really didn’t matter because I knew I was making a difference. I stopped forever the "I can grow your business and solve your marketing problems - Why don’t you become my client" pitch. Within a few days people started contacting me asking me to work with them.
What had changed? Instead of trying to convince people that I could give them the knowledge that could solve their marketing problems - I just started giving them the knowledge anyway and let them decide for themselves. I switched my focus from what I wanted to what they wanted.
Take in that last sentence again. Play with it. Does it fit somewhere in your work right now? Someplace in your life? I think to my own experiences in business, in marketing, in designing a soulful career and realize that I have put way too much emphasis on me. The most difficult thing about having faith in the notion of continuous abundance is that you’re never sure if freely giving your ideas and knowledge will come back to help you. But then, that’s the real problem isn’t it? When we offer freebies, we tend to just give away the crumbs and hope its enough to entice new business or reup current clients. What if we also started to worry less about intellectual property and gave our best work away, as well? No strings attached.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. More than likely, someone else has had the same idea before. Think folks like Stephen Covey, Tom Peters, or Seth Godin are saying anything new or groundbreaking? Nah, not really. Yet, what makes them - and each of us - compelling to others is the quality and uniqueness of our own humanity.
When it comes to building a business of any size, clients and customers want to surround themselves with others who can make a true difference in their work and lives. In the end, its the relationship that matters. The key ingredient to any healthy relationship is a caring regard for another. So, practice freely giving and don’t be surprised if the return is far greater than anything you anticipated.
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Good thoughts Chris, very good. My own business has spiked dramatically over this past year, and I have no doubt it is because I have learned this philosophy, and give so much so freely, truly enjoying doing so. My own enjoyment does translate to my customers as sincerity and genuine interest in them. Now self-employed I don’t have the “don’t give it all away†constraints that construct the ‘checks and balances’ in so many business structures for the sake of ‘organization’ ‘SOPs’ and so-called ‘empowerment-enabling guidelines.’
As you’ve pointed out here, the benefits to my own spirit and sense of wellness have been absolutely huge. Experiencing how by giving you end up getting far more, completely unexpectedly at times, is just more icing on the cake.
People do ask me why I invest in Talking Story so much with no financial return but my Amazon Associate links, e.g. posting new article series instead of selling e-books as one example, and honestly, part of the answer is that I haven’t taken the time to figure it out and integrate it better into my business plan. However the larger answer is that I simply and sincerely WANT to share what I know with other people in the hope it will help them manage with aloha more, so for them to do that, I have to fulfill their needs.
Making work meaningful is where the abundance of it is to be found.
Aloha e, Rosa
Rosa, I have no doubts that your success comes from giving freely. Your own generosity to me has been so appreciated over the past year. It’s a gift that I’m trying to model in my own life.
It all kind of ties into the link and question that Sue posed from my last post. In this case, what is the nature of success and does it connect to happiness? I think your experience shows that success can be interpreted in many different ways. Even more importantly, its not happiness that drives your success - I see it as something much deeper and life affirming. You genuinely want to create a better place where businesses and organizations are free to love and care for both customers and employees.
Be well.
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