The Go-Giver Leader

As a leader, your job is to hold fast to the big picture, to keep seeing in your mind's eye, with crystal clarity, where it is you're going - that place that right at this moment exists only in your mind's eye. And to keep seeing that, even when nobody else does.

More than anything else, building a business - really, building anything - is an act of faith. Because you're creating something out of nothing, you see?
Go-Givers Sell More

We may think sales is about taking advantage of others - while in fact, its about giving other people more advantage.

The truth is that sales at its best - that is at its most effective - is precisely the opposite: it is about giving.

The truth about selling is that it's not about your product, and it's not about you - it's about the other person.

Focus on the quality of the relationship and on providing value to the other person, regardless of 'making the sale'...

Selling is not at its core a business transaction; it is first and foremost the forging of a human connection.

Regardless of what your particular product or service is people are drawn to you (or not) because of how you make them feel.

It's impossible to make a sale, because you cannot really make other people do what you want them to do.

Invest yourself consciously in everything you do, with an intention of bringing to bear your greatest abilities to the task at hand. It is to create a habit of excellence.

Whatever it is you're selling, it's a MacGuffin. It's not that your product isn't important; it is. It's just not what the sales process is all about.

What you do need to fall in love with is the process of helping people get what they need and want. Of creating value.

Right now, your total job is to focus on one thing and one thing only; providing value to other people. If you do that well, sales and money will find you.

The true giver knows that giving is a tide that raises all ships, and that it allows you to be a person of value to others while doing very well for yourself.

By creating value for others, you make yourself so valuable to the market around you that the demand for you and your business rises even when demand everywhere else is falling.

If your goal is to make the sale, then you are dependent on the buying decisions of others. But if your goal is to create value for others, you are depended on nobody but yourself.

Providing more in VALUE than you receive in payment is the trade secret of all exceptional businesses.

Your compensation is not a reflection of your goodness, worthiness, merit, or industriousness: it is an echo of impact.

It's not that other forms of advertising and marketing are no effective; they are-but only to the degree that they emulate or reinforce the effect of word of mouth: human beings communicating the impact that an experience has had on them.

Money is not a measure of goodness or worthiness. It is a measure of impact. You want more income? Have more impact.

Making sales is a concept. Touching lives is a reality. Sales is not about concepts; it's about people.

With each new person you meet, you are asking yourself: What are the prospects of my touching this person's life?

This point here is...to touch as many lives as possible. The sales and referrals that result are simply a by-product: the thunder to that lightning, the effect to that cause.

The ability to create rapport with another is one of the more fundamental skills of being human. it makes life richer.

The simplest way to establish rapport is to smile. Not too sophisticated, we know, but it's the single most powerful path to rapport ever invented.

The secret to making your phone weightless: access your genuine curiosity about the person you're talking with.

If you focus on your curiosity and genuine interest in the other person, you won't have time to be nervous, self-conscious, manipulative, awkward, self-critical, or anything else.

We define emotional maturity as the ability to keep your focus on others' feeling even as you acknowledge and honor your own.

The difference between responding and reacting. When you react, you are letting external circumstances call the shots. When you respond, you are choosing your actions and feelings.

The essence of professionalism, it has been said, is showing up for work even when you don't feel like it.

When you act in a caring way despite the fact that you don't feel especially caring at the moment, you will soon find yourself having those caring feelings after all.

What could possibly cause your impact to reach out beyond the people you know to touch the lives of those you have never ever met? Your influence.

The Law of Influence raises the effect of the Law of Compensation to a higher order of magnitude, multiplying your personal impact through the spreading medium of your influence.

Genuine influence accrues to those who become known as the sort of person who is committed to helping other people get what they want.

The influence created by pushing does not carry far. The influence created through pulling is LIMITLESS.

The golden rule of business: All things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like and trust.

Where do great customers come from? From the gravitational pull of our influence, which is our capacity to engender those know, like, and trust feelings in others.

Every single individual is the hub of his or her own sphere of influence - and that sphere's potential is immense.

It's not who you know, it's who knows you and who knows about you, even if they haven't actually met you.

Your first priority in any encounter should be to add value to the other person's life, that is, to enrich or enhance their life in some way.

Not everyone wants to buy your MacGuffin - in fact, not everyone wants to hear about your MacGuffin.

The Go-Giver salesperson's three-foot rule: Anyone within three feet is worth getting to know better.

The Go-Giver sales process focuses on the connection, which happens more through listening than through talking.

In order for your sales business to thrive, someone needs to say yes to your MacGuffin. But it doesn't need to be this person. So relax, enjoy the conversation-and walk out of there with a new friend.

The most important questions prospects ask are the very ones most salespeople miss - because people never ask them out loud.

There is only one language in which you can answer them: action. This is why follow-through is everything...

The essence of follow-through is this; in the hours, days, and weeks after meeting and talking with your new acquaintance, continue looking for ways to add value to their life.

Nothing against fishing, but we think the sales process is a lot more like farming. You prepare the soil, you plant seeds; you water, weed, nurture, and cultivate. In other words, follow through. Not every seed takes root; it may be only one seed in ten, one in twenty.

All these gestures serve the same end and convey the same message: that you have put their interests first.

Which connections will bear fruit, and when? It depends; different relationships and situations take different amounts of time.

Why conversations drive to the question of what genuinely matters. Why conversations are where real connections are made.

You can't say the wrong thing to the right person, and you can't say the right thing to the wrong person.

Remember that you cannot make a sale. Only they can do that. What you can do is create value. It's your serve.

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 impulsively.

The question before you is not whether you need this person to be interested in your MacGuffin; the question is, do they need your MacGuffen? It's not about you: it's about them.

Good competition pushes and stretches the limits of what's possible. In a very real sense, your competition is your best friend.

When you take the high road and build up your competition, you create a rising tide that raises all the ships in the harbor - and that reflects quite well on you.

Anyone can learn the dynamics of being great at sales, just as anything can learn what it means to be a good friend.

Presenting is no longer about giving information (if it ever really was). It's about giving meaning.