The Value Of Giving Can Benefit Every Aspect Of Your Life

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and today's guest I'm really excited about. But before we get into it, I would be remiss if I did not properly introduce my Six Sigma co host, Scott Todd from Scott Todd landmodo.com. and most importantly, if you're not automating your Craigslist listings, hosting nomination.com TheLandgeekScott how are you, Mark?

I'm excited.

I'm pumped.

I think I cannot wait to get into this guest story and their message.

I remember seeing when our guest booked on for the podcast, I asked Danielle, like, is this, this real? I'm gonna put on my anchorman voice. Yeah.

Because this guy is a big deal.

Yeah.

You know, and, and what's phenomenal is the message that he'll share with us. You know, the five laws that he talks about, man, I see them in so many successful people. And you see them like, when once you know them and you, you, your eyes are attuned to it, you'll start to see that the most successful people do live by. You know, I'm not gonna say that maybe I don't see all five, but I can tell you, like, I can tell you people that I know. I can point out four, three or four of them. You know, the laws that they're living by. And so I know that if you can apply all five, you're on your way.

Yeah. What's, what's great about our guest is that his book gets mentioned on our own podcast and we ask people for their tip of the week. Like, I want to get this book.

Yeah, they do.

Without further ado, let's introduce Bob Berg from thegogiver.com Bob Berg is a sought after speaker at company leadership and sales conferences, sharing the platform with everyone from today's business leaders and broadcast personalities to even a former U.S. president. Bob is the author of a number of books on sales, marketing and influence with total book sales of well over a million copies. His book, the Go Giver, co authored with John David Mann, has sold over half a million copies and has been translated into 21 languages. It has been released in a new expanded edition with a forward by Huffington Post founder and publisher Arianna Huffington. Bob Berg, how are you?

I'm great. I'm Mark and Scott. Fantastic to be with both of you.

So, Bob, let's just get into it. Let's just skip the pleasantries.

Okay?

First of all, like, how does Bob Berg Become Bob Berg. Like, what's, what's your superhero story? What's, what's your. How did, how does this even happen?

I wish I could tell you there was some real exciting superhero story, but there really is. And I began as a broadcaster, first in radio and then in television, was not particularly good at it. So I graduated into sales, realized pretty much from the start that I had no idea how to sell. And so I floundered for the first few months and then came across some books in the bookstore and began studying authors such as Tom Hopkins and Zig ziglar. This is 35, 40 years ago now. And yeah, I applied their wonderful advice and my sales went through the roof. And you know, really what the thing is, and when you think, when you talk about superpower, maybe it's the superpower to know that I didn't know what I needed to know. And my willingness to learn from those who did know. And I think when we can do that, when we can apply a system, and I define a system simply as the process of predictably achieving a goal based on a logical and specific set of how to principles. In other words, the key is predictability. If it's been proven that by doing A, you'll get the desired results of B, then you know that all you need to do is A and continue to do A and you'll get the desired results of B. Of course, you teach a system to, to those who follow you, and a system that's been proven to work. And so as I did that, my sales began to really, really go well and eventually work my way up to sales manager of a company and eventually began teaching others to do what was working for me. So, you know, that's really what happened. And I continued to learn and grow and learn more and grow more, I guess.

I love it. I love it. Scott, Todd, what are your thoughts?

You know, we all have our story, right? You know, it's, it's, it's funny how when you go and you proceed to do something that you don't know really how to do, like, you know, making the migration over to sales, if you just start like researching their grades, if you just start following their successes, I mean, success does leave footprints. It does leave a path, right. What they're doing. And then, I mean, you don't even really have to like, truly make it your own in the beginning. Just, just execute. It's amazing how far you can go.

Yeah, that, that's really true. And fortunately, pretty much anything we want to do in this world at this Time has been done by someone else already. And they've documented how to do it either through a book or through their teaching, Speaking, or on YouTube or wherever it, you know, whatever it happens to be. And even something that hasn't totally been done yet, much of it already has because that's how new things come about anyway. Someone takes what's already been done and adds a little bit to it. But, so there, there are plenty of places we can seek out and find the information when we want to do something. And I love the point that you made, Scott, and that is that you don't have to make it your own at first. At first, just kind of take their advice, just plug in and do what they say, you know, as long as their way of doing things is congruent with your way in terms of values and so forth.

Absolutely.

But then, of course, once you really start to make it part of you now you're able to kind of put your own touch to it, if you will.

Yeah, exactly. So the Go Giver has so much value in there. But you know, Scott mentioned at the beginning there are these five laws you share in the book. Can you give us a quick review of the five laws?

Sure. And this was really, you know, as you know, the Go Giver is a business parable co authored with John David Mann. And he's the reason why the book read as it did. He's a fantastic, fantastic storyteller. And I just want to make sure to credit John. The five laws themselves are the laws of value, compensation, influence, authenticity and receptivity. The first law, the law of value, really. And by the way, the laws are based on a basic premise. And I guess I should begin with that because everything always does begin with a premise. And in this case it's that shifting your focus, and this is key, shifting your focus from getting to giving. And when we say giving in this context, we simply mean constantly and consistently providing value to others and understanding that doing so is not only a nice way, a pleasant way to conduct business, it's also a very financially profitable way as well. Not for any magical or mystical lala type of reasons, but because people are going to buy from you, they're going to do business with you, they're going to want to be in relationship with you because they believe they're better off by doing so than by not doing so. And people are much more likely to relate to and want to be in relationship with, want to buy and refer to those people who they realize have their best interests at heart. You know, People who they trust. I love what Simon Sinek says in his great book Leaders Eat Last, he talks about trust and he defines it as a biological reaction to the belief that someone has our well being at heart. And we communicate that when we are genuinely and authentically interested in them, looking to bring value to them. So, so with that in mind, the first law, the law of value simply says to give more in value than you take in payment. Now, at first that sounds rather counterintuitive, as though you're saying that you shouldn't make a profit. No, of course we're not talking about that or losing money when we say give more in value or use value than what you take in payment. It's simply understanding the difference between price and value. Price is a dollar figure, it's a dollar amount. It' it is what it is. Value, on the other hand, is the relative worth or desirability of a thing, of something to the end user or beholder. In other words, what is it about this thing, a product or service or concept or idea that brings so much worth to this other person, so much worth or value in their mind that they will willingly exchange their money for it and be glad, be ecstatic that they did, while you make a very healthy profit. A very quick example would be the accountant who you are retaining to do your taxes. And he charges you $1,000. That's his price, his fee, or literally his price. But what value does he provide you in return that makes it so worth your while? Well, through his years of study, his diligence, his, his desire to learn about you and your business and what you're looking to accomplish, he's able to save you $5,000 in taxes. He also saves you countless hours of time and he provides you and your family with the peace of mind and security of knowing it was done correctly. He gave you well over $5,000 in value in exchange for $1,000 payment. So you come away feeling great. And of course he made a very, very healthy profit. The interesting thing is that in any free market based exchange, and when we say free market, we simply mean no one is forced to do business with anyone else. Both parties do it on their own volition and I get a credit. Harry Brown, one of my former mentors and a brilliant guy, with saying that in any free market based exchange there are always two profits, the buyer profits and the seller profits. Because each of them comes away better off after the transaction than they were before the transaction. And that's really what the law of value is all about. Go ahead.

Yeah, no, I love it. So you know, we're creating value. But then what does stay open mean and be real? It sounds woo woo, Bob.

It does, doesn't it? Right. And yet none of this is woo woo. It's all actually very, very practical. When we talk about staying open to receiving, well, that's law number five and that's the law of receptivity. It simply says the key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving. Unfortunately, in this world in which we live, we're given so many, I won't say mixed messages about money, I'll say negative messages about money and about prosperity and about abundance. Gosh, if you read enough newspapers, if anyone actually reads newspapers anymore, or listen or read the Internet enough, or listen to enough commentaries, you'd think that anyone who makes a ton of money did it on the backs of others, right? Or doing something squirrely or doing so. And while of course we live in a big world, there's plenty of, you know, that's not usually the case. Especially the more free market a society is, the more the only way one can get wealthy is by providing value to that someone else chooses to buy. And so when we say, when we talk about the law of receptivity, it means that you understand that so long as your focus is on providing value to others, you have earned the right, not the entitlement, but the right to receive. But you must be willing to allow yourself to do that. And unfortunately, there are so many negative messages about money that can really mess with people's heads. And you know, these are very insidious because it's not as though they're just out loud. You get them from, you know, from a combination of upbringing and environment and schooling and news media and television shows and movies where, right, we all, we see these messages without even realizing we're allowing this garbage into our head. And when it gets into our subconscious or unconscious, we can really place ourselves in the position of not allowing ourselves to receive because unconsciously we think there's something wrong with it.

I see, I see. Now what about build networks and touch lives?

Well, that's, you know, that that's really the law of influence law number three, which says your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people's interests first. Again, this sounds counterintuitive, right? But when you think about it, the greatest leaders, the top influencers, the most profitable salespeople, this is simply how they run their lives and conduct their businesses. They're always, always looking for ways to bring value to Others to make it about the other person to add value to people's lives. Now let me qualify this if I may. When we say place the other person's interest first, we certainly do not mean that you should ever be anyone's doormat or a martyr or self sacrificial in any way. Not at all. It's simply as Joe the protege in the was told by several of the mentors, the golden rule of business, of networking, of sales, is that all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know like and trust. And there's no faster, more powerful or more effective way to elicit those feelings toward you from others than by genuinely and authentically, authentically moving from what we call an I focus or me focus to an other focus. Always looking to, as Sam, one of the mentors told Joe, make your win all about the other person's win. And when you do that, you have created a person who feels great about you. They know you, they love you, they trust you, they become your personal walking ambassador. And as you do this constantly and consistently with with the people you come across in your life, you're going to develop that army of personal walking ambassadors.

I love it. I love it. Scott Todd, what are your thoughts?

You know, Bob and I know that you talk about this too. It's not always, I mean these laws are not necessarily meant just for money or wealth or riches.

It's, I mean.

The ambitious, the ambitious guy in your book, you know, who's trying to move up in the company and he's struggling to even succeed. These are the five laws that are there for every form of success, whether it is financially or if it's career related success. I mean these same five laws apply to every aspect of your life. I mean even you can even see it in family.

Well, that's a great point, which is why we put the subplot of Joe and Susan in there because we felt that was very important. Scott, because you make a great point, because success can be measured in many ways. I mean there's certainly there's financial and that was the overt, I guess part of the story. There's financial, but there's also, I don't know, physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, social, relational and success principles. As pinned told Joe, success principles pretty much work across the board, which is why they're principles as opposed to just techniques or tactics which in strategies which have their place as well. Of course, but in this we're more talking within the context of laws or principles.

Yeah. So Bob what was this golden nugget of advice from a drive by mentor that totally shifted your perspective, played a big role in your success?

Yeah, you know, this was a couple of years after I had gotten into professional sales and I was doing well, but I wasn't in any way reaching my potential. And there was a guy at the company where I was working. He was not in the sales division. He was an older guy. I think he was in engineering or something. But he saw me one day and he said, berg, do you mind if I give you some advice? And fortunately, you know, I'm always open for advice. Doesn't mean I always take it. You know, you have to weigh it. We need to think critically and be it not critically in a bad way, but we need to engage in critical thinking. But I always want to listen because you never know when you're going to hear something that is going to touch your life. And I said, yeah, yeah, sure. And he said, you know, Berg, he was not a first names kind of guy, kind of a last name. He said, berg, if you want to make a lot of money in business, actually said, if you want to make a lot of money in sales, he said, don't have making money as your target. Your target is serving others. Now, when you hit the target, he continued, you'll get a reward. That reward will come in the form of money. And you can do with that money whatever you want. But never forget, the money is simply the reward for hitting the target. It's not the target itself, your target serving others. And there's that shift in focus right there. And that made all the difference.

I love that advice. I had a mentor recently who only wanted to talk to me about numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers. Maximizing profit, Right? And not that there's anything wrong with it, but he never got to, you know, how can we increase value? So it really turned me off, like, well, yeah, we can, we can add, you know, better numbers to a business. Right. But let's talk about how do we 10x the value first, right?

And what you said is putting it in the right heading in the right direction. It's where. It's where Pindar said to Joe, and Joe asked him at first, because Joe didn't quite get it. And he said, are you saying asking if something will make money isn't important? And Pindar said, no, asking if something will make money is a great question. It's a great question. It's just a bad first question. First ask, does it serve? Does it add value? And so when your focus is on adding value, you're setting the process of receiving in motion. This is why John and I say that money is simply an echo of value. It's the thunder, if you will, to values lightning, which means the value must be the focus, the value must come first. The money you receive is simply a very natural and direct result of the value you provide.

Yeah, it's so true. And especially in real estate or land sales, there's so many different ways to add value. And, you know, one of the simplest ways in, at least in our niche, Scott, is just, you know, survey the corners, right? Give them a survey, stake the corners. What are some quick ways that you think you could give additional value?

Oh, I think that, you know, like one of the things that, you know, I leverage is the fact that we use technology to make the deals go faster, to get the deeds recorded. You know, other people tell me, well, you know, it'll be four to six weeks before you get the deed recorded. And I can tell someone, hey, I can do it in 24 hours. Wow, that's true. White glove service. Right. And that helps to set me apart from other people. And I can, can get a premium for that. But you know what, I actually just, I do it because it's easier for me to.

But.

And I don't even charge a premium for it. It's just like, hey, this is, this is what I do.

Yeah, absolutely. So just to pivot, Bob, because you'd mentioned earlier about mentorship, and it's in the go giver. You talk about mentorship, so let's talk about it right? First, what's the best way to find a mentor? And more importantly, what should an up and comer not do?

Okay, well, that's a good question. Let's look at that even. First, what should someone not do? Because I see this all too often that someone would, just starting out, will seek out a mentor, which is a great idea. But they will approach someone and this might be someone who they've had the opportunity to meet in person. Maybe they're in that same town geographically, or maybe someone they've met over the Internet, or what. I mean, any of these ways is fine, but what they'll do is they'll simply ask that person, hey, will you be my mentor? And doing that is sort of like asking someone, hey, you know, will you share your 40 years of experience with me even though you don't know me from a hole in the wall? Okay. A mentor, protege relationship is just that, it's a relationship. And just like you don't Ask someone to marry you before asking for a date and developing a relationship. Just asking someone to be your mentor is probably not the most effective way to do that. Now what you can do certainly is to ask a person if you might ask them a question. And it's framing it first by saying, I know you're extremely busy. You know, I'm just beginning a business or, you know, a project. I understand. I realize you're extremely busy, and if this is not appropriate, please, that is totally fine. I'm wondering if I may ask you one or two very specific questions. So you're letting this person know you respect the process, you respect them. You're not going to take up a lot of their time. You're not one of these people who is just going to, you know, who just expects things, feels entitled to, you know, this person's wisdom. You're doing it in a very respectful way. Now most people are going to say, sure, you know, go ahead, go ahead, that's fine. Now one thing I would suggest is make sure you've really researched this person and do not ask any question that you could easily have found the answer to by doing your research. Okay? And I think that's pretty obvious why. Then what I would do is ask, you know, one or two specific questions, then let this person know that. And by the way, the medium for this might be in person, might be on the phone, might be through email. Okay, all sorts of ways. But to then let the person know how much you appreciate their time, you look forward to applying their, their advice, and you'll get back with them and let them know how things you know are going to. Then what I would do is that very day I would make a small donation in their name to their favorite charity. Now, it doesn't have to be anything big, but it's easy to find this person's charity. You can find that information about them online and just make a small donation in their name. They will be notified by that charity. Now, you're not doing this to kiss up to the person or anything like that. You're doing it to, again, communicate to them that, hey, even though I'm not in the kind of position to give you the kind of value you're giving me, I want to let you know that I care about doing the best I can with that and that I'm not some kind of taker, but want to add value to your life and at least in some small way. I would, by the way, also have written a personalized handwritten thank you note to that person that very day. And with that simply says, you know, again, I can't thank you enough for taking time out of your busy schedule. You know, your advice is just so invaluable. I look forward to applying the information right away. And we'll, we'll circle back and let you know how things are, whatever you want to do in that way, according to your style. And so you do that. And then again, it might be three weeks, might be a month later, I don't know, you circle back and you might have another question or a comment or a thought or something you just want to bounce off again. They're probably going to be fine with that. So, again, you sort of cultivate it little by little, small steps, and then you'll see if the relationship grows. And it could really grow into a mentor, protege relationship, or it might not. You never know. But that is how I would go about it.

Yeah, I mean, Mark, you know, we had a guest on the podcast and their tip of the week was, hey, go through your phone Rolodex and, and find someone, reach out to them that you haven't talked to in a while and just shoot them up, hey, how you doing? And, you know, I think that in today's society where you have text message or Twitter, you get someone in that.

Forum.

The desire is to, like, over abuse the relationship early on and not to do what Bob said, which is to foster a relationship. It's almost like here I'm. Let me just ask all these questions. Rapid fire, as opposed to. Okay, let me, let me think about what I'm going to ask. Ask a couple of very well thought out questions, give it a little bit of a break, and then proceed. It's almost like, can we get married tomorrow, please?

Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, this happens to me all the time because of what, you know, Scott and I do with Land Geek.

Sure.

And. But, you know, there are people that do frame it differently and it's, I'm completely receptive to it. But so. It's so true. It's so true. So speaking of giving invaluable advice, we're at the point now, Bob, where we're gonna put you on the spot and we're gonna ask you for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable, where the art of passive income listeners can go right now, improve their businesses, improve their lives.

Okay, well, here's a book that if a person will read this, it will make a huge difference in their life. It's among my all time favorite books. It's called the Secret of Selling Anything and it was written by Harry Brown. I mentioned him a little earlier. This was actually written by him in the 60s. It was two brief manuscripts that he wrote and never published. He was actually a multi time New York Times best selling author. He usually wrote on economics, philosophy, politics. But this book he never published. But after he died, this is about seven or eight years ago, his wife Pamela found these two brief manuscripts on the hard drive and sold them to Ken McCarthy of Systems Publishing and he turned it into a book. So it was actually written in the 60s but the book is really two separate parts. One is simple, is really more a study on human nature and the other is basically how human nature is related to selling. And this book is so beautifully, beautifully written. Harry was a person who understood the laws of human nature. He understood why people did things, why people acted and he was a person who had total respect for this. He did not try to change people. He worked within human nature in order to help everyone involved. And it's just a magnificent, magnificent book. The Secret of Selling Anything by Harry Brown. B R O W N E. Okay.

So I'm buying this right now. There's a Kindle edition for $7.99.

There is, there is. And by the way, if you'd like to see a. I wrote a review of this book at my berg.com blog. If you just go berg.com the secretofselling. I think if you put that in there it will come up or you can put in in the search Harry Brown B R O W N E and I wrote a blog on it that might be helpful. But yeah, this you're gonna, I'm telling you, you guys are gonna absolutely love, love, love this book.

All right, I'm getting it. I just got it. It's done.

Excellent.

I love Amazon. Alright, so we asked you a lot of questions. Did we forget to ask you anything? What did we forget to ask?

I think you did a great job. You asked me a bunch of great questions and hopefully your listeners have found some value in the, in the responses. I hope.

So. I have, I have. Thank you, Scott. Todd, what's your tip of the week?

All right, Mark, so the other day I had a problem. The problem was is I had a VA in the Philippines that I asked to do some work and the work that they needed to do they required a credit card. Obviously they want to break out my credit card so they could buy and get the work done. So I found a website. It's Called Intro Pay. It's E N t r o pay.com intro pay. And basically what happens is you sign up and you can load into their account, you know, like $50 or whatever. And you do pay a fee to load it up. I think it's like 1% or something. Pay to load it up. But what happens is they give you a virtual credit card number that you can use online. So I was able to give that VA the credit card number and it's like a prepaid debit card. What happens? Let's say that, let's say that they go rogue on me and go to town. They got $50 but it worked out okay. They used it for what it was supposed to but it was nice because they actually had credit card number that they could use to keep the transaction moving.

Okay, Intro Pay. I'm going to it right now. Bob Berg, what do you think?

Sounds like a fantastic tool.

Do you with, with your team, do you have to use this? Would you use this for your team? Yeah.

Kathy Tajino, my brilliant business partner, she handles most of that aspect of the business and she, she loves knowing about these, you know, different tools and so forth. So I'm going to share that with her.

This is cool. Entropy gives you an easy, safe way to pay online in the form of a prepaid virtual Visa card. There are many benefits, including the Visa. It's prepaid, it's virtual, it's secure. Scott, Todd, you're on Fuego. That's a great tip, but it's not as good as my tip.

Oh, I bet, I bet it's not.

My tip of the week is life changing and it is. Go to thegogiver.com Ah, thank you. Gogiver.com and Bob, should we get the book, should we get the audiobook? Like what do we do? What do you recommend?

I would recommend they go to thegogiver.com without the hyphen. Thegogiver.com scroll down and there's a page where it has several of my books, the Go Giver. Go Givers sell more. The Go Giver leader and they can click on it and they can get a free chapter. So they can see if they like where the story is heading. Then if they like it they can Click through to Amazon.com I would start there.

Alright, awesome. You know, I love that you have a video in here too. Discover the five laws by watching this quick and really fun overview video of the Go Giver. Because Bob, like nobody reads anymore. Like my kids are on YouTube all the time read.

But look, he's giving.

See that? He's. Yeah, exactly.

Giving you a free chapter. He's giving the video. He's living it.

Yeah, but Bob, I mean, you know, do you ever feel like you're being taken advantage of? Honestly, like you're giving, you're giving, you're giving. Like, come on, man.

You know, there's, it's a good question because I think with a title like the Go Giver, before someone reads the book, they might think that that is about that. But no, there's absolutely no relationship between being a go giver and being a doormat or being taken advantage of or something like that. When we talk about being a go giver, it's simply that the focus is on providing value to others. The focus should be on providing value to others. But there's nothing self sacrificial about that because we know that the more you provide value, the more value you provide to others, the more you are going to to create the environment where you're able to receive. So no, if someone is taken advantage of, it's not because they're being a go giver. Go givers don't get taken advantage of. If someone's being taken advantage of, it's because they're doing things in such a way that allows themselves to be taken advantage of.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. You know, one of my favorite movies I love watching, especially this time of year is Groundhog Day.

Isn't that a great movie?

It's a great movie. I mean, it's kind of like the go Giver in action in a way.

I love that movie whenever I see it. Come on, I can pretty much watch it and just really enjoy it.

All right, well, I want to thank Bob Berg from thegogiver.com Scott Todd from landmodo.com scotttodd.net and most importantly, hosting domination.com thelandgeek and look, the only way, the only way we're gonna get the quality of guests like a Bob Burke, right, is if you subscribe, rate and review the podcast. It really helps us. We really appreciate it. And it's your way of go giving, right? Because ultimately we're not the only ones who benefit. You benefit because we get a quality of guests like a Bob Burg. And so please do that and learn more about me@thelandgeek.com download for free the Passive Income Blueprint. Get the ebook how to Avoid the three Failed Land Buying Mistakes and get this always informative and engaging podcast delivered each week to your email inbox. And if you're spending your weekends manually putting in your payments every month, check out lonegeek IO. All right, Scott, we ready? Ready, Mark. One, two, three. Let freedom ring. Bobberg's like, I'm never coming back on this podcast after that.

Of course I am, whenever invited.

All right, Bob, thanks so much. Thanks to all the listeners, and we'll see everybody next time. Thanks, Scott.