What do I get?
Every single person who visits your website or interacts with your business is asking this question. And most often, we’re answering them with, “if you do this you’ll get that.”
You find this way of thinking everywhere. Yet I say it goes against our true human nature. Yeah, sure, we want to rule and control our environment. But even that gets old. Think about the last argument you ‘won.’ Might have felt great for a little while, but didn’t you soon start to feel a bit empty inside, as though something got taken from you?
Now think of the last time you gave something to someone. Not just gave something, but gave them something they loved. Now go further in thinking about the last time you gave something to some that they loved openly without wanting or expecting anything in return – at all.
Didn’t that feel great? And do you remember how the feeling filled you up with excitement and warmth that stayed with you for a while?
That is THE secret to business success…giving. But not just giving, giving freely, openly without expecting anything in return. When you give like this, it’s like planting seeds fertile soil. With a little time, some sunshine and regular watering, that seed will product a tree that gives you fruit year in and year out.
So give. You’ll find it to be the most effective marketing approach you’ve ever used.
So, how do you give?
Hi Dawud
My kind of topic!
Give freely = gains trust, ‘wins’ a customer, even an ambassador for your business.
You can’t ‘cost’ that, it’s the most valuable asset you have, giving freely.
Yes!
I had a conversation last night with a number of coaches who were expressing their discomfort with “selling”, creating “pitches”, etc. etc.
I tried to convey my sense of “promoting” myself as really finding ways to provide service to people not yet my clients. “Marketing” has become one of my favorite activities — right up there with my paying clients 😉
And then – voila! — I come across this post — I’ll be sharing its link for sure!
Nicely said, Dawud!
Karen
Karin H.,
That’s been my experience too. And I give my clients more than they expect – which wins me raving fans.
Dr. Karen,
Yes. Share away. Encourage them to join the conversation.
I find that we open the flow of receiving as we give. It’s almost like the old say, “you can’t collect water from a well with a full bucket.”
Hi Dawud
How does it feel to be mentioned right next to Seth in the same breath (and getting more than just a mentioning ;-))?
Just ‘received’ another proof of the fact that giving freely gains much more than you think upfront: a invitation for lunch (in London city, so it might be a while before I can take this person up on his offer, small town girl as I am) because we managed to find an exact copy of old flooring (in weird measurements no ‘standard’ supplier has) and had a sample send out to this prospect by our bespoke manufacturer – who’s in the same state of mind with regards to giving).
Prospect has now turned into customer 😉
Karin H.,
That’s exactly what I mean. I have experiences like that too with ‘prospects.’ The funny thing I’ve learned over time is that O must not expect anything back. What I give to one prospect might come back to me in another way. And if I expect something back from my giving, it caps my giving a bit – I can feel the constriction.
As for Seth…well, I’m certainly no Seth Godin
whisper To be honest, I hold you in higher respect than forenamed Seth – you allow and ‘use’ conversations to teach and learn 😉
Karin H.,
Well thanks. I do appreciate Seth’s work. But I wouldn’t call myself a raving fan. He just makes some good points.
And, I don’t like that he’s turned off comments on his blog. Certainly not in the spirit of blogging. Makes me wonder if his blog is just another marketing tool for his businesses and that he really doesn’t care about community.
Oh, I agree on that one.
(Both ones I must say, he does have some good points – sometimes).
Not sure if it’s my blog program, but lately my trackbacks to his aren’t showing up (and I won’t instigate that it is because lately I don’t agree with some of his points, could be a technical problem)
Karin H.,
Huh, I should check too.
Somehow trackbacks aren’t working anymore, strange, used to work fine.
But also solves a problem for me. I know some like trackbacks on their site, but what’s wrong with adding a comment first and then placing a link to your own post in it?
Killing two birds with one stone?
Karin H.,
Nothing in my book. Actually, I’m alwsys torn between leaving a link to my homepage or to an individual post anyhow.
Giving is indeed a good (and easily the best strategy), but it only works under conditions. And those conditions are when
1) There’s opt-in.
2) When clear value is created, demonstrated and labelled. (There must be a price)
Giving by itself doesn’t work as well as giving with conditions in place.
Sean,
Welcome. Great to see you here.
My experience in the blogosphere is quite different. I’ve found clearly that when I’ve freely and openly given to others, I, in turn, get more back.
What I don’t have with giving freely is control over prospects like I do when I force them to opt-in. Control, instead, shifts to the prospect. This means the prospect gets to decide how well I’m marketing my message and how interested they are instead of me making them jump through hoops to see if they want what I offer.
Thoughts?
Hi Dawud
Sean, sorry, I’m with Dawud on this one and not just in the blogosphere.
As retailer we freely give information, without the need to opt-in for the prospect, without any labelling or tagged price on the ‘freebies’. The prospect decides how far he/she wants to take it, i.e. more info, more questions answered on his/her specific needs (and each need of each prospect can be different)
When we give unlabelled (well, is our specific knowledge ‘labelled’?) and start to fulfil these needs then, and only then becomes the info valued (for both us and the customer) and only then opts the prospect in to become a customer.
Not vice versa
Karin H.,
I’m fully with you. Sean has quite a successful business as a marketer – I know his work pretty well. Yet, it is “old-school” thinking. The type of thinking that simply does not work in the blogosphere.
But that’s okay, he’s blogging. And he’s a smart guy so I’m sure he’ll not only see the benefits of social media soon, but will also adjust his approach accordingly.
Sorry to have been out of the discussion after Sean’s comment — I was out of town and then madly catching up.
The distinction that screams out at me is that Sean is talking about a business “giving” for the outcome of growth and Dawud and Karin H. are talking about “gifting” for the sake of…well…gifting. While gifting anyone anything may have positive ramifications for us in the near or lon-term future, that’s not why we gift. We gift for the pleasure of it – theirs and ours.
And I think people know and feel the difference and that this creates their response to the gift.
If I as giftee feel that something is expected in return for my “gift”, then I look at it with different expectations — and maybe even decline the “gift”. If the “gift” doesn’t match my expectations, I may also resent the giver who has “tricked” me into feeling obligated (or having sacrificed my privacy to get the “gift”).
A real Gift is simply a joy to receive — even if it isn’t “quite right”, I’m delighted by the intent and feel good about the giver. Gifting is about relationship building and authentically connecting — not about transactions and deals.
IMHO —
Karen
Dr Karen,
I agree about gifting. Yet I don’t think it’s bad to want to give as an avenue for growing your business. I think it’s merely a fine line to walk between openly giving to better people’s lives with the hope (and maybe calculation) that they’ll give back and giving merely for the sake of growing your business. Seems it’s more a matter of intent.
Neither are wrong. Though I do feel openly giving, and being in alignment with that giving, will create much deeper long-term relationships (clients/customers) then will giving for the sake of profit.
For sure, both kinds of giving can be good things.
I guess I was reacting to Sean’s certainty about the transactional type of giving as more effective or a better “strategy”. I just don’t see Gifting as something to be effective or strategic about (in the sense of business progress).
It may, as Karin H. nicely demonstrated, have the effects of increasing your business – but to me this seems a side-effect of showing them who you are and really Connecting with them.
If I “gift” with the intention of increasing my business, then it becomes a transaction (whether the receiver consciously realizes that or not — and I think they mostly do recognize it at some level) and the interaction changes in quality.
So — I agree absolutely that it’s a matter of intention and that both are appropriate and useful, although in different ways. I guess I just wanted to make the point that “giving” is not necessarily the same as “gifting”.
In my perspective, they come from different places and produce different effects on ourselves and others. It’s worthwhile to intentionally choose when to be doing which, I think.
Apologies if I sounded snarky about it. 😉
Karen
Dr. Karen,
I think too, we all have different ways and needs. I’m sure what Sean’s doing is directly in line with what he feels he needs and wants from his business. And knowing him to be a good person who cares about his clients/customers, I would guess everything he’s doing is in line with going good.
I think the important thing about having a business is being absolutely clear about what you want from your business and striving in the direction of that. If that’s not purpose, I don’t know what is.
Yet, for me, meaning comes from the internal process of understanding what we want to give to the world.
Hi Dawud-
loved this post. As somebody new to marketing my practice, I get very squirmy with the assumptions that prospects have to “do” something, or respond to our “call to actions”.
And, it’s a relief to take myself out of the mode of expectation- which is a setup in any relationship, I believe. It always feels better to give, for the feeling that we get from it. Anything else is gravy, and a pleasure if we are not looking, waiting, measuring, etc.
Sending love and generousity out into the world will always come back to us, in Divine Order, if not in ways that we want or expect. For me, learning to be generous and share what I have been given so generously, is why I went into practice as a therapist in the first place, and is a way of being in service in this lifetime.
So-thank you for this, it’s a lovely energy to be in as we do the work we love.
Wishing you peace and every blessing,
Lisa
Lisa,
You’re certainly welcome.
A lot of marketing gurus will teach about marketing message. Sales gurus will talk about the importance of closing sales.
Yet most of them miss on, very important part – the relationship. If you create relationships and in those relationships have clearly shared what you can help people with, the selling is easy. There’s more to this, of course, but the relationship is the start.
Hi again-
I agree- the relationship is the start, and colors everything. I can’t quote the study, but when they researched all of the modes of psychotherapy, all of the techniques and approaches, what they found was the major piece around people’s healing was all about the quality of the relationship.
So it’s good to have a business/marketing practice that aligns with both my professional and spiritual beliefs.
xox
Lisa
Great post Dawud! That’s true on the “front-side” of the business, the Customers.
Looking at the “back-side” of your business, the Employees, I find that the “The One, Core Secret to Having A Successful Business” is being surrounded by people that are better than yourself: an A player wants to be around A+ players!
Hope you agree!
Fabio Aversa
Lisa,
I’d love to know more about the study. I find it so interesting when science lines up with real-life.
LED,
Ooh, great piece of advice. I couldn’t agree more. What have you done to find such people?
Hi Dawud
Yes you do make a great point here. Being honest and open to giving freely is the best way for your business to grow. Also I tend to agree with Fabio as aligning yourself with winners is always a strong point in business.
Thanks
Alan
do you bethink how the activity abounding you up with action and amore that backward with you for a while??