Bob Burg, Author & Speaker | Influence, Success & Profit: The Go-Giver Way

Welcome to the success story podcast, I'm your host, Scott Clary. On this podcast, I have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, politicians, and other notable figures, all who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas, and their insights. I sit down with leaders and mentors and unpack their story to help pass those lessons onto others through both experiences and tactical strategy for business professionals, entrepreneurs, and everyone in between. With a further ado, another episode of the success story podcast. Thanks again for joining me today. I'm sitting down with Bob Burke. If you don't know who Bob Burke is, former top sales professional, highly sought after conference speaker, author for over 30 years now has helped companies, sales leaders, their teams communicate value sell at higher prices, less resistance. He's been named by the American Management Association as one of the top 30 most influential thought leaders in business and is the author of a number of books and sales marketing influence. With total book sales approaching 2 million copies, probably much more than when I pulled the stat, including the most recent book, GoGiver, and The GoGiver, a Wall Street Journal business week best seller, has sold over 950,000 copies since its release and has constantly stayed in the top 25 of business books, best seller lists, books have been translated in 28 languages, was rated number 10 on ink magazine's list of most motivational books ever written and have spots 20 most highly rated sales books of all time. Bob, thank you so much. Such an honor to unpack your story, understand how you became the brand, the person that you are right now over your career. So walk me through who was Bob Berg from the start and how you got to where you are today. Great to be with you Scott, thanks for having me. I began my business career as a broadcaster actually, versus a sportscaster on a small radio station, and then a television news anchor on a small affiliate in the ABC affiliate in the Midwestern United States, I wasn't really very good at it and I wasn't long for that job and I soon, I like to say graduated into sales. The biggest issue I had was though that I knew nothing about sales on a formal level. I had no training, didn't know anything about it. And the training where I, the company where I first worked was negligible. I really thought this was actually, so I had to figure out things for myself, which that's not me, I don't invent or create wheels, so I floundered because I didn't figure it out. Fortunately I didn't have to though, because I was in a bookstore and came across a couple of books on Sunday, which surprised me, again this is 40 years ago and back then the prevalence of books on sales was nothing as it is now. Unfortunately in the bookstore I was in, there were two great books to a couple of classics, one was by Tom Hockins and one was by Zig Ziggler. And I got those books and I studied them, I studied them after work every day and until the wee hours of the morning and I'd read and highlight and take notes and dog ear the pages and practice and do. And within a few weeks my sales really began to soar. And what it really told me was that if you have a methodology, if you have a system for doing a thing that you may not have known how to do before but if it's a good system and it's principled based, you can be successful and you don't have to reinvent the wheel. So that was very encouraging for me and to this day I would define a system as simply a process for predictably achieving a goal based on a logical and specific set of how to principle. So the key is predictability. If by A, it's been proven that you'll get the desired results of B, then you know all you need to do is A and keep doing A and keep doing A and eventually you'll get the desired results of B. So again that's sort of how I began to learn selling and from there as part of selling as you know, personal development really comes into play. So I started buying all the books that we hear about and back then it was how to win friends and influence people and think rich which those are still classics which everyone should have in their library. The magic of thinking big, psycho cybernetics as a man thinketh and so forth and I was just overwhelmed with this wonderful, not only business building but just self growth material and I really enjoyed it so in time I became sales manager of another company and after a while started teaching others how to do what was working for me and for my team and eventually kind of morphed into a speaking business which I approached again very systematically. I joined the National Speakers Association and I learned from those who come before me and had a road map system for how to build a speaking business and as you said I've been doing that in an hour or about 30 years. And tell me something. So you're a very logical process driven person and makes a ton of sense. So what is when you write a book like the go giver I watched some of your speaking engagements where you're speaking about giving a abundance mindset this is all tying back to success I'm assuming in sales and in life and other things. When you're the process that you've developed I'm curious where that came from and how it differentiates and provides value to people when now there is just an absolute abundance of different sales books novels literature some good some not so good much more than you know when you first started picking up those those classics and I have actually some of those on my shelf now so I appreciate it. So what is what is a go giver and what does that mean? Yeah so a go yeah and that's such a great question a go giver is basically someone who understands that shifting their focus and this is really the key shifting one's focus from getting to give and when we when we say giving in this context we simply mean constantly and consistently providing immense value to others now understanding that not only is this a more fulfilling way of doing business it's the most financially profitable way as well and not for reasons of you know some woo woo way out there type of reason or mathematical magical thinking no it's actually again very logical it's very rational when you think about it right when you're that person who can take your focus off yourself and place it on bringing value to others making someone else's life better helping solve their problems helping them to attain what they need what they want what they desire well you know people feel good about you right people want to get to know you they like you they trust you they want to be in a relationship with you they want to do business with you if that's if you have something they want your needs and they want to refer you to others and and so you know again it's very rational now you know I talk about rationale and logic and systems I'm actually very emotional guy okay but what we need to be able to do by the way I'm an emotional person because I'm a human being and as human beings we're all emotional we're all emotion based we'd like to think we're logical right and to a certain extent we are but as human beings we are very emotion driven we make major decisions based on emotion now we back those up with law with we back them up with logic right we rationalize which I guess kind of means we tell ourselves rational lies to justify those emotional decisions but but no I'm as emotional as anyone the key is that we need to make sure to control our emotions be the master of our emotions so they work for us rather than against us or as one of my great friends Don De Scumacci puts it she says by all means take your emotions along for the ride but make sure that you are driving the car in other words we want our decisions to be in mud to be logically based okay even though emotions are certainly a good to have with us because emotions bring wisdom with them as well but yeah the go giver itself is actually very logical when you think about it and the five laws the laws of value compensation influence authenticity and receptivity all play one along with the other very holistically so it's not just one or two or three or even four of them but actually actually all five it begins with the giving of value that focus on providing immense value to others as you're building the relationship as you're cultivating that relationship as you're following up and following through and as you're you're in the selling process and the referral process it's it's always about starting with value and then compensation which is about how many people's lives you touch with that value and then influence which is really nothing more than being able to have other people's interest in heart understanding that you know as Dale Carnegie said and how to win friends and influence people people do things for their reasons not our reasons or as I often say when I speak at a sales conference nobody's going to buy from you because you have a quota for me right or because you need the money or because you're a really nice person you know they're going to buy from you because they believe they'll be better off by doing so than by not doing so which is why we have to put their interest ahead of our own and this is also why John David Mann my awesome co-author and the lead writer of the team why we say that money is simply an echo of value money is an echo of value is the thunder to values lightning meaning that the value must come first the value comes first the money is simply that you receive is simply a very natural and direct result of the value you provided the law of authenticity number number four just says to show up as yourself be that same person be the person you are and be so all the time and law number five the law of receptivity says the key to the effect of giving is to stay open to receiving it means sure we breathe out which is giving we also have to breathe in which is receiving and then it's not a matter of being a giver or a receiver that's a that's a treacherous dichotomy that you know that either or no you're a giver and a receiver but it begins with the focus on giving value to find you find that more sales or sales leaders are are working in this light or do you still find that sales is a very traditional latent industry well I think it's both I mean I think more and more people are understanding uh and as you said there's a lot of good sales books out there there's a lot of good books that that you know that teach us how to be better more effective salespeople and and and the good ones always talk about the fact that it's always about the prospect you know it's not about us great salesmanship is never about the salesperson you know it's never even about the product or service is important as the product or service is it's about the other person it's about how they are going to benefit from that product or service it's about touching the life of another human being it's about making their life better just by they're having you in it as your product or service and and I think that's a message that a lot more people are getting of course you know people are people so there's going to be those people who that's is you know they learned a traditional way and that's just what they're going to do uh but nothing more and more that's especially as as buyers are in much more of a power position because of the knowledge that the internet supplies you know they already know a whole lot they still need the salesperson but they all they already know a lot about the product or service that they the the salesperson is no longer primarily a conduit of information okay conduit of insight they need to be an advisor they need to be able to do it but as far as the information goes so no it's I I think it's changing a lot I think it's changing a lot for the better um and and let's speaking of of the value you're always offering you're giving you're giving um and and I 100% agree all these five laws you mentioned your book uh they seem very common sense when you lay them out like that but I still believe that people still have to focus and understand how to actually action them um or else they may they may fall flat if it's not the way like you mentioned they were trained they made default to bad habits so how do you give value well if first of all we need to understand what value really is because it's different from price and a lot of people think they're the same price is a dollar figure right it's uh a dollar amount it's it's finite it is what it is it's the price of something uh which by the way it might be more than just the dollars there's also price in terms of opportunity cost uh price in times of time price in times of potential adrobation price in turn right but when we say price we're talking the whole what it would cost a person to buy a certain thing okay that's price value 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 this product service concept idea what have you that brings so much worth to someone to another human being that they will willingly exchange their money for it and be glad that they did while you make a very healthy profit now on a very basic level a uh an example might be the experience who you excuse me hired to do your taxes and she charges you a thousand dollars just to name around figure that's her prayer fear her price a thousand dollars but what value does she give you in exchange for this thousand dollars well she uh say let's say throughout her hard work getting to know you your business what you're looking to accomplish all her years of experience and so forth she is able to save you five thousand dollars on your taxes uh she also saves you countless hours of time and she provides you with the security and the peace of mind of no one was done correctly so she actually gave you well over five thousand dollars and value in exchange for a thousand dollar fee or price and that's just the intrinsic value that she has given you based on what an accountant does that right there doesn't separate or distinguish her from anyone so how do we in a world in which the the playing field has basically been level through technology and through advancement how do we distinguish ourselves and as you say provide value give value to others and and basically we the salesperson or the entrepreneur we need to be that additional value how well there are dozens of not hundreds of ways to communicate that additional value but they tend to come down to five what we call elements of value and these elements of value are excellence consistency attention empathy and appreciation and to the degree that we can communicate those those but five whether it's one two three or all five will met every single touch point less the degree that we we take competition and price out of the equation and I understand so now you've provided that extra value so that you you now have the one up on on the playing field of all the other for example the accounts um you've added those those value drivers now how do you actually once you have made those value drivers apparent does the sale just happen because you have shown the intrinsic value plus you've added those five additional value drivers or is you know another principle in the book is influence and you want to influence the individual to do what you're trying to do which is to close the sale how do you actually employ that influence on somebody who you're trying to sell to while you influence a person to the degree that you show them that you're able to effectively communicate why they're doing business with you is in their best interest so if you if you look at if you look at influence on a very just on a service level we could define it we could define influence again very basically is simply the ability to move a person or persons to a desired action usually within the context of a specific goal that is by definition influence it's the definition it's not its substance it's not its essence and this is the big difference the essence of influence is pull pull as opposed to push as I'm saying how far can you push a rope the answer is not very far at least not very accurate exactly which is you know why great influencers don't push right you never hear people say wow that Tom or that marriage she is so influential she has a lot of push with the no they'd say she has a lot of pull with people not push and so that's what influences it's pull it's an attraction it's magnetic how do you do that well you really again you do that through placing that other person's interest first asking yourself please asking yourself questions to make sure you're really facing the right direction which is outward for example how does what I'm asking this person to do how does it align with their goals how does it align with their wants their needs their desires how what what I want this other person to do how does it align with their values what problems am I helping them to solve how am I making help making their life better how am I bringing them closer to happiness you know whatever happens to be whatever questions make sense and when we ask ourselves these questions thoughtfully intelligently genuinely authentically not as a way to manipulate another human being into doing our will but as a way of building everyone in the process now we've come a lot closer to to earning that person's commitment to our idea and that is pull that isn't that it's entirely shifting I love it shifting the whole focus this whole this whole the whole over overarching themes that shifting that focus again from that that internal self focused to yeah yeah well the influence the pull the give it like it's all like just it's so simple just focus on them yeah and you will achieve exactly what you want now well you know when I I look through like all the points in the go-giver and some of the topics you talk about and even some of the speeches you give on on how do you how do you make sense of this financially how does this have an ROI attached to it well you're just you're just focusing on the person and you're and everything is now tailored to what the customer wants truly not shoving it down but again everything you're doing is in line with what the customer actually wants to achieve and it's just a mindset shift it's just shifting your mind from what you care about to wait let me get what I care about by caring about what the customer wants that's it yeah very very you know it's it's the whole the whole ideology sort of lines up that way one thing you speak about in the book is mentorship I'm curious to know because we spoke about all these different sales books when you were first going to sales now there's many many more so regardless of whether it's a book or a person how do you find somebody that can guide you this way because not everybody can reach out to Bob Berg and you know jump on a call every time they want some help so how do you find mentors that align with this ideology because I agree with this ideology and I think it's the way to to be as a sales person well finding a mentor you know is very helpful because a good mentor can help cut your learning curve time by by years I think sometimes people get too attached to having to have that one magical mentor you know that's going to change their lives and that's not usually works first of all a mentor protege relationship is just that it's a relationship so it happens over time and we don't know you always know when that's going to happen and who that person's going to be um but a lot of people will will kind of approach someone who they you know they respect or they admire or what have you and say hey will you be my mentor and you know that excuse me kind of kind of productive most of the time because first if you want this person to be your mentor probably a whole lot of other people do as well and they're all asking him to either either they're mentoring and you know they don't most people just don't have time to do that you know on a consistent basis but what you can do which is very effective is you can really approach almost anyone who's successful and say you know I'm wondering and if this is not something you have time to do or just something you just don't want to do totally understandable um I'm wondering if I might ask you want to a very specific question now when you do that you you've distinguished yourself from practically everyone else first the way you've done it you've shown respect not you know there's no entitlement you're you realize you're asking this person did you something that they hey you know going to take up their valuable time and they may not want to and you gave them the out you said and that's totally understandable right and triplicatively when you give someone the out or back door they're less likely to feel the need to take it because you're making them feel comfortable they know you're not going to waste their time then what you also did which is very effective is you you asked you you said you know I'd love to ask you or or may I ask you one or two very specific questions this shows this person that you know you're not just looking to pick their brain and again waste their time you know it with it's a general you know um but instead that you have an agenda and when I say you have an agenda in this case I mean that's the positive sense enough you thought this out you plan this out this is going to be a productive you know session uh and they respect that you know they're much more likely to say uh yeah sure you know what we look at we can take a few minutes or what can I do or what have you and that's a great start now you want to make sure that you don't ask them anything the answer to which you could have discovered through an online search you know what I'm saying so you want to make sure that this is something that you would not be able to otherwise know otherwise again that it's a waste of their time they're not going to respect that they're going to write and then you know they don't take up a lot of the time just you know and uh be totally respectful of it at the end let them know how much you appreciate it and how you look forward to applying their wisdom right away and that if it's okay how you know check back every so often and just let you know I would and they'll say sure of course of course now what I would do is that day I would send a handwritten personalized note of thanks not a text not an email handwritten personalized note of thanks and just you just say you know again thank you so much for taking valuable time out of your day your wisdom is priceless I look forward to applying it right away and we'll keep in touch and let you know how things are going to be on trust regards you just short sweet note handwritten number 10 Howard regular envelope regular snap send it out what have you also a nice touch is it is discover what their favorite charitable causes which you can again you can do that by just searching them online and and learning that and then make a small donation doesn't have to be anything big just a small donation in their name they'll be notified of it and you're not doing it to kiss up or anything but only so again they understand that you get it that you are totally respectful of the project see you're now you are the type of person who they want to mentor they want it there right so now maybe later you either email or call with them know how things are going you had a good success or you had one another question and would it be all right or whatever and if in time a mentor protege relationship is supposed to develop it will if not it won't it might be this person was there for one conversation as well three or four other people be and then you might meet someone who ends up being a real ongoing who knows we want to just you know do it the right way without attachment to the results very smart very very very smart those are good very very good strategies I've never heard those strategies before so I like that a lot I love it I need to hear it like something new new on the show a lot of people speak with mentorship but those are very very clever strategies and I think they're very smart I want to I want to ask some rapid fire before we end off today at just about you know some quick quick questions but before I go off and we close out is there anything that I didn't ask about go giver or what you're working on now that's meaningful to you that you wanted to you bring to bring up well we four books on the series three of them are parables anyone who goes to bird b urg dot com they can scroll down and read a chapter if they'd like to see if they like where it's headed and they can always click the Amazon or or you know wherever they'd like I do have a free video course a free four part online four video online course many course the college called selling the go giver way and so it should be up on the site right now I got it I'll link that below and which they can watch if they like perfect um can I do a couple rapid fire just short answer before we close off sure thank you very much um what's one resource a book podcast person that people should go check out that you're learning from I subscribe to Randy gauges prosperity blog he also has a podcast and a youtube channel uh so I'm a big believer in really learning prosperity continuing learning so there's a there's a few people like Randy Sharon lector Bob proctor who's one of your fellow Canadians uh he's in the Toronto area um and you know people like Ellen Rogan and there's a there's a number of David Nagle there's a number of good people that speak specifically on prosperity thinking and mindset so I'm always studying them and and feel that's a really good resource for people to go to positive resource too I find a lot of these individuals very especially we need that more than ever now um uh what's uh what's one lesson than you would tell your younger stuff oh that one is probably the easiest of all you know because I would I would say probably to 22 23 year old the young Bob Berg I'd say young Bob Berg shut up stop talking start listening you don't know half of what you think you know and the other half that you're sure you know is so totally wrong you don't even realize it yet it's a good lesson that's a good very good lesson I think I think that applies at any age for some people um and then last uh last question what does success mean for you I believe that success is a um a sense a genuine feeling of happiness of peace of mind in knowing you did the best you can to to operate at your highest level I think that success very good answer um and uh lastly where can people connect with you online do you have websites uh socials at bird dot com if they scroll down to the very bottom of page they'll see everything uh you know LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and whatever else that's all for today thanks again for joining me on another episode of the success story podcast you can download or stream this podcast wherever podcasts are available including iTunes Spotify Google Stitcher iHeartRadio and many others you can also watch this podcast on YouTube if you haven't already please subscribe and share this podcast with your friends family co-workers and peers please leave us a rating on iTunes it takes about 30 seconds as it allows other people to find our podcast and let's our amazing guests reach even more people with their message and remember any rating is fine as long as it contains five stars i'm Scott clary from the success story podcast signing off