If you've known me long you know my attitude is that I'll take a one-hour meeting with anyone, any time, any where for any reason -- let's call this my AnyX philosophy.
But you may not know why I'd invest so much of my time with no clear reason as to why I'm meeting with these people.
Dad always said:
"Each hand you shake has value. Find it.
"The person who owns each hand you shake has something to teach you. Learn it."
From 30-second meetings in elevators to multi-hour, be-useful meetings, I've done my best to find value in the people I met and to learn the lessons they had to teach -- and have never regretted a single moment of that endeavor.
This morning I was inspired to ramble some high-level insights as to what I've found using this AnyX strategy over the years. And one of the nice things about blogging is you get to ramble now and then, so here goes.
There are three types of givers in the world:
- No-Givers: These people are experts at feigning a giving attitude to suck you in. Then they launch a campaign to get everything they can from you before you catch on to their manipulation and they discard you.
- So-Givers: These are the strategic givers of the world. They can be very helpful, but it always comes at a price. "I did X for you, so you should do Y for me."
- Go-Givers: These are the people described in the book "The Go-Giver," by Bob Burg and John David Mann. These individuals give without keeping score. Not because it's part of some grand strategy, but because they believe it is simply the right thing to do and the best way to live a quality life. (The paradox is -- that's a grand strategy in its own right.)
Not that I've kept statistics, but my gut tells me the numbers of people in each category that I've met follow a standard Normal Curve -- 10 percent No-, 80 percent So- and 10 percent Go-.
But why should you care?
1. It's initially hard to tell the difference between No- and Go-Givers, especially the artful No-. So you can waste a ton of your valuable time if you don't recognize that both exist and take steps to tell the difference quickly.
I use "be-useful meetings" as a way to gut-check the other person's nature. (These are meetings where we're each supposed to find one way to be useful to the other person without anyone writing a check.)
What I do is go first -- I interview the other person and do my best to help. If I'm with a No-Giver, at the end of the hour the only thing he or she will know about me is my name, because they don't know how to stop taking once they start.
2. There's nothing at all wrong with So-Giving, provided the expectations are set in advance.
I trade stuff all the time, which is a form of So-Giving. Even my be-useful meetings are So-Giving in nature. But these expectations are always set beforehand.
The reason So-Giving can be detrimental, is it massively limits your ability to succeed. You see, if you live a So-Giver life, the most you can ever hope is to break even -- you'll get only as much as you give.
3. How can you spot a So-Giver?
They have an entitlement or "you owe me" attitude.
Let's say, for example, that you're in a referral network (lead-sharing group), that the attorney in your group can do all forms of business law, and that the attorney has given you referrals.
Let's say you also have a sister who specializes in trademark law.
I guarantee if you find someone who needs a trademark attorney and introduce your sister, when the attorney finds out, he'll be angry.
Why? Because the So-Giver lives in a world of "I earned it," whereas the Go-Giver lives in a world of "I am so glad I was able to help." (When a Go-Giver attorney hears of the referral to your sister, he'll respond with something like "Smart choice. I can do trademark law, but the attorneys who specialize can usually do it better.")
The problem with unclear expectations is the relationship often crumbles the first time you don't honor their self-directed "I earned it" value systems. So you're both left with nothing -- perhaps after having built a win-win relationship for years.
4. I used to be a So-Giver, and when I changed, life and success grew exponentially.
It's in my very soul to be a solver of puzzles. So throughout most of my career I instinctively sought So-Give relationships -- developing relationships and then figuring out how to leverage them to the benefit of everyone.
For example, when we originally launched Yellow-Tie International it had a multi-level income component -- international board members, chapter presidents, chapter board members and group directors could actually earn money by recruiting members.
About three months into the effort, however, everyone screamed "Pyramid Scheme." While it wasn't this at all, perception is reality and perception killed us.
So we switched to the non-profit, fully volunteer association we are today, and the association began to grow. More importantly, the people who volunteered changed from So-Givers to almost exclusively to Go-Givers, and everyone's success followed.
It was that experience, that opened my eyes to the give-without-keeping-score paradox. Simply put, the less you keep score the more you'll win.
And it was the book "The Go-Giver" that put eloquent words and a great name to that philosophy.
5. While I will always believe that everyone is redeemable, I must acknowledge that most No-Givers have no desire to be redeemed. Yet what about Dad's everyone has value idea?
The value of meeting with No-Givers is they save you tons of time, as long as you learn the true lesson they have to teach. Simply put, the more of them you meet, the better you'll get at spotting and avoiding them in the first place.
6. You will always have So-Givers in your life -- trade with them when it makes sense. Just be certain expectations are clear, or your relationship investment will blow up eventually.
7. If you recognize So-Giving in yourself, I'll make you this promise. If you truly become a Go-Giver you will NEVER go back.
Go-Givers give.
So-Givers give to gain.
No-Givers take. (Burg calls these people "Go-Takers." I like that better, but it didn't fit my No/So/Go pattern. ;-)
Gill E. Wagner, Sage of Selling
President of Honest Selling
Founder of the Yellow-Tie International Business Development Association
