{"id":766,"date":"2016-04-15T21:58:25","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T21:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/?p=766"},"modified":"2021-08-24T05:23:36","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T05:23:36","slug":"give-and-take","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/give-and-take\/","title":{"rendered":"The Give and Take of Marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Americans we are takers. And that’s not a statement of condemnation, it just is. And it\u2019s not really our fault because we got started on a taking trajectory. It\u2019s actually simple physics. Objects in rest and motion will continue in that direction until enacted upon by an outside force. So when this country started, we came here and saw Indians, and we took their land and we built see. And then when the railroad came through and we realized that we needed to go through where there were communities, we took those communities. And when we needed more people to help us build the country, we took people from other countries and used them. Even when we went to the moon, we did not declare it a victory for our planet, we called it ours. So we took the moon. We haven\u2019t really done anything with it or don\u2019t know if we will do anything with it, but just so everybody knows, it\u2019s ours.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"blog_Give<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve built an entire society on taking and we are incentivized to take because the largest takers get the highest levels of status in our culture, so we are incentivized to take. Now, that’s not to say that we don\u2019t give; we have. In fact, in the last hundred years, we figured out that giving is an important part of taking, and there are a lot of givers. It\u2019s just that our giving hasn\u2019t quite caught up with our taking yet. If we were to graph out taking and giving, clearly taking would still be <\/span>way<\/span><\/i>, way higher than the amount of giving that we do. And it\u2019s ironic because endemic in our language is the term \u201cgive and take,\u201d how come it\u2019s not \u201ctake and give?\u201d That seems to be our path, because most of the time we don\u2019t give back until we take. <\/span><\/p>\n

Andrew Carnegie did not build Carnegie Hall until he had taken quite a bit. The Gates Foundation is a giver because of all the taking that they did. Well, of course, naturally you have to take first because if you don\u2019t take something then you have nothing to give, right? Maybe not. It\u2019s sort of like the guy who keeps dating the same type of girl over and over and over again and complains why he can\u2019t find love. Perhaps we\u2019ve gotten so used to taking and then giving that that’s the way that we only see it.<\/span><\/p>\n

In my process in working with companies and branding them, the first thing that I do is help them unlock the way that they have looked at their company. In other words, I don\u2019t ask what you do for a living; I ask, what is your company all about?  –  which is a  much more complicated question. For instance, if I would ask a flower shop owner, \u201cWhat is your company all about?\u201d his first answer is, \u201cWe sell flowers.\u201d \u201cBut, no, no, no, that\u2019s what your company does. What is your company all about?\u201d And after working with him, we might uncover something like the death of a friend\u2019s mother when he was a little boy and watching the flowers being delivered to the home and bringing some level of joy and color to a very, very dark place, and perhaps it got inside of him that, \u201cOh, flowers have this magical property to bring color to someone\u2019s world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And so his brand isn\u2019t really about selling flowers, his brand is about bringing color to the world – which is very, very different than selling flowers. And it helps him on his business trajectory, because if his best client is somebody who wants to bring color to the world, then that really changes the way that he thinks about his company. In other words, he stops going after the type of customer like the guy who forgot his wife\u2019s anniversary and in the last second buys a dozen roses. That\u2019s not really bringing color to someone\u2019s world, that’s covering your ass.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, with that brand model, he has put himself on a trajectory of giving before taking. In other words, when a potential customer comes in, say, a wedding, he would have a program of figuring out the best flowers for them to use, create a list and create the systems for how the flowers would be set up. He would then give that customer that piece of paper that they could go online, they could go to another flower shop or they could work with him. But it\u2019s a tremendous amount of faith to give before he takes, to offer value way before the sale.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that’s my style of marketing, and that\u2019s what I want to bring to the world \u2013 giving before taking. When I sit down with a potential client, I tell them that, \u201cYou will walk away with at least five new ideas about how to promote your company, so even if we never work together you\u2019ve had value from our interaction.\u201d I give before I take.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I\u2019m not the only one doing this. There’s a company called <\/span>The Panera Bread Corporation<\/span><\/i>, a sandwich and bakery shop that started in St. Louis, Missouri that came up with a great idea: pay what you feel the meal is worth. Now, they haven\u2019t quite worked it out where you can eat the food first and then pay before you leave, but they\u2019re getting close to giving before taking, because it\u2019s the same mindset. It\u2019s a level of faith. It\u2019s a belief that we will be okay by releasing the control of our taking. What we haven\u2019t learned in over 200 years is faith; faith that if we give first we will be given back to, that we don\u2019t have to take, that giving comes naturally after someone is given to.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I\u2019m pushing a new model. Instead of give and take, it\u2019s give and give back, a give-and-give-back model. Now, how would a give-and-give-back model work? Certainly, if you pulled up to an Exxon Mobil station, what are they going to say? \u201cGo ahead and fill up your tank, drive around for a while, then come back and let us know what you feel the value of our tankful of gas was.\u201d A pretty good idea from my perspective, but how much luck do you think I\u2019m going to have selling that to the oil companies? In fact, the entire oil business is founded on the principle of taking. Certainly, there\u2019s not a lot they can give back once they pull all the fossil fuel out of the ground. In fact, there\u2019s probably nothing left to give back.<\/span><\/p>\n

So again, I don\u2019t blame them. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s their fault. It\u2019s trajectory. It\u2019s physics. It\u2019s a company; it\u2019s an industry that was based on the concept of taking, so they\u2019re probably going to be one of the last ones to the party. Instead, I focus my efforts on companies who can weave in the giving-before-taking model into their business system a lot easier.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, let me tell you how I know this works. For 15 years, I\u2019ve been in the personal development world, and for a number of years I flew around the country teaching personal growth courses, these very intense weekends of helping people recognize the things they do in their lives that keep them from the things that they want. In other words, we all have wants and hopes and dreams, and the reason that we don\u2019t pursue that is largely based on the blocks that we create, the belief systems that we create. And most of those belief systems could be boiled down to taking before giving.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are a lot of people that came through that course who were struggling in their relationships, and overall what I found the struggles were about where they didn\u2019t feel fulfilled. Their partner in essence wasn\u2019t giving them what they wanted. And it\u2019s what we all want, love on our own terms. But what they didn\u2019t recognize was it was okay to give their partner what they wanted, and the immediate response was, \u201cWhat about me?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, let\u2019s say you are married and your husband says that he wants dinner on the table the moment he comes home from work your first reaction may be \u201cWhat about my feelings? What about my needs? What about the things I\u2019m doing?\u201d And my response to you would be, \u201cWell, have you tried giving him what he wants?\u201d And your reaction may be, \u201cNo, of course not, because if I give him dinner the moment he comes home, what\u2019s the next thing he\u2019s going to want and the next thing he\u2019s going to want and the next thing he\u2019s going to want? And I\u2019ll never get my needs filled.\u201d I\u2019d say, \u201cWait, all he asked for was dinner. Have you tried that?\u201d And the response I  usually get is, \u201cNo, no, no, Dan, you don\u2019t understand. This guy\u2019s a taker. He\u2019ll just keep taking.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So after working with them,  we get them to begrudgingly agree to doing the thing that their partner wants just as an experiment, just to see what happens, and 9 times out of 10 I\u2019d hear back from them, \u201cThings are so great. All he wanted was dinner on the table when he got home from work. Our relationship is a lot better now. I\u2019m getting so much of what I wanted. Wow! Giving gets you what you want.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So it\u2019s true at the bottom, base, foundation of our culture, our relationships, when we give, we get. When we give things that other people want, they give us back something. So if it\u2019s true with the foundation of our culture, then it\u2019s got to be true as we go up the ladder, as those relationships turn into businesses, and then companies and corporations. If it works at the foundation level, then it\u2019s got to work at the upper levels too.<\/span><\/p>\n

So when I work with companies, I work on the principle of giving. What can you give that will create that positive psychic energy that will make your customers want to give back? And there\u2019s a lot of pushback with this because just like the people in the relationships, \u201cWait, wait, wait, if I give to my customers, they\u2019re just going to take and take and take and I\u2019ll never have something for me.\u201d Have you tried? \u201cNo, you don\u2019t understand. We\u2019re operating on a razor-thin budget. If I don\u2019t do it this way, I\u2019ll never have anything.\u201d \u201cHave you tried?\u201d \u201cWell, no, but\u2026\u201d \u201cWould you try?\u201d \u201cOkay.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

You see, when I start working with a new client, I have what I call my branding session, which is basically my personal development technology applied to business. It\u2019s a very powerful session, usually three or four hours, where 9 times out of 10,  the person I\u2019m working with ends up bursting into tears, because I help them find something inside of them, that spark, that thing that got them into business in the first place. <\/span><\/p>\n

And at the base of it all, at the bottom, when I ask them what their business is really all about, the answer always boils down to the same thing. \u201cI want to help people.\u201d Whether it\u2019s CPAs or flower shops or tire stores or e-commerce companies, they want to help people. For more info contact MaidThis<\/a> here. They got into the business because they found that it would be the easiest conduit to being in service to others.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I think that’s endemic in our DNA, because we are a social species, we have to be connected to others. We have to or we die. We have to have connections, and it is endemic in that to be in service to others. We just get lost along the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

See, I believe that business is the best place for us to learn about ourselves, because the things that we won\u2019t do for ourselves we will do in business. Why? Because there’s a paycheck at the end of it. I would fly into cities and teach this course and come back a year later, and the people I had talked with would still be struggling with the same things. However, I do the same work with people in their business and they\u2019re much more willing to take risks, to try things, to do things differently, because there\u2019s a paycheck at the end of it. I have no qualms about that. It\u2019s the ultimate piece of cheese in the rat maze.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, to wrap this all up, if we are a species that wants to give, and if we find greater happiness in relationships through giving, then certainly we can find greater profits in our business by giving before we take and the model of giving can be so easy; just understand what you do and give part of that away. The easiest, the best way, the first way is by giving away knowledge, the thing that you know, because the thing that you know that’s so obvious to you is complete new technology to the people who first start doing business with your company. So by giving away a part of your knowledge, you\u2019re creating a tremendous amount of positive click this site<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

And yes, some people are going to take that knowledge and find the lowest price in which to apply that knowledge, but you will find, more and more, the more giving that you do, the more goodwill you create, that creates a vortex of compassion and a certain sense about your business that will draw your customers to you, that in giving, the giveback will be monumental.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Americans we are takers. And that’s not a statement of condemnation, it just is. And it\u2019s not really our fault because we got started on a taking trajectory. It\u2019s actually simple physics. Objects in rest and motion will continue in that direction until enacted upon by an outside force. So when this country started, … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,3],"tags":[108,36,113,47,114],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1230,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions\/1230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}