November 2009 – WhosChrisHughes.com

November 30, 2009 Buffalo, NYOne of my mentors Bradley Will recommended that I read “The Go-Giver” by Bob Burg and John David Mann. Boy am I glad that I did. I’ve not always been one of the top students in school, during Elementary school and High School I was lucky and school came easy for me. However, throughout college I have struggled. I’ve had a GPA of 2.14(freshman year!) as well as a GPA of 3.51(last semester) and understand the difference between what I did to get each grade. However, I have noticed that it’s been the learning outside of classes that I have been doing that have truly been paying off for me. This book is definitely one that you should read even if you are a busy college student like myself. This book is not a 1,000 page manual teaching you how to force people to buy from you and will not directly give you a million dollars. However, the information that is inside of this 132 page book is more valuable than all of the business books I have purchased at University. Yet, it’s a fraction of the cost…how crazy. The concept scared the crap out of me… I’m going to be honest with you, when Bradley first recommended the book to me, I thought he was crazy. ABSOLUTELY CRAZY. Insane. I mean, how can I ever win in business and make any money if all I was doing was giving? The reason I got into business was to make money, make lots and lots of money. I mean, if I’m being honest here, I really just wanted to make a million dollars in my early 20′s. I didn’t care how I did it, or who I had to step on to get there. BIG mistake on my part there, however after reading this book I really have a different outlook on not only my businesses, but also my life. I do still care about making a lot of money, but I realize the importance of the Five Laws in making money and helping others. The Five Laws of Stratospheric Success As taught by Pindar For those of you who haven’t read the book yet, Pindar is the Chairman of a very successful company. He is also the man who helps Joe, the main character to learn the five laws. The five laws are explained more thoroughly in the book and I just want to touch on what I learned from each of these laws. The Law of Value “Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.” To me, this makes sense as a business man. The more value that you can provide a customer, the more money you can take in payment for your product or services. If you have ever heard of Yanik Silver then you are probably familiar with one of his Rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs that is “Strive to create 10 times to 100x in value for any price you charge. Your rewards are always proportional to the value you provide.” If you have a product that you are selling for $100, then you better make sure that you provide at least $1,000 if not $10,000 in value to the buyer. You can do this by providing 10x peace of mind, 10x the time savings, or even 10-100x a return on investment. There are various ways you can do this, just always strive to provide more in value. Your customers will thank you! The Law of Compensation “Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.” If you are a business owner, your income is directly proportional to how many people you serve each day and how well you serve them. If you are providing them with 10-100x the value then you are doing a great job and are most likely serving them to a point that they are super happy to do business with you. To make more money, all you need to do is serve more people! The Law of Influence “Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.” Influence is something that I have been very interested in the past 2 years. However, I never really understood the importance of it. When I first got started online, I had 0 influence as many of you may be at this point now. So how do you create influence? You place other people’s interests first. You help them, you serve them, you teach them, you coach them, you just flat out HELP. The more people that you help each day, the more they will look to you as an expert and you will in turn be able to influence them into buying products or services you sell because they trust your opinions and guidance. This is great, the more people you can help then the more influence you gain. The people that you help are likely to share that you had helped them and this is when your influence starts to snowball. Online, your influence is directly proportional to how many people you can connect with and help in any way possible. The thing is, you can even just connect people and become Agent Zero and this will build up your influence. I’ve personally done this with a lot of people and recommended people who I know are great at what they do. I let people into my network and help connect individuals who are looking for one another. I feel great when I get to do this and I know that it helps benefit my friends and mentors. The Law of Authenticity “The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.” This is powerful. Anyone and their mother can sell stuff, it’s the people who are authentic are the ones who truly get to become successful. This is a part out of the book that really explains this better than I ever could: “What I’m here to sell you on is you. People, remember this: no matter what your training, no matter what your skills, no matter what area you’re in, you are your most important commodity. The most valuable gift you have to offer is you. Reaching any goal you set takes ten percent specific knowledge or technical skills- ten percent, max. The other ninety-plus percent is people skills.” The reason I have my blog is to share myself with you. I want to share what I learn and it is my hope that you take something away from at least one thing that I share on this blog. If anything I create helps you in any way, I have done my job. The Law of Receptivity “The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.” When I first heard of the Go-Giver and the concept of always giving, I was really worried about when I was ever going to get paid for all that I was giving. However, Receiving is the natural result of giving. The thing is, it has to come back to you, just as your heart has to contract after relaxing. It’s just how it works in nature, the waves come in and the waves go out of the ocean. The thing is, every giving can happen only because it is also a receiving. At this very instant, all of humanity is breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide. The animal kingdom is doing the exact same thing. The thing is, the organisms in the plant kingdom do the exact opposite of humans and animals, they breath in carbon dioxide and breath out oxygen. An equal balance! Their giving is our receiving, and our giving is their receiving. “So the secret to success, to gaining it, to having it, is to give, give give. The secret to getting is giving. And the secret to giving is making yourself open to receiving.” I highly recommend this book to any and every Young Entrepreneur out there as well as anyone who is thinking about getting into business. Most of the stuff that we are learning is great, but I feel that this is the most powerful business idea that we could ever learn.