Latest / The Mobilization Mindset / Episode 168 | The Giving Mindset: Why the Best Businesses Play the Long Game

Transcript

Episode 168 | The Giving Mindset: Why the Best Businesses Play the Long Game · The Mobilization Mindset

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: What this book really teaches you to do is stop focusing on the self, but put all of your talents, put all of your values, put all everything that you can offer the world outward so that you can help other people with the idea that it'll you know it could eventually come full circle as long as you don't make that full circle your total intent.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole key to this book is drop your agenda and really just pour into the people that are in front of you and then see how you can best help them with your unique skills, talents, words, dreams, gifts, experiences.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome everybody to the next episode of the mobilization mindset.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Scott Pieper, CEO and founder of mobilization funding, and today Drew and I are gonna be talking about a book.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: A book that each of us have read before, and our whole company just got done reading.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: It is called The Go Giver.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I gonna talk about that book today?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because it has created a foundation of different information, substance, characteristics, character, and habits within our entire company.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna talk to you about that book, what it's done for us, what it's done for the company, and what it's done and can do ultimately for you and your business.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you like these kind of episodes, you can check us out on our YouTube channel at mobilization funding and also mobilizationfunding.com.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Drew, welcome.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to be here for this one.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: I remember uh I joined in what December of 2024?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, end of 24.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and uh you offered me the job, and then about a day later you said, You have some homework before you start in two weeks.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta read The Go Giver.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I read it in probably two days.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: You can read it in a night, really.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I read it in about two days, and it changed my perspective on uh on business, life.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's an impactful book.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so for the record, Drew and I aren't doing that thing where people give you a book and you're like, oh my gosh, they just gave me a missile to read.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is like you could easily read it on an airplane, a long airplane ride over a weekend, or if you just want to consume a few pages or spend 20 minutes, you could probably finish it an entire week.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Simple, easy.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like a short story.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is a short story, right?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's the other good part about it.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great short story, but it has five laws specifically.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it talks about the book.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you give a little just your 20-second version of overview of what the book's about and why it was important to our business?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean the book's about a young man who is trying to make his way in his career, and he kind of stumbles upon this gentleman who teaches him five laws.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I believe I'm gonna try to remember them off the top of my head.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: The law of value, the law of compensation, the law of re uh uh let's see, the law of authenticity, that's right.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: The law of re uh r uh gosh, I I can't even never say this word.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Receptivity.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Receptivity, sorry.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: The law of receptivity and the law of influence.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I didn't remember them all.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I think about them all, and I obviously had a little bit of trouble saying one of the words, but um and it has a chapter or two on each one of these laws, and it's a story of him learning a lesson from either this this mentor that he meets or a mentor to the mentor, or through uh just a random person that the mentors encountered in their life that he brings into this young man's life.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And what he's trying to do through each one of those steps is teach him certain skills or perspective that he must have in order to achieve his ultimate goal of success in his life.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what the mentor was teaching this young man was what you want, what you're looking for, you'll never be able to find or accept because you don't have the tools.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Not certain skills, but you don't, and a lot of it is perspective and a methodology for how you go about doing what you're doing.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it all centers around what you're doing for you instead of what you're doing for someone else.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And giving value first, figuring out how to solve other people's problems, pour into other people, and through that process, you will then receive gifts back to you.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a tough concept for this young man to learn, but I think it was really critical.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I won't kill the ending of the book, and we don't want to do that, but it it ends in a great way where you can now see that.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: But why I think it was so good for us, and why we had our team read it, is it gave a good framework for each one of our team members to understand our own core values, why we do the things we do, why giving first without any intent of benefiting yourself and really trying to solve someone's problem and listening to them and providing a solution and hearing them out is so valuable in the dynamic of business between you as a company trying to deliver your product or service and a customer or potential customer coming to you with a problem.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that dynamic, that that natural shift in energy that occurs when when you're looking at anything like that.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that helps a lot.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think I agree, and I think in life, and and honestly, how I sort of operated up until I read this book, um, and even it's hard to, even after you've read the book, it's hard to break some of these old habits, right?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: But you're you're constantly in this sort of phase or this mindset of self-preservation, right?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're trying to get that next job in your career, you're trying to make that extra dollar, you're trying to, you know, win uh, you know, that girl to be your girlfriend.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a million different things.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And what this book really teaches you to do is stop focusing on the self, but put all of your talents, put all of your values, put all everything that you can offer the world outward so that you can help other people with the idea that it'll you know it could eventually come full circle, as long as you don't make that full circle your total intent.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's giving out of the goodness of your heart, and then there's giving with an agenda.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the and the whole key to this book is drop your agenda and really just pour into the people that are in front of you and see how you can best help them with your unique skills, talents, words, dreams, gifts, experiences.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And in return, receive receptivity, be able to be open to receiving back and aware of the different gifts that are going to be poured back into you.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that energy you pour out will will have an equal energy that comes back as long as your intent is pure, and that's a key part.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I I there's so many kind of roads we could go down with regard to uh to discussing that.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: But you got the value, compensation, influence, off intensity, and receptivity.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: I got it right that time, sort of.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Gut check, Scott.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Which one kind of sticks out to you first?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: What kind which one, if you had to pick one, had the biggest impact on you when you were reading this book and kind of also as you carry on the lessons day to day?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think um the one that comes to my mind right now is is receptivity.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be willing to receive.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to be willing to receive, you have to trust that that will happen.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that was the hardest part for me.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: We'll give you an example.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what has been hard, like because you're you're such a giver.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you give to so many people in this company.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: The the time and energy that you give to clients, prospects, friends, and partners of yours is second to none.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: How can you reconcile, okay, I'm a giver, giver, a giver.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now I have to feel comfortable receiving.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because what I had to feel comfortable doing before is that I wasn't always necessarily that way, right?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I think where what helped me realize is is two things.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: One, having the faith that when you pour into other people, that natural giving mentality of who you are and pouring into them and helping solve that problem for them, you're creating an environment where all of these other people now are going to help you in return.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: They may not help you directly, but they may help you with what they share.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: They might help you with perspective, they might give you an idea, they might talk to you talk to a friend or family about that, or they may have an idea on something that can help you that's completely unrelated to what you're helping them with.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, one one of the ones, and I think the receptive receptivity, um, that's gonna go down to one of the podcasts that I just can't say that word.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um another one that really stuck out to me was um authenticity.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're taught in sales classes, you're taught by bosses, you're taught in companies to create value, right?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Compensation's second nature, right?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever I think about authenticity, a lot of the tactics and a lot of the things that you're taught are actually counter to authenticity.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I've always been of the firm belief that, even more so since I've been at mobilization funding, that the best thing you can ever offer someone is your authentic self.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not offering your authentic self to someone, either you're offering some version that you think you should offer, right, which is not real, or some version that is incredibly uncomfortable for you.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it shows.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I really think the best version of yourself is your true self, and that's the best thing you can offer.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: This book um explains that authenticity principle really well.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I um I had a great mentor when I was learning, trying to I I when I started out learning how to sell, I was trying to be everything I wasn't, and I'd try to emulate other people, and it that's exactly what it looked like.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: It looked like I was trying to emulate someone else, but more importantly, it was clearly not my natural self.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that awkward weirdness of it not being your natural self to a complete stranger, they didn't know that that wasn't me.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: They just knew it didn't feel good.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't feel it just felt weird, and that feeling like you get every we all get in any situation when you're trying to buy something, be sold something, or you're looking for help while you're trying to acquire something and you're talking to a salesperson.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: We've all had positive experiences with salespeople and we've certainly all had negative.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the times the negative is that feeling of being sold, and that feeling of being sold is directly associated to the fact that most salespeople are one, trying to sell you from not trying to help you.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And number two, they're using these techniques or things that aren't their natural self, so it makes like it twice as awkward.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it was that through that process that I learned the authenticity.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember that I remember he said to me, he said, Scott, in order for you to have any shot of helping someone acquire this thing that I used to sell back then, he said, You have to be your normal self because if they don't like you, they're never gonna buy it.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, that hit the nail on the head, and this also brings me back.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you guys look back at our very first podcast that Scott and I did, uh, I I forgot what it was about.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was probably something about cash flow or something like that.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I kicked it off in about thirty, Scott, let me go on for maybe about a minute and a half.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he shut it off.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, Stop, stop, stop.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, Drew, what are you doing?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're in front of a camera.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I was talking all finance jargon and stuff that is completely unrelatable.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, You're talking like a banker.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, I'm a banker.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you say, You're not a banker anymore.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I've spent about six months with you, and you don't talk like this when it's just you and I talking.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: So since then, that was a lesson for me.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: It has felt a lot more comfortable and a lot more natural just to be authentic.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Don't try to be, don't try to be this, you're don't try to necessarily be what you are putting on LinkedIn.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be that exact person.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Be yourself.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Just be you, because one, it'll be easier, ironically.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Number two.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're not lying.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: People will like it more.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing is still out on that.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Some people won't, but they won't, those won't be your people anyway.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I think those two, uh, receptivity and authenticity are probably the most important.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: For for me, receptivity had the most impact because I had learned the authenticity lesson a little earlier when I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to sell something.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, I mean, this is a highly impactful book.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: We've had 33, 34 people in our company read it.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's extraordinary.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it actually shows in our core values.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's I mean, it's part of our core values, effectively, and shows in our culture.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you this question.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, relating to construction, okay?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Construction will train your average contractor to protect their number, their margin, their backlog, leverage of any kind.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think leading with a giving mindset actually looks like in the industry built on a scarcity mindset?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Protect my number, be hidden, don't give up as much as you can think.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like and again, maybe I'm generalizing a little, but that tends to be a little more that and the norm than a wide open, here's my number, here's what here's what the margin is, here's how I came up with it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think if you take sort of the value uh and and the authenticity laws, like if we're gonna relate this back to the go giver, um continually as a sub, for example, to your GC, continually trying to add value outside of the natural scope of work.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you have a contract that binds you in a GC inherently in the contract, right?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: That makes total sense.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: But being able to communicate to them better, being able to give them advice on the engineering designs based on what you know and the related projects that you've done.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: And as you build and as you build that trust and you build that value over time, project over project over project, I think where it shows you're giving, giving, giving, giving, where it shows is in flexibility.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're all your authentic self and then go back to them and say, you know, GC, you've been paying me in 45 days.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've done 10 great projects, I'm a trusted partner, it's shown up in my work, I finished my jobs on time, I finish them within budget.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: I could really use 30-day terms, or maybe they want to keep you on the job and they just naturally do that, probably less likely, but that could happen as well.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: But it comes in flexibility and it comes in a long the more value you provide and the more of these laws that you implement, the more giving nature that you have, your customers are going to start thinking in turn of you in terms of long-term versus short term.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's the goal.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: That is the goal.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Not transactional, but really partnership.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: What's the partnership I can work with this person from a long-term perspective?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: How, what is the lifetime value of this subcontractor to GC relationship, whether you're on the subcontractor or whether you're the GC.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you can think about how you're going to go about helping them deliver the best for their customer, they are in turn going to want to help you deliver the best for them.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that is really the essence of the entire book.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you've shown them exactly who you are by how you authentically present yourself, by the value that you provide outside of the natural scope of work, by getting the job done in a consistent manner.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're continually giving, giving, giving.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so unique and different than the norm.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or I should say the more unique and different that is compared to the norm in your particular industry or business, the more you're gonna stand out.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in a world where standing out sometimes is the most important thing, particularly in a good way, you're gonna get more business.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean a lot of GCs want the cheapest provider, but you know what?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's there you can't put a price tag on the on the most dependable and the most reliable.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: So there's one thing I want to bring up then uh before we close out.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: So the law of influence says your influence is determined by how abundantly you put other people's interests first.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And where where do you think the line is between giving with intent and giving with an agenda?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you know which side you're on in particular?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, at the end of the day, if you're talking to a potential customer of your own, you obviously want to get the business.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you where do you find that line between I want to get the business, but I'm still I could still actually be wanting to do the best for them?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think giving with the intent to win the business uh that's giving with intent.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right there.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think trying to give with the expectation and hope that you win business is necessarily not giving with intent.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, everybody wants to grow, right?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think the line is when it becomes a quid pro quo, right?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's I will do this for you if you do this for me.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you said I'm gonna do this for you, I'd sure love to win your work, but I'm still gonna do it for you.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's an if-then, uh kind of if-then statement, I think that's where the line is.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the one I agree with you on that.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I and I think what you need to realize is if you uh give for this particular and then go back to our transactional versus lifetime value of the relationship.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you're thinking transactionally and you're giving and you don't get anything back in that transaction, that would be a bad way to think about it.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you're giving and you don't get anything back in that transaction, but you trust that over the life or time longer time period than you might be thinking in the moment, it will come back to you.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna think, you're gonna end up being a lot happier.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And what that looks like is maybe you give on this project, you do such a good job giving, giving, it's but it's just not the right fit for you, and the the GC doesn't award that one to you.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they know they have thin margins, and you know what, because you were so helpful to them, they don't want to put you in a tough spot.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe they put another one of your competitors in a tough spot by giving them that a contract under the terms and conditions.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: But they give you one, the next one, that has a bigger margin for them, more lenient terms, and give uh one where they have the ability to give you more of what you might be looking for.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Would you have missed out on the front end?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think if you expand your horizon on time as to where it can come back to you, you'll end up a lot happier.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: What I will say too about this is this mentality doesn't come without its pain points.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get hurt, you're gonna get burned, you're gonna get stuck, but that's no different than life on the other side of that, too.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: So don't compare one to the other.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you you should just just trust that if you're getting hurt or you feel like you're getting hurt in a situation like that, it's not because of this mentality, it's because it wasn't meant for you in the first place.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the last thing I'd like to kind of touch on regarding sort of all of this is you can call it your brand, your personal brand, your company brand, your reputation.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Your reputationslash brand is held in someone's brain and heart in some fashion, but it's their version of your reputation and brand.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the more you leverage these go-giver values or laws, the uh your brand or reputation within everybody you interact with theoretically will appreciate.
• 19:22
  unknown: That's right.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: And when your brand appreciates, people start remembering you for one thing or another, and you want to make sure that's a positive thing.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Drew, I think that wrap about sums it up, wraps it up.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, there it is.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Another one.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: All right, guys.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Check us out on our YouTube channel.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you found this to be valuable, please share it.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Grab a copy of the book called The Go Giver.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, we are not paid by the author.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: We just really like the book.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And in the meantime, uh, you can find it anywhere.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great book.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: The Go Giver.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Follow us on our YouTube channel at Mobilization Funding.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Feel free to give us a comment or a review.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can also check out more episodes on our website at mobilizationfunding.com.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, have a great week and may God bless you.