Give a Gift that Keeps on Giving
The easiest way to make the world a better place is to do nice things for people—be they friends or strangers. This is because when something good or bad happens it starts a chain reaction; sort of like throwing a stone in a pond. Einstein may not agree with me, but then again he never said the laws of Physics apply to emotions and feelings.
Here is the overview
Each week or so, I will publish an article that will detail a single act of kindness that you can do. Think of it as your challenge for the week. I am not going to check up on you, but I would greatly appreciate it if you left a comment every now and then letting me know how it went.
This week’s challenge
This week’s random act of kindness is giving the book ‘Think and Grow Rich’ by Napoleon Hill to someone who will appreciate it. You can pick a copy of the book up in most second hand book stores for around 5 bucks. Now I am not just talking about giving the book to anyone here. The key to sales and marketing is timing. You have to deliver the right message, at the right time, to the right person or group of people. Giving a gift like a book requires 6-8 hours of effort from the recipient to read it. So it is paramount that you give it with the right message, at the right time, to the right person. I gave a copy of the book to my roommate. I explained to him that studying ‘Think and Grow Rich’ was the single most impactful event of my life [the right message]. In previous weeks he had been asking me what books I read to become knowledgeable about business and life [the right time]. My roommate is a kind and generous person, who would give the shirt off his back to a stranger [the right person].
If you haven’t read ‘Think and Grow Rich’, maybe you could read the book and then pass it on to someone else.
There is no end goal here—this is truly about the journey
In sales and marketing we too often practice the act of giving to get something in return. While a sound understanding of Return on Investment (ROI) is critical for almost every business, sometimes it is good to do a few things ‘just because’.
Life and people are not a mathematical equation and therefore can’t be treated as such. Granted we can look at what has worked in the past to more accurately predict the future; but to evolve our understanding of what resides outside of the box, we have to have to do things that ARE outside of the box.
About the Author:
Will Franco is the CEO/Founder of jiveSYSTEMS (a video email marketing software and training company). He also runs an online community / membership group called AskFlywheel, in which he teaches cutting-edge online marketing strategies. His mantra at work is "Think-Automate: Do it, Automate it, Delegate it, or Ditch it"
