Guest: Bob Burg, co-author of The Go-Giver

Note from Brett:

This Greatest Hits episode is one of the most shared conversations we’ve ever had — and for good reason. If you’re trying to land your first clients or grow your solo business, Bob’s Go-Giver principles are a masterclass in creating value, building trust, and turning relationships into revenue.

I wanted to bring this one back for our thousands of new listeners. There is so much value to be learned from Bob and a core to solopreneur success.

Listen for three big takeaways:

👉 How to define value vs. price and articulate your worth.

👉 How to make referrals your #1 growth engine.

👉 Why receiving is just as important as giving.

What You’ll Learn:

• The difference between price and value — and why focusing on value creates loyal clients.
• The Law of Compensation: your income equals how many people you serve × how well you serve them.
• Why authenticity and consistency inspire trust.
• How to stay open to receiving so opportunities can flow back your way.
• Simple frameworks for building a referral flywheel that compounds over time.

Welcome back to Hardwired for Growth 2.0, the only podcast dedicated to helping GenX business owners 10x their revenue and their lives. I'm your host, Brett Trainer, and today I'm thrilled to have author and speaker Bob Berg join the show. I recently read his book, The Go Giver, in one weekend. And actually, I think it was more in one day. We were talking offline a little bit and said to myself, there's any way I can get Bob on the program. I think he would be perfect for this podcast. So thank you, Bob, for doing that. But.

First, a little bit about Bob's background, The Go Giver, which we're gonna talk about today, which he co-authored with John David Mann. He's a Wall Street Journal and Business Week bestseller. He's sold well over a million copies. This book alone has been translated into 30 languages, rated number 10 on Ink Magazine's list of the most motivational books ever written, which I can attest to. Prior to The Go Giver, Bob was probably best known for his book, Endless Referrals.

which I also want to spend a few minutes on today if we've got some time. He's regularly addressed audiences ranging in size from 50 to 16,000, sharing the platform with notables, including today's top thought leaders, broadcast personalities, Olympic athletes, political leaders, including one former US president. Bob, welcome to the podcast and thank you for joining us. Did I miss anything?

No, that was great. Wow. You researched it well. Thank you, Brett.

Not a problem. I'm like, it's an impressive background. And like I said, the GoGiver was, it just kind of hit me between the eyes when I read it and then just kind of helped me connect a lot of the dots with what I was doing in work and in life. And so I definitely want to get into the five laws and how we as solo or small business owners can think about it and help us grow business but in personally. But first, it would be awesome if we could.

to start, why did you write the book? Because I know you were involved with sales and marketing folks and Endless Referrals was the first book, but this seems to be a, I don't want to say a departure, was it an evolution? But I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Well, if we go back to endless referrals, and that was my first book, that came out back in the mid 90s, early 90s. That was a book for entrepreneurs and salespeople. It was a system for them to be able to grow their business. You know, a lot of times, people who become solo entrepreneurs, small business owners, what have you, they love what they do, they love the product or service they sell, they know it brings lots of...

to others, but they don't necessarily feel comfortable or confident going into their local communities, let's say, and building the kinds of relationships that will lead to people wanting to do business with them personally and or refer them to others. So endless referrals was sort of my system for doing that. The premise was that all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like, and trust.

Okay.

It was a how-to book and I'd always loved reading parables, business parables, since I'd been in sales. I think we all intuitively know that parables, which are stories, you know, stories connect on a deeper level, on a more of a heart-to-heart level. And I think we can take in, we can receive a message easier when it's in the form of a story. And I thought, what if we could take that basic?

ghostwriter and or co-author of a number of New York Times bestselling books with different authors. He's sort of the one that agents and publishers call when they have a celebrity or they have someone who, you know, has a book inside them, but they need someone to write it, right? And John's that guy. But back then he wasn't very well known outside of his niche, but fortunately within his niche, he was very well known and highly respected. And so I brought him this idea about a book that, you know,

kind of based on endless referrals, but deeper than that, wanting to go into the whole basic principles of success. And I shared the idea with him, I just had it roughly sketched out, but he liked the idea, he said, yeah, I think we got something here, let's do this. And it really only took us a few months to write it, and John was the lead writer, believe me, he's the great writer. So it took a few months to write it.

The biggest thing was it took a year to get a publisher. We, I think, were turned down by 24 different publishers before the 25th on portfolio, a division of Penguin Random House took us on. And they've been a great, great publishing partner. So that's really how, and the reason really we wrote it is we wanted to get this message out there. We thought it was a message that would be well received, that people would be open to hearing. And, you know, we were very delighted by the response.

Yeah, and probably ahead of the curve in some instances too, right? Because I think there's a more openness to, hey, and we'll get into some of the laws, but the authenticity and the influence in providing value, you know, especially with us that grew up in the corporate world, that's not really the way you got ahead, right? It wasn't the reward system in corporate really didn't favor it. It did, right? Because most of us did try to do things the right way, but you find people that were getting rewarded for the other.

Yeah

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it depended upon the culture of that corporation and big corporations themselves can be like governments, right? They become bureaucratic and bloated and ineffective in many ways, you know, unless you have a really good culture of leadership and then, you know, then that's different. So we did kind of think this would lend itself more toward entrepreneurs.

Yeah, for sure.

and salespeople, which it did, but we've also had many corporations who said, hey, you know, we want to adopt these ideas for ourselves because we see how, you know, how effective it is. So, but yeah, so it was really written with the entrepreneur in mind, even though it actually, the story takes place within a big corporation.

Yeah.

in mind, innit?

Yeah, no, and I think that, you know, it's interesting because I spent most of my career in the go-to-market area on the corporate side, right? Sales, marketing, and those areas. And I've always kind of used kind of that sales role as more of an entrepreneurial role, right? You control your own destiny. So I thought it made perfect sense with it. So.

Exactly. Yes. Yeah. No, you're right. Absolutely

And so, so awesome. All right, so let's, let's jump into it. You know, the first one, and I know you talk a lot about value, even outside of the five laws and I'm a hundred percent on, on board and what do you, what do you think as you know, business owners, we get wrong thinking about value, right? Cause it's, it's more than price. It's, or would you say it's the perception of what the customer, the prospect thinks, how do you, what's your definition of it?

Oh.

Well, yeah, it is. So, the law number one, the law of value says your true worth in the business sense, of course, is determined by how much more you give in value than you take or receive in payment. So, you know, that sounds like a recipe for bankruptcy when you first hear it, right? Give more in value than you take in payment. How am I supposed to

survive in my business, nevermind thrive if I'm giving more in value than taking in payment. So for that, exactly what you said, we need to understand the difference between price and value. Price is a dollar figure, it's a dollar amount, it's finite, it is what it is. Value on the other hand is the relative worth or desirability of a thing, of something to the end user or beholder. In other words, what is it about this thing, this product, service?

concept, idea, what have you, that bring so much worth or value to another human being that they will willingly exchange their money for it and be glad they did while you make a very healthy profit. And I like to use the example of an accountant. So let's say one of your listeners has their own, they just started their own accounting practice or bookkeeping service or whatever it happens to be.

Um, and they have a, um, they have a, uh, client, um, you know, what is it? Now they charge a fee for their service. And let's say, for example, their, their fee is a thousand dollars. That's their fee or their price, a thousand dollars, but what value are they providing or giving to that person for this thousand dollars, right? This, this, this value exchange.

Well, first through their years of experience, their hard work, their determination, their desire to get to know that client and their business and what they're looking to accomplish. Through all this, they're able to save their client $5,000 in taxes. They're also able to save their client countless hours of time, freeing them up to do what they do best, right? And can do most productively. They're also giving their...

client in his or her family, the security and piece of buy that knowing what was done correctly, right? So yeah, so when you think about it, this accountant or bookie or whoever, whatever it happens to be, is giving this person much more in value than what they're taking in payment than what it's costing the other person, right? Giving so they giving well over $5,000 in value in exchange for that $1,000 price. So that other person feels great about

Yeah.

while they, the entrepreneur, makes a very healthy profit. Now, this happens though, because their focus was not on their fee. Their focus was on the exceptional value they were providing their client. The fee they received was simply the reward. This is why John David Mann and I in the follow-up book, Go Give or Sell More, we say that money is simply an echo of value.

Yeah.

It's the thunder, if you will, to values lightning, which means nothing more than that. The focus must be on the value you provide. The money you receive is simply a natural result of that value you gave.

Yeah, that's such good. And I know personally struggled with that, right? As I moved from corporate into starting my own, I started on the consulting side and moved through fractional into some different iterations. And right, one thing we're definitely doing is trading time for money in where I think we understand, or most of us probably understand the power of the value, but we don't articulate it very well, right? So it's, yeah.

That's important. And here's the interesting thing that, you know, the, the way you best articulate the value that you provide. Isn't so much from, from what you say to that person and tell them that it is through asking the right questions during the discovery session and basically, you know, letting them tell you, you know, you ask the right questions, but you really listen and you listen with that intent to really understand from there.

Viewpoint because remember when we say that value is the relative worth right it means value is always in the eyes of the beholder It's not what we believe is a value about what we do and it's not what we believe they should believe Is a value about what we did is what they believe is and that's why we need to ask the questions and let them tell us

Yeah, it's such a good point and right perception is reality and as much as we hate it and we can argue with it, it's true. And I think, you know, one thing is going through this in your book, it helped me reframe the way I approach it and we talk, you know, you know, what are the outcomes? But I think it to your point, most of us don't do a very good job of that listening or discovery and that could be the most powerful, you know, 15 minutes you have with potential client is that discovery session.

Sure. Well, in the fact about perception being reality in this case, there's nothing manipulative about it. It's understanding that we're all human beings and we place different values on different things. You know, if someone's trying to sell me a witchamahoozie, the best way they can sell me is to show me how convenient it will be for me. If they try to make low price.

Right.

the profit is probably not gonna happen. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't wanna pay more for something that I have to, but I'm saying price with me is rarely the determining factor. I am a convenience buyer. Some people are status buyers, never particularly been interested in that. Some people are price buyers, but not as many as most people think. People say they're price buyers. It's typically not a price issue. It's a value question. There's people who are in against status. There's people who are convenience. There's people who are...

Right.

Right.

for all the various reasons. They just might like the bells and whistles, who knows? Again, we're human, so we have different things. I'm a convenience person, so with me, if you show me how it's gonna be really easy for me to do, you've probably, and it's a product I want, you've probably got me. You know, that's probably, I'm gonna be very grateful for you coming into my life and helping me own your product or service. And so again, perception is reality in the way that.

My perception is if it's convenient, that's great. You know?

Yeah, no, I like the way to think about that because one of the things I always kind of when I work with folks is, you know, it's either going to save me time, it's going to make me money, or it's a great experience. But what I don't think I had in there was the status of it, which you could argue is a little bit of experience, but it's probably a separate thing you're listening for.

Yeah. You know, it's the person who buys the car, you know, because they want people to see that they have a nice car. That's a status buyer. I'm not judging it. I'm just saying that is one reason why someone buys. So you've got to ask the right questions. If someone's a safety person, because they've got, you know, a spouse and two kids, and they're a big thing to say, well, then they're going to buy a different kind of thing.

Right. Reality.

You know, so again, that's why the discovery is absolutely and we've always got to be very careful to even during discovery Because as human beings we all come from different sets of beliefs and we can even interpret words differently different words Have different meanings to different people depending upon their belief systems. And so we've got to ask the questions We've got to tactfully and diplomatically You know help them to clarify so we make sure that what we heard is what they meant

Yeah, no, it's such a good point. We probably could talk about this one for another 20 minutes, but I do wanna make sure we get, it is.

Well, yeah, because so yeah, because it's so important. You get that part, right? You've pretty much got the rest of the sale.

That's a good point. But the one number two, which is the law of compensation, was an aha moment for me as well. And so why don't you, again, I like your description of it. I won't do it justice. So share with us law number two and the way to think about that.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah, law of compensation says your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them. So where law number one says to give more in value than you take in payment, law number two tells us the more people whose lives you touch with that exceptional value, the more money with which you'll be rewarded. So you're a listener who's an accountant, okay? They did a great job of giving much more in value than...

than the payment, right? While making a very healthy profit. And so their client feels great about them, would do business with them again, and would refer them to others, okay? Now, this person's other clients probably feel the same way. So our accountant is very quickly amassing what we call an army of personal walking ambassadors. And as they continue to add that kind of exceptional value to the lives of more and more people,

their income will continue to grow. In this part of the story, Nicole, who was the CEO, she told Joe, the protege, that, law number one, the law of value represents your potential income. But it doesn't matter how great the value is you provide. If you've got one client, that's probably not gonna be enough to make a healthy income, right? Law of compensation is about how many lives you impact with that value. So we could say exceptional value plus significant reach equals very high compensation.

Yes.

Right, which you tied back into, at least the way I interpreted it was the referral piece, right? So, I mean, your best sales tools or sales people are your customers. And we do a horrible job in general of leveraging the folks that actually enjoy the product and get value from our service.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Generally speaking, you're absolutely, absolutely correct. And referrals are powerful for a number of reasons. One, it's the easiest way to set the appointment, right? Because rather than having to go through everything in the process that we have to go through when we're prospecting, right? So we have a borrowed influence. So we have an in right into that person's office or home or whatever it happens to be. So it's easier to set the appointment. Number two, with...

Right.

referral based prospects, you can sell on high value rather than low price, right? Because it's, again, borrowed influence, borrowed trust, you come in there with gravitas. And, you know, as we know, when you try to make low price, your unique selling proposition, that's just not a productive way to do business. It's not fulfilling, it's not profitable, and it's not sustainable. When you sell on low price, you're a commodity.

Yeah.

When you sell on high value, you're a resource, and this is what a referral allows you to do. Another benefit of a referral-based prospect is it's simply easier to complete the sale. This is through borrowed trust, or what we call vicarious experience. So no, they haven't worked with you personally, but someone who they know, like and trust, has said, hey, this is the only person you need to talk to, you know?

great.

Not only do they know their stuff, they have your wellbeing at heart, they're gonna return your calls, they're gonna make sure you're happy, they are, you know, they're just the best. Well, that's a great way to have that happen. And then the fourth benefit, and there's many, but these are the big four for me. Fourth benefit is that a referred prospect is already of the mindset.

that that's how you do business because that's how they met you. So in their world, they see you as a person who meets their prospective customers through referrals, who sells on high value rather than low price, who completes the sale, and who is then assuming you've gone through the process correctly, is then referred to others.

Yeah, it makes sense. Do you think it's human nature or just mindset for folks that, I mean, I was in that, it still doesn't come natural for me to reach out for referrals or build that into the part of the process. I started to do that, but it wasn't natural. Do you think it's human nature or what's your experience kind of taught you with this and how do we get over it?

Mm-hmm.

sure.

right.

Well, it's human nature because there's fear involved, right? There's fear in the rejection of the person saying no, okay? There's fear in that you may, you know, you've come across as desperate by asking for referrals, which by the way, that not, it's not an issue if you handle it. And if you approach it the right way in our system, we go through a whole process where it just makes it so that they actually respect the fact that you're, that you're asking, it actually shows confidence, not desperation.

Uh, you know, you may feel as though you're talking past the sale, which again is something you definitely don't want to do, but if you go through the process correctly, that's not, you know, an issue. So, so, and what happens with, is that even if you, let's say, complete the sale and you don't ask for referrals, well, you've still completed the sale. So you can feel good about yourself. Now, the fact is you probably left a lot of money on the table, but you don't, since you don't see that. You know, uh, yeah.

Yeah, it's easy to move beyond. Yeah.

It means you're right. Exactly. So, so that's why we've got to be able to, you know, move past the, uh, the fear. And we move past the fear by understanding how to go through the process correctly so that both you and the other person feel very comfortable.

Yeah. And go back to the first part, which is the value, right? If you know you're providing more value than what the price is, and you should not, you should have confidence. Easier said than done, but I think you're right building into the process, a little bit of practice and it'll help you accelerate the growth of your business for sure. So, all right. That's a good transition into the law of influence, which I think is interesting based on, um, you know, so social influencers, folks that just, right.

Oh, sure.

Absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

got a product or they've got a million followers, hey, you know, buy this shampoo type of thing. But I'm the sense when I read the book, that's not what you're talking about. You're more of how do we help more folks? So again, please share your, you know, what is that? That the, the law of influence.

Alright.

Yeah.

So the law of influence, law number three says, your influence is determined by how abundantly you place the other person's interests first. Now, let me clarify this and qualify it. When we say place the other person's interests first, we certainly don't mean you should be anyone's doormat or a martyr or self-sacrificial in any way. Absolutely not at all.

It's simply understanding as you and I discussed earlier that the, and as Joe, the protege in the story learned from several of the mentors, the golden rule of sales of business is that all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like, and trust. Now here's the thing, there's no faster, more powerful or more effective way to elicit those feelings toward you from others than by genuinely moving from that.

I focus or me focus to the other focus looking for ways to as Sam one of the mentors in the story advised Joe make your win all about the other person's win.

Yeah, it's so true and so good. I think, again, we get so caught up in the instant gratification of what's in it for me. If I do this, what am I gonna get back? And I don't know if it's right that, it's give expecting nothing thereof. And I'm a big believer in karma. And maybe this isn't even karma, maybe this is human nature back to it and there's science behind it, right?

Well...

Yeah, I think it's more human nature than, than karma because well, and here's the thing, and this is what I said, I've said this, I don't know at how many sales conferences where I've spoken and that's this, nobody's going to buy from you because you have a quota to meet. Okay. They're not going to buy from you because you need the money and they're not even going to buy from you just because you're a really nice person. They're going to buy from you because

100% yes.

They believe that ultimately they will be better off by doing so than by not doing so. Okay? And so this is great for that entrepreneur, that solo entrepreneur, that salesperson who really has a heart to wanna give value to others, which most of your listeners do. And that's why most people really do go into business for themselves. They do have a, now, so here's the thing. This ties totally into human nature, because remember,

Yeah.

What's the best way if they're buying for their reasons, not for your reasons. Well, what's the best way to go about that by being interested in yourself, which they don't care about or by being interested in helping them. So it really is just human nature. This is real world. It's not just nicey, nicey stuff. Uh, I mean, it is a much more fulfilling way of conducting business, but it also happens to be the most profitable way of conducting business.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, I think it makes a lot of sense and it's probably a decade now. I did a kind of an informal survey of our best sales people. It was a large sales organization. So we had LeadGen, we had Insight Sales, we had Regional and we had Enterprise Sales and just did interviews with the top sales people in each of them. You know what the number one,

Thank you.

Attribute they all had was that their customers viewed them as problem solvers They believe they can solve that problem and it was them providing value and not selling them the X the features or Pushing their sales to your point the sales process the customer doesn't care man Can you solve my problem and do I believe you can solve the problem? Right, they're gonna they're gonna pay the price for it. So

Yeah!

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. That's what it's about. You know, yeah, that's what free market capitalism is all about when it's allowed to work with minimal interference other than protecting against force and fraud. Of course, it's a whole bunch of people buying, selling and exchanging things because each one feels as though they're going to benefit by doing so.

Yeah, no, I absolutely love it. It's a perfect, I think we'll get to the, so you don't get taken advantage of there. The law of receptivity is five, but four, I think again, I think just ties into everything, right? You do it so well within the story. The authenticity piece of it. It's so much easier to be yourself in life and in business all the time than pretending to be a character, right? Or I'm sure you've seen quite a bit of that, right?

Thank you.

Sure. Right on. App, app.

Yeah. And you know, the, when, when you're yourself, you know, basically, um, you inspire trust because people have a desire for consistency in their world. They want to understand their world. And this is in a world that's often very difficult to understand. So when you're the same, you every day, every week, every month, right. People feel very comfortable with, they feel very safe with you. And that's a big part of a big part of sales. So yeah, you're, you're right on the.

be that person. Then last, the law of receptivity, which was interesting because I wasn't sure where the fifth one was going when I was reading the book, but it makes sense. You have to give, but you never take anything back. You're right. You're not going to get there. So it's got to be the two-way street again. I'm not articulating it as well as you do.

No, you did. You articulated very well. The law of receptivity says the key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving. And that simply means that, yeah, you breathe out. You also have to breathe in. It's not, it's not one or the other, right? It's, it's, it's both. So you breathe out carbon dioxide. You also breathe in oxygen. You breathe out, which is giving, you breathe in, which is receiving. Giving and receiving are not opposite concepts.

All right.

Giving and receiving are simply two sides of the very same coin, and they work in tandem. The key is to focus on the giving, okay, and then allow the receiving. And that's what ties it all together.

You closed the loop on it. Yeah. No, and it makes sense. And I think again, part of my journey through this was I'm not always receptive to the receiving, not that I'm not opposed to people helping me, but it wasn't, I'm not helping you because I want you to help me. And when I get read the book at the aha moment is like, no, people aren't viewing it that way. If you, you know, don't keep pushing back when somebody's trying to help you, let them help you or provide those right. The, the help that you're

Right.

Right? Sure. Breathe it, breathe out, breathe in. It's just, yeah, it's, it's life.

So simple, so powerful. And I know today we're just conducting the crash course in the GoGiver methodology. So I definitely want folks to go not just pick up the book, but you've got a whole series of books around this now. I am part of your daily newsletter, which I enjoy is a good reminder. So I do want to be respectful of your time. So is there anything that we didn't cover that you think the audience, you know, you'd want to get out there before we wrap this up?

I'm sorry.

Oh, thank you. Thank you.

No, I mean, I think, you know, I could very easily end with the words of a very wise mentor of mine from close to 40 years ago who said, you know, if you want to make a lot of money in sales, he said, don't have making money as your target. Your target is serving others. Now, when you hit the target, he said, you'll get a reward and that reward will come in the form of money. And you can do with that money whatever you choose, but never forget, he said,

The money is simply the reward for hitting the target. It isn't the target itself. Your target is serving others. And I think that when we understand that great salesmanship is never about the salesperson, right? Great salesmanship is never about the product or service itself, as important as those are, that's not what the sale's about. Great salesmanship is always about the other person. It's about that person whose life you're.

attempting to add value to, or, you know, we could really say it's about that person whose life is better just because you are part of it. And I think that when we approach sales from that foundational premise, I think then we're really nine steps ahead of the game in a 10-step game.

Yeah, and I think too, as more and more of us are starting our solo business journeys and now responsible for sales, marketing, everything else, this is just a really good framework and foundation to build your business off of. And like I said, I read this book a couple of weeks ago, so it hasn't even been that long. We were able to get a quick turn on your schedule. And so, like I said, I posted within, I think, two days. Like I said, there's very few. There's a number of books and people see that I do post on books I like, but that just moves instantly into the...

Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Yeah.

top shelf that says, Hey, this is a good referral. If you're struggling with things, take a look at it. So the audience already knows that I'm a big fan of it. So I appreciate you coming on Bob and talking about it. And people want to connect with you learn more about you. What's where's the best place for them to do that?

Wow.

Yeah, that would be at burg.com and while they're there they can, you know, get a free chapter of any of the books in the series if they'd like. They can also subscribe to that daily impact email that you receive.

do it. Definitely do it and congrats on getting that domain name when I saw it. I'm like bird.com. That's pretty impressive.

That's one of the advantages of being an old man. Yeah. I was around back then when that was, I didn't even know why I was getting it. I, a couple of people called me who had read one of the, who had read endless referrals and they actually had an online business that they had built through using the principles and endless referrals since it was nothing about it that was online, what did I know about it? And they said, we just want to, um, repay. They said that repay you by giving you a suggestion. I said, yeah. And they said,

Hahaha

guy.

get something called Berg.com. And I went, why would I want something called Berg.com? Yeah, what did I know? I didn't know anything about it. And they said, just trust us. In fact, we're gonna help you get it right now. And they walked me through the process and I got it. Didn't use it for three or four years, but boy was I glad they called. That's what we did.

Yeah, right, exactly.

Yeah, it's so smart. I've got three daughters and it probably about 10 years ago, I bought each of their domain names, whether they'll ever do anything with them or not, I have no idea, but they're out there if they ever wanted to. So that's awesome. Well, Bob, thank you again for joining us. It was a pleasure to talk to you and definitely we'll follow your content. And do you have a new book in the horizon or anything coming up? Okay.

Ah!

You're a good dad for doing that though.

No, nothing at the moment, just having fun doing what we're doing.

Yeah, that's fantastic. All right, well, thank you, Bob. Have a great rest of your day and we'll stay in touch.

All right. Thank you, Brett. Appreciate you.