The Go-Giver Way - Bob Burg

Because many people think selling is about trying to convince someone to buy something they don't want or need. By the way, that's not selling. That's called being a thief. Okay, no, that's not selling. Selling by definition is simply discovering what the other person wants, needs, or desires, and helping them to get it.

Hey friends, welcome back to the Future of Fitness Podcast and Interview Series. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 167. I get to talk to Bob Burke. So he is the author of many books, but most notably a co-author of The Go Giver, which I believe is one of the best business books of all time. And I'll tell you a little bit more about that and Bob in a second, but I do have a quick favor. If you can just take one minute, hit pause, and go to helpmypodcast.com and fill out a short survey. Now that 2019 is kind of coming to a close, I'm looking for ways to improve the show in 2020 and offer more value to you, um, the Go Giver way, of course. And uh your feedback is crucial. So uh it's just five, five or six quick questions. Go to helpmypodcast.com and uh fill out the survey. We greatly appreciate it. And back to Bob. So, ma'am, what a what a treat. I give uh the Go Giver to a lot of people. Uh, I gift that book to a lot of people, and it's an amazing parable um about how to do business uh and really just how to live your life, just to live a higher quality of life uh and pro and have more impact and give more value. That's it. And the the story is amazing. Bob's insights, he summarizes a lot of it, and we talk about how it's relatable to the fitness industry and essentially how to make more money by doing it the right way. And it's super excited to get this out there, so I'm just gonna let it rip. Uh, this podcast is all brought also brought to you by Level Five Mentors, www.level, the number five mentors.com. If you are an entrepreneur looking to achieve the highest levels of freedom in health, time, money, relationships, and purpose, then the guys and gals at levelfive mentors.com can certainly help if you're stuck. So go book a call. Also, it's brought to you by certifiedcoursecreation.com. So if you have somebody, if you are someone who has a great idea for a online accredit certification and uh you think it's time for you to get to the next level, we would love to talk to you. So go to certifiedcoursecreation.com. Now, without further ado, let's get on to the me of the podcast. It was so awesome. Thank you, Bob, for coming on. Episode number 167, Bob Burke. And we are live. Mr. Bob Burke. Thank you. Eric, great to be with you. Yeah, this is really exciting for me personally. And before we get into um some of the amazing questions that and topics that we have, I just want to ask my uh listeners, you know, for the end of the year in 2019, if you could just go to helpmypodcast.com and fill out a short survey that'll help me uh improve the show next year in 2020. I would greatly appreciate it. So helpmypodcast.com and uh okay, on to the interviews. So, Bob, I I um I surveyed my colleagues, uh, my business partners, um, one of my Facebook groups saying, hey, you know, I have the opportunity to interview Bob here, you know, the author of the Go Giver and many other books. What what kind of questions would you want answered? Right. And I got some interesting answers. Um, one of which I think is most people want to know your backstory. Like, how did this whole thing come into play? How did you construct one of what I consider one of the best business books ever? Wow, thank you. Right. Uh, how did how did it come to fruition?

What's okay? Uh uh I'll give you the the hopefully short story. Okay. Uh and uh it was basically like this. I began as a broadcaster, first in in sports on radio, and then television news, and I got into television news because it was the only place I could get into television. Figured I'd segue into sports before long, but found out that I just, you know, I really wasn't very good at the whole news thing. Um, and it wasn't long before I was uh uh graduating into sales, as I like to say. And um I knew nothing about sales. And so uh I floundered for the first few months. I mean, the you know, not only did I not know anything about it, I had no formal training, but the training at the company where I was working was, we'll say negligible, meaning non-existent. So I I floundered. And finally, though, and this was great, I was in a bookstore. Uh, this is almost 40 years ago now, and um, I came across a sales section. Now I got to tell you, Eric, this surprised me. I didn't realize there would be a sales section in a bookstore. I didn't realize sales teaching or training was even a thing. I knew nothing about it. Uh, and there were a couple books in there. One was by Tom Hopkins, one was by Zig Ziggler, and I picked them up, I brought them home, and I just immersed myself in it. I mean, I was studying and highlighting and taking notes and practicing, and I gotta tell you, within a few weeks, my sales began to go through the roof. Why? Because I now had a methodology to follow, a system, if you will. And to this day, I define a system as simply the process of predictably achieving a goal based on a logical and specific set of how-to principles, the key being predictability. If it's been proven that by doing A, you'll get the desired result of B, then you know that by doing A and continuing to do A and continuing to do A, you're gonna get the desired results of B. And every single person watching this knows that because you all teach a system. You know, someone comes to you with a certain goal in mind, and you have the expertise uh to take them through a system that's gonna help them get the results they want, thus adding immense value to their lives. So I followed a sales system. Now, what I also discovered by being in sales was it wasn't just about the sales, it was about personal development. It was about learning how to improve yourself and build yourself from within, understanding that then the results, the successful results manifest on the outside. But we've got to put in that great information. So I started reading all the books that that were taught back then to read, you know, How to Win Friends and Influence People and The Magic of Thinking Big and Think and Grow Rich and Asman Thinketh, and Psychocybernetics, and all those great books, which are still some of my favorite books today. And I just went on a quest to learn. Uh, I was a horrible student in school. Uh you know, I I barely graduated high school, uh, got into college on academic probation, and I'm pretty sure I graduated on academic probation. And uh I just never, you know, and then but my education really began when I got into sales. Yeah, I just loved it. Eventually worked my way up to sales manager of a company and and uh started teaching others what was working for me, began speaking on the topic. My first book was called The Endless Referrals. Uh, the subtitle was Network Your Everyday Contacts into Sales. And it was a book for entrepreneurs and salespeople who loved what they did. They knew they brought great value to the table, but they didn't necessarily feel comfortable with the process of cultivating the relationships within their communities that could lead to the no-like and trust that would have people want to do business with them directly and refer them to others. So my book was a system on how to do that. Uh I but I'd always read business parables and always enjoyed them very much. I loved how with a very short story, you could kind of really connect with someone on a heart level. And in this case, I was always the reader and always loved reading them and learning from them, and you could apply the inference. So I thought, wouldn't it be great if we could take the basic premise of endless re of the book Endless Referrals, which is that all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like, and trust and turn that into a parable. So I said, well, so what entitling it, what what is the basic um essence of a person who is able to both quickly and sustainably develop those kind of relationships? And what it came down to is they were always giving, giving value to others, looking to make people's lives better, looking to, and so called it the go-giver. Now, the the best thing I did for the book was was asking John David Mann, who I knew as a uh he was the editor-in-chief of a magazine I was writing for, asking him to be my co-author and the lead writer storyteller. He's a great storyteller. I'm as you can tell, I'm a how-to person, or I'm step one, step two, step three. So John and I collaborated on that, and that's basically how the go-giver came about.

That's awesome. Yeah, it's awesome. I think um one of my the one of the first books I read that was a parable that was, I'm sure you've read it, was Who Moved My Cheese? And I was like, what an effective way to get across messaging.

You know, oh, it was great. Uh that was a fantastic. Um and Spencer Johnson who wrote it. We one of, you know, when we when we um wrote the Go Giver, we when we were looking for really, you know, some big names to, you know, promote the book. And fortunately there were some good people that really got behind it, but we didn't know uh Dr. Johnson at the time. I never actually met him, John did. Uh, and for the second book in the series, Go Givers Sell More, he actually did the um did the uh front quote for it. And it was funny because in the original quote on the on the first book uh on the Go Giver, it's now been revised, but but um but uh on the first one, David Bach, who wrote the great book, The Automatic Millionaire, he gave us a great blurb that said, This is the best parable since Who Moved My Cheese or something like that. And then the author Who Move My Cheese ended up. And then the funny thing is, John David Mann ended up writing a parable with David Bach called the Latte Factor, which is a wonderful, wonderful book. I don't know. Yeah. So uh yeah, so it's funny how these things work, isn't it?

Yeah, it is funny. It is funny. It's um, you know, and I am in in my career, my first 10 years after college was in sales, various forms of sales. I sold a lot of things. And uh, you know, I wish I actually didn't come across your book until I went into business for myself. I wish I had back in sales because I read all of the, you know, how to close, how to deal with um, you know, um pushbacks, things like that. And I was like, God, it it never felt it never felt, you know, whenever Ross, it never felt authentic to me. Right. Like looking for ways to to tell people that they're wrong and they should buy from you, right? Like dealing with objections one-on-one. And uh and then I came across your book, it was very different. Did you ever think when you started writing the book, did you ever think it would have the ripple effect that it did now, that it does now?

Well, I think we did believe there was a market for it, sir. Sure. But I don't know if you ever know that a book is gonna go as as big as it does when that happens. And it's really, I think, the reason it did, and this surprised us, but of course, in in retrospect, it's never a surprise because it's you can it's easy to look backwards and see where things make sense. But the early adopters, if you will, of the go-giver were the already very successful people who had been living their lives and conducting their businesses in this way since long before we wrote the book. There's you know, none of the principles in there are particularly new, right? There's that there were no new fundamentals, as Jim Morone used to say, right? Yeah. And and so uh we may have put them in a certain way that were relatable and entertaining and so forth, but nothing new. So lots of people are so what happened was we would be getting emails from people who were, you know, and I'm talking about really major leaders and who would say, this is what I've been trying to tell people, you know, but people don't believe me that you can do business this way and right. And so what happened is we're having books buying hundreds and thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of books to go through their organizations. Well, then the next kind of wave of adopters were the people who were either given the book or were told about the book from someone who they respected who were already successful. So I think that's why it took off as it did. And then it found a market really because people were ready for a message that you can be, as you were saying, when you sometimes were taught sales in certain ways that didn't feel congruent with your values. Yes. And I think most of us, you know, as human beings, most of us were, and I think we're programmed this way. We want to make a difference. We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to find a unique way to bring value to the world around us. Okay. And it it tends to be something we really believe in. Now, you know, again, everyone who's who's watching this, listening to this, you feel a not only a desire, a responsibility to make people healthier, to help people become more confident, feel better about themselves, live longer, be more effective, look better, right? And all the right. And so when we when we're able to focus on the value that we're providing others and allow ourselves to receive the fruits of that labor, which is also very important, okay? That's where you know success in terms of financial comes in, in terms of personal, in terms of physical, in terms of mental, emotional, social, and all those things. It's also why John David Mann and I say that money is simply an echo of value, right? Which means if we're really focused on bringing value to those around us, value to the marketplace, and we place the focus there first, we create this context for success, right? And the money we receive is simply a natural result of the value we've provided.

That's really what it's about. Yeah, it's beautiful. Can we, and I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but I think it's better that you summarize the five principles. So just like people have an idea before we kind of dive into how that relates to the fitness and health industry. Can you just guide us through the five principles?

Sure. Well, the the the five principles themselves are the laws of value, compensation, influence, authenticity, and receptivity. The law of value says your true worth in the business sense, of course. Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. Now, this can sound counterintuitive, like give more in value than I take in payment. That sounds like a recipe for bankruptcy, not abundance. And so we just have to understand the difference between price and value, right? 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 brings so much worth to another human being that they will willingly exchange their money and time and energy and so forth for this thing and be glad they did while you make a very healthy profit. So let's say, for example, you own a gym, and uh, and again, I know there's people who do all sorts of things in that in the field, but but let's just say you own a gym, you own a health club, what have you, uh, and you have a member. Well, this member pays X amount of dollars a month, but what value, and that's the payment, right? That's the price, and and you make a profit from that. But what's the value they receive for that for that monthly investment? Okay. Again, they get in better shape, they're able to be more productive at work, where they probably make more money than they would have. They have more energy, they have, they have more confidence, they feel better, they look better, they're able to be a better example to their family. You know, so they get they get much more in value than what they're paying, right? Yes. But you still make a very healthy profit, which you should. Now, that's the first law. The second law is the law of compensation. And this 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. As Nicole, the CEO in the story told Joe, the protege. Law number one, the law of value represents your potential income. Law number two, which represents the the impact you make, the number of lives you touch, that represents your actual income. So exceptional value plus significant reach equals very high compensation, which is why you need to be selling memberships, right? It's why that and it's why uh the more people you have in your your business, uh, you know, paying that in monthly investment, the more money you're gonna make. That's why referrals and word of mouth and recommendations are so important. And so, uh, because it's a it's a much easier, faster, quicker way to be able to serve more people with the exceptional value you you provide. And that's why we're such big believers in referral-based business. Law number three is the law of influence. And this says your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people's interests first. Again, sounds counterproductive at best, and maybe even downright Pollyanna-ish at worst. But then you think about it the greatest leaders, top influencers, highest money-earning people, it's how they run their lives, how they conduct their businesses. They're always looking for ways to make other people's lives better, more fulfilling. Um but uh but let me qualify this though, too. This is very important because I think it can easily be misunderstood. Yeah. When we say place the other person's interest first, Eric, we don't mean you should ever be anyone's doormat or a martyr or self-sacrificial in any way. Absolutely not at all. It's simply as Joe, the protege, learned from several of the mentors in the story, the golden rule of business, the golden rule of sales is that all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like, and trust. And there's no faster, more powerful, or more effective way to elicit those feelings toward you from others than by genuinely and authentically moving from what we call an I focus or me focus to an other focus. Looking to, as Sam, one of the mentors in the story, advised Joe, to make your win all about the other person's win. And as you do this and become known for doing this within your community, you'll become that center of influence. You'll become that person who people feel so good about and have so much trust for, and who, you know, the people will become your personal walking ambassadors. And when this happens, now your business becomes a lot more fun, a lot less stressful, and a lot more profitable. Law number four is the law of authenticity. And this says the most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself. And one of the mentors, uh Deborah, in the story, Deborah Davenport, shared a lesson she learned that all the skills in the world, the sales skills, technical skills, people skills, as important as they are, and they are all very, very important, they're also all for naught if you don't come at it from your true authentic core. But when you do, when you, as we like to say, show up as yourself day after day, week after week, month after month, people feel good about you. They feel comfortable with you, they feel safe with you, they know you, they like you, they love you, they trust you, they they want to be a part of your life, a part of your business. They want to refer business to you, they want to have your back and look out for you. And you know, that's why it's so important to really kind of act congruently with that which you value. And then um, law number five is the law of receptivity. And this is so important, it brings it, brings it home. And that is that the the key to effect of giving is to stay open to receiving. And what we're talking about here is is understanding that, yeah, you breathe out, but you've also got to breathe in. It's not one or the other. We breathe out carbon dioxide, we also breathe in oxygen. We breathe out, which is giving, and we breathe in, which is receiving. Contrary to the messages we receive from the world around us. And generally it's from childhood through schooling and uh environment and and and everything you watch on TV and the news, the messages we get from the world around us about money, prosperity, abundance, they're not mixed messages. They're very negative messages. They are. And what happens is all these negative messages affect us on an unconscious level, below the surface. And we don't actively under even understand this. But a lot of times, you know, we we we associate making money with doing something wrong. When, of course, in a free market, when I say free market, I simply mean no one is forced to do business with anyone else. And let's face it, anyone who's listening to this or watching this right now, no one's gonna buy from you or join or become a client or member or what have you. They're not gonna do it because you have a quota to meet, right? They're not gonna do it because you need the money or even because you're a really nice person. They're gonna To buy from you because they believe they will be better off by doing so than by not doing so. And that's the only reason why anyone should buy from you or from me or for from anyone else. And in a free market-based environment, again, no one has to buy from us. So it's incumbent upon us to focus on them. When you've done this and you've provided this exceptional value, you deserve to receive. You should receive. Okay. But we need to embrace that. So giving and receiving are not opposite concepts, right? You're not, it's not, are you a giver or a receiver? No, they're two sides of the very same coin. You are a giver and a receiver. Now the focus is on the giving. The focus is on the bringing of value, the giving of value. Absolutely. And as you've done that and you've created that, what we call benevolent context for success, we were talking about earlier. You need to allow yourself to receive. So I'm going to suggest you making a study of prosperity. You know, get the Randy Gage uh prosperity blog or podcast. Read Randy's books on prosperity, read Bob Proctor's books on prosperity, read David Um uh Nagel's uh book on prosperity. And you know, and and there are others out there who do this because we get the regular, the negative garbage we get in our mind. You know, what what do you see all the time in terms of business? You you you what you what they show you, what you see is Enron. What you see is is Tyco, what you see is um uh what's the bank that was selling the the um uh opening new account, falsely opening new accounts. Uh yeah uh uh was it Wells? Wells Fargo, right? Uh or you hear about Volkswagen uh falsifying their emissions tests. Okay, those are bad things and they rightly should be reported. But you know what you don't ever see as a lead story? Uh CEO treats people well, salesperson goes over and above to help their customer, and I guarantee you that happens a lot more, but it doesn't sell. Yeah, so start questioning premises. You know, when you see someone who's very, very, very wealthy and you hear people talking down about them, don't just accept it that uh, you know, uh point blank that you know there's something wrong here. No. Question the premises, ask, you know, why does this person say this? What did this person really do? How did this person make their money? Was it through, you know, finagling government through cronyism and paying off politicians to make special rules? Or was it they found a way to bring immense value to the lives of a whole lot of people? Okay. Um and so, so again, it's where we put our focus. And so, you know, make a study of prosperity because the garbage comes in naturally.

Yeah, yeah. That's um, thank you for that summary. That was very um it was powerful. And I, you know, I reflect on my my colleague, business partner, mentor, Ken Andruko is has done quite well for himself financially. He very much lives by the co-giver principles. And I asked him, similar to I think what Joe asked Pindar in the book, was, you know, why are you still doing this? Like he could be retired. Like, why are you still doing this? He's like, I just, I don't know, I just do it. It's what I like to do. I like to go out and help people and listen to people, find ways to help them, you know, creatively, you know, creatively. And it's it's just an interesting thing when you start to see people come across and when you actually see it in fruition, like what it can be. And I think, and this will maybe dovetail into what we talked about before recording, is that I think a big challenge for a lot of people when they read a book, the book, your book, um, is belief that if they do these principles, everything will work out. Right. And I think that can be, especially in the fitness industry, where fitness and health industry, where people, and I think you were referred to as a healing arts, where people are um, they're just not making a lot of money, Bob. You know, a lot of them aren't making money. They're burning out. I think the average lifespan of a personal trainer is eight years, right? Um, because they're trading time for money and you know, they're just just just not making it the way they hoped. What what's your messaging to that? Well, there's a couple things.

One is, you know, does this work? Well, yeah, but not because of anything John David Mann and I experimented with in writing it. I mean, these are time-proven principles. This is, you know, if you go back and you you look at anyone from wherever there's been a market-based economy, uh, people have always done this, these things. Now, they didn't always know they were doing it. People, some people did it intuitively. Um, but uh, but yeah, it's something that's been proven. This is how plus, and that was one of the great things about so many people writing to us to telling us this is how they built their business. It didn't surprise us, it surprised us that they wrote, but it didn't surprise us that that's how it's done because we've seen too many people who've done it. We've built our own businesses doing these same things. So, no, it it works if you work it. That's not the issue. But you brought up a great point, too, that so many in the healing arts do burn out and they don't make a lot of money, and and it's a shame. Yeah. Uh, but again, it goes back mainly to what are your beliefs uh about yourself, about the value you provide, and about money. Because a lot of times people in the healing arts have a, well, but I love what I do, I shouldn't be making money. Right now, question that premise. All the time. Question that premise. Why? Why is it that because you love something that you shouldn't equate that with making a lot of money from it? Well, it because when you were in school, you hated going to school for five days and having two weeks off. Did maybe you see your parents go to a job for, you know, five days that they hated and then they lived for the weekend, and and uh and I'm not saying that's the case, but maybe, or maybe just the whole environment around, is it something that in your mind, or from watching TV, or from what did you see that that basically most people struggled and they didn't like what they did? So you're assuming that if if you're you can only get paid for doing things you don't like to do. Question again, question that premise. Okay, so if you are providing immense value to others, which by the way, you need to understand that you are providing immense value to others when that's the case and you can communicate that value, now you can be charging more money than what you were charging before. You don't have to play the low price game, but instead you're positioning yourself as that trusted resource. Hey, you know, when you sell on low price, unless your last name is Walmart, okay, uh, or Amazon.com, selling on low price is not a good way to do business. It you've seen it's not fun, it's not productive, it's not profitable, and it's certainly not sustainable. That's why people burn out. Uh, when you sell on high value, now you're positioned as a resource. And uh so, you know, that's really the name of the game. So uh don't don't please don't just accept that you should be struggling and uh and so forth instead. No, you should be doing what you're doing uh and bringing in a very healthy income.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting when I when I work with uh a lot of fitness professionals. I mean, the gyms that that I owned in California were never the lowest price in the area by far. You know, and and we were tempted many times because you know, other competitors would come in the market and they would just go ball and you're like, well, maybe we should drop our price. Like, nope, never, never. We're only going up. In fact, we're gonna rate, we're gonna increase, increase rates now. Now, the thing is, is most people like, well, yeah, you know, I'll increase my rates, but how do I justify that rate? And I think just by simply saying, like, this is how much I'm gonna be worth, and then you feel compelled to make that value hit the mark.

Yeah, exactly. Now, so communicating value is very, very important. How do we communicate value? Well, first, we become that additional value. Yeah, right. So, because most of the gyms can accomplish the same thing. Most personal trainers can, you all have the system, y'all know how to do it, right? So it's a matter of from the moment you meet a new person, okay, through the relationship building process, through the sales process, the referral process, the follow-up and the follow-through, everything that happens. You want to be communicating value. Now remember, value is always in the eyes of the beholder. So it's always focusing on that. You know, when you think about it, what is sales? Well, sales is simply discovering what the other person wants, needs, or desires and helping them to get it.

That's what selling is. That can you repeat that one more time? Because that is one of the most powerful things I think finites professional. Sure.

And before I repeat it, let me just say this. A lot of times people, again, in the in the healing arts, um, don't like that, you know, say, well, I don't like selling. And I'm gonna tell you, it's not that they don't like selling, they don't like what they think selling is. Because many people think selling is about trying to convince someone to buy something they don't want or need. And by the way, that's not selling, right? That's called being a thief. Okay, no, that's not selling. Selling by definition is simply discovering what the other person wants, needs, or desires, and helping them to get it. You know, the old English word, the old English root of the word sell was salan, which meant to give. So when you're selling, you're literally giving. Now, someone can say, wait a second, isn't that just a semantics? But I don't think so. Let's say you're at the point where either someone comes into your gym about a membership or you're you're talking to somebody about coaching or whatever it happens to be, and you're in the the presentation aspect, if you will. You are selling. When you're selling, what are you giving? I suggest you're giving that person time, attention, counsel, education, empathy, and most of all, extraordinary value. So you should be proud of selling your services. But in terms of building that value, you're building that value from the first time you meet that person through the entire process. How? Well, through through excellence, which is knowing, which is competency, and understanding that competency and being able to relate that in a way that the other person doesn't feel they're being spoken down to, but that you're, again, educating them and helping them to understand uh the benefits. But remember, discovering what it is through conversation, what they're looking for. Uh it's through consistency. It's showing up the same way all the time. So people know who they're dealing with, and that makes people feel good, makes people feel safe. Uh, attention to detail, looking at that person not as a member or a client or uh uh what have you, but as a human being and getting to really know that person on a personal level. There's that empathy. It's understanding this person may have some feelings about, you know, going to a gym or being trained or whatever, because they don't feel good about themselves physically. And they get, right? It's it's being able to communicate with empathy and it's gratitude, it's appreciation, it's it's uh it's it's living with a sense of gratitude, which is very attractive to others. How else do you communicate value by having other people who are your ecstatic clients do nice, really nice informal videos uh of you that you can have on your uh by showing before and after pictures with a nice written testimonial? By let you know, Joe Polish, who's one of the greatest copywriters and direct response people today, he has a great saying I've always loved. He says, what other people say about you is infinitely more believable than what you say about you. So let other people say it. And so the more testimonials you have, the more you can, but you always show it to the people in a way that allows them to uh to you know kind of see it for themselves, and it's not you saying it, it's the other. Uh it's having uh tools or it's it's having uh something that they can get a little bit of a taste of of what they receive in value so that it helps them to feel comfortable with you. There's all sorts of ways. It's introducing people to one another and being a connector of others. It's asking someone who you meet uh at a at an event somewhere in town, saying to them, hey, you know, I I always love connecting good people with other good people. How can I know if someone I'm speaking with is a good client for you? Now instead of you talking about your business, you've asked them a question that says to them, wow, this is a real quality person. You know, it's introducing them to. So there's all these ways we can be that additional value.

Ah, it's awesome. Well, Bob, I I want to respect your time. And uh, I personally I could sit here and ask you questions all day. But uh um I think we both have engagements to get to. So um, yeah, man. And thank you. I I think it's really there's so much for for fitness professionals to unpack here, and it's so valuable in the mindset and the shift that that people can have, and it can happen like that. And uh, you know, I was asked in a recent podcast that that, because I'm I'm kind of known as a little bit of a networker and connector within the industry. And people say, well, how do you how do you build a network? I'm like, well, it's not that hard. You just go help somebody. That's it. That's it. I'm like, you know, it's not this complicated system come up with. I just look to ways to help people, and that's that's it. That's it. That's it. Yeah.

All right.

Um, so you have some stuff coming up. Do you have a uh a conference, right? Endless referrals?

Yeah, yeah. It's a two-day workshop in Orlando, Florida, in uh January. Orlando's always a nice place to go uh in January. But uh it's called Endless Referrals the Go Giverway. And we're only having 50 people there, so it's gonna be very hands-on. So it's gonna be two days of interactive and lots of teaching. So uh yeah, if somebody's really interested in in um accelerating their referral-based business, it's something they can uh they can look into. It's at endlessreferrals.com if they'd like more information.

That's great. And of course, your books, you can find your books everywhere. So um, Bob, thank you again. I really appreciate it. This is a very uh fun and special interview for me because uh you know I try to embody everything that you that you wrote in your books. So I I think you do, and you were doing it long before the book came out. So thank you so much for all you're doing. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Bob Byrne. Hey fitness fans, don't leave yet. It's your host, Eric Malzone, and I have a quick favor to ask. Actually, three favors. So, number one, if you're a fan of our show, I asked you to do something that takes under three minutes. Go to iTunes, please, and subscribe to our show. Please, please, please. It means so much to us, it's so important. And then give us a favorable review. We would really, really appreciate it. And uh, I can't tell you how much it means and helps us out. So I know it takes two minutes of your day, and uh it means a lot to us. So please do that. Number two, go to our YouTube channel or Fitness Marketing Alliance, and uh please subscribe to our YouTube channel there. Number three, if you like this episode or any of the episodes that we've released, share it on social. That's huge, that's a big deal for us, and we're we put a lot of work into these episodes uh trying to give you great actionable content uh for the fitness industry. So that would mean a lot. And that's it. So we have some big plans coming up for this show. I'll be talking about that in the next couple episodes. But thank you so much for listening. It means so much. And uh if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from everybody. Eric, E R I C at Fitness Marketing Alliance.com