The power of helping others is incredible. If you have ever received a favor, which I’m sure most of us have, even a small one, you know what I’m talking about. Even a simple little favor gives an immediate positive impression of the favor doer, which can last forever in the mind of the receiver. So, how does helping others link to business success?
If you have studied material from the likes of Napoleon Hill, Bob Proctor, Rhonda Byrne, or others in that field, this concept should be obvious to you. If you haven’t, this might change your life for good. Actually, as a concept it is not new. Most religions or old wisdoms have taught similar concepts throughout the history: do good to others and others will do good to you. Sounds familiar?
How does doing favors help us to become successful in business?
Business is all about relationships. We all want to work with people we like. Of course there is the money making aspect as well, but if you can choose from two people to work with, one of crucial factors is whether you like the person or not. Many businessman, especially in Asia, would choose the relationship over money. Building relationships can be time-consuming task. In today’s hectic business world things move fast, and sometimes you just don’t have the time to invest in relationship building and running out for dinner parties. Or if your business is online, you might not even have the chance to meet the people in person.
Helping others, solve their problems and doing them favors are fast ways to build relationships. You are automatically considered as a ‘nice person’ by doing that. The key really is doing favors without expecting anything in return. It has to be genuine. If you expect them to return the favor, the magic is gone. You look like a calculative person who measures everything in transactions. That’s not the way it works at all. You have to see the forest behind the trees. When you do favors and help others it will be noticed sooner or later and that’s when it’s going to come back to you exponentially.
Many times especially with startups we are so focused on staying alive and scraping money we forget the power of helping others and doing favors. We focus on competition instead of collaboration. Why try to knock each other out when you could join forces? Or why try to sell everything for pennies for few people, when you could give something for free for a million people who would then know your existence. Simple marketing, but it’s really the same concept.
Where to draw the line?
That is really a tough question. When does it become too much, or does it ever? Is there a line when you should say no for doing a favor? I don’t know if there is a correct answer to this and I know some might disagree, but I think there are situations where it stops being a favor and becomes taking advantage of someone’s kindness. For example, if your business is car repair, fixing your neighbor’s car for free might be one of these. If the same neighbor was in real estate, would he give you a house for free, if you asked? Perhaps not. But then again, if you did him a free car repair, he might mention it to 10 of his friends who then would come and purchase the service from you. So, as you see, there is no right and wrong answer here. It really comes down to an individual level and what feels right for us to do. The bottom line is that people who help others without an agenda are always one step ahead of those who don’t.