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Albert Einstein once said, Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.

In saying this, Uncle Al was advocating an enlightened approach to making your way in the world. He was saying that you’ll get a lot further if you focus on what you can give to others rather than on what you can get from them.

We think so too. The best strategy is to become indispensable.

But let’s be clear: we’re not talking about value-add and we’re certainly not talking about customer-centricity. When people say “value-add” it’s almost always in the context of taking marketshare from competitors and getting more money from customers. And “customer-centricity” generally means making it as easy as possible for customers to give you their money. And while they might make you a little one-time cash, neither of these approaches will make you indispensable.

Being indispensable means being truly generous. It means giving the good, helpful stuff away for free, not as a transaction, and not as an investment.

By now you’re probably asking, If I’m giving everything away, how do I get paid?

Well, you get paid in attention, which creates communities of people who know who you are and what you can do. It creates communities of people who like you. And we all know that a good reputation goes a long way. Opportunities and invitations will follow (and we’re pretty sure you know how to turn those into a paycheck).

And remember: it’s impossible to “give everything away.” You’ll always have more to give, and if people love you and trust you, they’ll be glad to pay you for it.

03/16/07 by josh kamler

This entry was posted on Friday, March 16th, 2007 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Thinking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.