My Greatest Success Secret
SUMMARY
People often ask me why I give away so much of my training for free on youtube. It comes from what I believe is the greatest success secret I have ever discovered. Focus on others first, and yourself second.
If your motivation is first and foremost to help people…to add value…to make a difference you are much more compelling. It is the principal of going the extra mile…and giving more than you ever expect in return.
Here’s what happens when you aim to serve others first and add value to them:
- You win trust.
- You gain the loyalty of a relationship.
- You receive benefit in return for the benefit you have given.
The greatest, most abundant success comes to the one focused on others first rather than the one focused on self first.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Hi there. It’s Kevin Ward, the founder of YESMasters Real Estate Success Training, helping you get more yes’s and more successes in your business and in your life. Today I want to talk to you about what, for me, has been the greatest success secret that I have ever discovered in my entire life. It’s how I built my business as a real estate agent, and it’s how I built my business as a real estate coach.
I want to talk today about this secret to success, why it works, and how it will dynamically change your business. It’s really a simple concept. This is the success secret. That is, if you want great success in your business, this has to be your focus from the very beginning. That is others first. That’s the secret. Put others first. What happens when you do that, it’s a shift for so many people. Because I think about real estate agents. Because that’s who I train, that’s who I coach. You may be watching this as a real estate agent. I think back to when I first started real estate. When I got in, I wanted to help people, so that was there. But it also was I didn’t have any money. I didn’t have savings. I didn’t have any source of income. I had to make money.
Most of my time was spent focusing on making money. It was on finding a deal, getting a listing, getting a sale. As I look back on it, I was really focused on getting something for me. I was focused on me first and others second. I think that is dramatically visible in the way you connect with other people. When you relate to other people, when you talk to other people, people can tell that there is a vibe when you are in it for yourself rather than in it for them. Even if you care about people, the question is: What do you focus on first? I believe, if you want to have great success, this is the magic. Focus on others first.
It’s one of the answers to a question that I get asked all the time, and that is: Why in the world do you have so much free training on YouTube? For those of you that follow me, I’ve got over 1,000 videos on YouTube. Almost all of them are training videos for real estate agents. I give most of my best training content on YouTube videos. People go like, “How can you do that? Why do you do that? Why do you give stuff free?” It’s because of this. It’s because I really want to help other people succeed.
I tell agents this all the time: I care more about your success than I care about your money. But I want you to understand how that reasoning works. When your motivation is me first, people feel that, that you’re not in it for them. When your motivation is others first, I believe people can feel that, and it shows up in the way you perform. It shows up in the way you treat other people.
Here’s the way it works out. I’m just going to use the analogy of me providing free training videos for real estate agents on YouTube. I looked at it as that if I aim to serve others and add value first … All I’m doing is every time I do something for somebody else, here’s what I’m doing: I am adding value. That’s what I’m doing. I’m doing something for other people. I just do that over and over again. Boom, I shoot this arrow. What I’m doing is I’m adding value. I do something else for somebody, and I am adding value. I hope you like my artwork here. I just felt like doing a target today. I’m not sure why. I want to add value to other people.
1. YOU WIN TRUST
Now here’s what happens. When you approach your business as others first, the first thing that happens as you’re doing that is you’re adding value to others. You win trust. That’s the first thing that happens. You win trust. People begin to trust because they see you giving something to them without expecting anything in return. One of the great principles of success that we were taught in Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill was always add more value than you ever expect to receive. When you do that, people, they see that and they go like, “Okay, you’re helping me. Wow, you’re helping me.” Now they may at first go like, “Why are you helping me? That doesn’t make any sense? Why are you helping me?” But when you continue to add value to other people, you’re literally sowing … you’re sowing seeds of benefit which creates trust. The first thing that happens is you begin to win trust.
2. YOU GAIN THE LOYALTY OF A RELATIONSHIP
The second thing that happens is you then get loyalty. You begin to win, so you win trust, you add value. Then out of that you’re going to win trust. Out of that trust you’re going to begin to develop loyalty or relationship. In other words, you’re actually building a relationship with people where people begin to feel a sense of connection with you. The connective tissue is that I care about your success.
Now if you’re a real estate agent and you’re watching this, when you add value to others, you do things you say you’re going to do, you always give them the best service. When you’re talking to them, when you’re meeting them, you focus on what they want, not what you want. As you do that, you win trust. As you win their trust, you gain loyalty, which, by the way, once you gain loyalty from people, they’re willing to help you help other people. Because there’s something very special about somebody who actually cares. I know, it’s kind of crazy, but that what happens.
3. YOU RECEIVE BENEFIT IN RETURN FOR THE BENEFIT YOU HAVE GIVEN
Then out of that, the benefit, the result of all of that, is that you receive benefit, B-E, benefit, just like that. It doesn’t happen by me focusing on, okay, I’m going to go after benefit, so now I’m aiming my target … What I’m aiming at is my benefit. What can I get out of it? You benefit as a reward or as a result of adding value to others, which wins trust, which builds loyalty and relationship. Then, ultimately, you benefit from it.
It is the universal principle of the law of sowing and reaping that you reap what you sow. Here’s the reality of the principle of sowing and reaping, and that is … I grew up as a farm boy. I grew up on a farm in West Texas. Here’s what I remember, is we had 43 acres. We didn’t really farm it. I would plow it for my uncle. Then my uncle would come out and he would plant. He would plant like wheat … Usually it was wheat that he planted. He would plant the wheat, and then nothing would happen. He would plant the wheat and then he would come back and he would fertilize. Then he’d come back and fertilize. Then the rain would come. All that was happening was he’s sowing the seed. Then six months later, or however long it was later, he would come back and then there would be wheat and he would reap the harvest.
But he would never have been able to reap the harvest if he hadn’t first sown the seed. What you do, if you want great success, is you have to sow success seeds. Here’s the seeds of success. It’s serving other people. It’s adding value to other people. It’s doing good for other people and focusing on what can I do to add value to others. How can I help other people? Out of that, you start wanting trust. Because you got to understand, we live in a world today, and you probably know this, we live in a world today where people automatically tend to look at salespeople and business people … If you’re wanting business from someone, they already tend to look at you with a skeptical eye, like, “Okay, I’m suspicious. I don’t trust you.”
You have to know that. How do you win trust? By serving other people, by adding value to them, by doing it over and over again. As you do it, you begin to win that trust. You begin to create that loyalty. Then the beauty of what you reap out of that not only is you reap benefit immediately from that, but the loyalty of others will now begin to sow the seeds of trust with new people. You get to now have the benefit of people that you helped now become your advocates. They now become your word of mouth marketing team. They now refer business to you.
If you want massive success in the real estate business or any other thing in life, the law of sowing and reaping is where it’s at. When you focus on others first and you add value, and you serve their success, your success will come out of the seeds that you have sown. Those seeds of service, those seeds of caring, those seeds of benefiting other people will come back to you over and over again. When you give yes to people, you help people say yes to what they want. Then you can always expect yes.