“WORK LIKE THERE IS SOMEONE WORKING TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY TO TAKE IT AWAY FROM YOU.”
That’s a line from Mark Cuban, and I put it out here to set up this next bunch of pages, where I want to look at the choices we make as we look to add value to every interaction and transaction—even when it might not be clear to us that we’re getting any kind of return on our investment.
By the way, every time I come across Mark’s line I want to amend it to say, “Work like there is someone working twenty-four hours a day to make a better impression than you.” That’s because success is about the extra efforts you put into a deal…or a project…or an opportunity. Those extra efforts can be tough to define, and they’re especially tough to define when we’re our own boss, but they make all the difference.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the efforts we put into our work or our relationships are directly related to the size and scope of our commitments. Put another way, once we figure out where it is we’d like to be, that’s when we work like crazy to get there as quickly as possible. The tough part, for those of us who have lots of places we’d like to be, is knowing where to focus the bulk of our efforts. Like a lot of people, I look at my daily calendar and start to think I’m spreading myself thin. My commitments are off the charts. There’s always a deadline or a meeting or a pile of emails waiting for my attention. I’m constantly moving, doing, dealing…really, it can get to where I sometimes feel like I’m being kept from the things in life that matter to me most. This hit me most of all after I got my cancer diagnosis a couple years back, when I was pushed to think about why I was here on this earth and what I mean to leave behind.
Another thing I’ve learned: No one is sitting on his deathbed saying, “Jeez, I wish I’d spent more time at the office.”
But what does tend to come up as we breathe our last is the way we’ve honored the relationships in our lives—family, friends, colleagues, mentors, mentees. While I’m still alive and kicking, the way I try to honor these good people is by beating their expectations, and making those extra efforts in service of their goals as well as mine, and to do all of this without a thought about what’s in it for me.
My take: I’m here, doing what I’m doing, because I busted my butt to build my business and make my name. Ten, twenty years from now, I’ll be doing what I’m doing because I busted my butt today. Now, the main reason I bust my butt is because that’s how I’m wired. I’m determined to get results—and sometimes it means that in order to get results I’ve got to outhustle everyone else. But there’s another reason that sits alongside this first one: I never want to let anybody down. After all, I’m not working just for myself—I’m working for everyone else in my orbit.
You know how one of the things you’re supposed to do when you go camping is leave your campsite in better shape than you found it? Meaning, we’re not only supposed to pick up after ourselves, we’re also taught to clean up after the people who made camp before us. Maybe they left some nasty cooking utensils in the fire pit, or maybe they dropped a couple empty water bottles on the perimeter of the campsite. Whatever it is, it’s on you to set things right, even though you get nothing out of it. That’s kind of what we’re after here, the idea of putting in more than you take out, even if you get nothing out of it other than the knowledge that you’re doing the right thing.
We should be thinking along these same lines when it comes to business, or to making our relationships work, because our extra efforts will come to define us—especially the extra efforts we make when there’s nothing in it for us. That’s why I’m always giving away free content to my followers online—mostly because I’m so totally grateful for their support. Of course, a cynic would say that when I make the first hour of one of my online courses available at no cost to my fans, or the first chapter of this book, it’s simply a marketing play—you know, a come-on meant to entice people into buying the full package. I can see that, I guess. That’s why I stuck that mostly qualifier in that statement above. But what’s really driving me when I give away content in this way is the satisfaction that comes from knowing I might have turned someone on to a new approach, or to a strategy that just might take them from where they are to where they want to be…and I certainly don’t need to be making paper off that. It doesn’t matter to me if they sign on and subscribe or buy or whatever—I’ve been at this long enough to know there’ll be enough customers to sign on for the full ride. The idea, always, is to overdeliver—and in the goes-without-saying department, you obviously want to make sure that what you’re overdelivering is first-rate. I mean, if what you’re putting out there is horrible, it doesn’t matter if you’re giving it away or selling it at a steep discount…nobody’s gonna want it.
This last bit about giving with no expectation of return is key, because a lot of times when people overdeliver on a project or a promise, they do it with the expectation that it will pay dividends for them in the future. A lot of times, it will—only here I want to stress that our focus should be not on the dividends but on the investment.
Going back to the first side hustles I threw together as a kid—fixing up old cars, say—I found that I worked double time, double hard when I had a partner. Over the years, I’ve looked for partners who are cut the same way. If this is what drives me and keeps me honest, I can only assume that it’s also driving my partners and keeping them honest. And keep in mind, I’m not just looking out for my partners when I deliver on a promise. I’m also looking out for the people on the other side of the table, making sure that whatever good deal I’m negotiating for myself is also a good deal for them.
If that sounds like a line…well, you’ve never sat across from me on a deal. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not looking to give away the store, or cost myself an opportunity, but I’m always looking for ways to extend myself or put a little extra something into my efforts, whether or not there’s any direct benefit to me.
And if that sounds like a line…well, check it out: Do you know how people are always saying life is too short for this or that? Life is too short for me to be screwing people over. Life is too short for my success to come at someone else’s expense. Life is too short for me to be out there cutting corners. I hear those kinds of comments and I get to thinking they’re upside down—or missing the point. It’s not just because life is too short that we should do right by the people we do business with; it’s because the world is too damn small. What goes around comes around, right? That’s one of the reasons I go out of my way to treat people fairly, even generously, because you never know when your paths will cross again.
Just think of the power that comes from flipping that switch and going out of your way to do someone a solid, so that instead of dreading the day when you run into that person you find yourself looking forward to it…counting on it, even. Don’t know about you but I’d much rather build a network of onetime colleagues or deal partners who are happy with the way things turned out for them after meeting me than a bunch of people who have more neutral feelings about our repeat business.
Here’s another quote to help me make my point—a line I often see on banners hanging in a school auditorium or gymnasium when I’m invited to talk to students about how to rise and grind and make a name for themselves in business: “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
That’s a line from legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, who certainly knew a thing or two about working tirelessly and thanklessly and selflessly in pursuit of excellence.
Some of the people you’ve met in these pages answer this test of character with a call to charity. They donate their time and money to projects and causes that promise them nothing in return…except for the satisfaction of knowing they’re helping to repair the world, in their own way. It’s the powershift version of leaving your campsite in better shape than you found it.
Check it out:
Pitbull has dedicated himself to helping the Latino community and closing the poverty gap by opening up a network of tuition-free charter schools for middle school and high school students. He calls his schools SLAM!, for “Sports Leadership and Management,” and as I write this they’re operating in Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, where Pit grew up. “I feel like the system isn’t built to help you,” he tells me of his extra efforts here. “I feel like a lot of these kids can do so much more than what we expect of them, if we just let them know we believe in them. You let them know, Yo, this is what’s possible. I tell them, If I can do it, you can do it, and you can do it bigger, better, badder, stronger.”
Lindsey Vonn started the Lindsey Vonn Foundation as a way to empower young girls and offer them the kind of role modeling and mentoring they might not get at school or at home. She’s developed a weekend-long curriculum to teach strategies and inner-strength-building exercises designed to foster a sense of independence and community—an extension of the don’t quit mindset that defined her as a skier, coming back from a string of injuries. Right now, she offers these camps free of charge to girls in New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, and she’s hoping to add more cities in the future. She says, “My mission is to empower and inspire the next generation to follow their dreams.” Her inspiration came from a meeting she had at nine years old, when she had the chance to visit with her idol, the Olympic gold medalist Picabo Street. “That one meeting changed my life and it lasted just five minutes,” she says. “Just think of the impact we can make if I can get to work with these girls for two whole days and get them thinking they can do just about anything.”
David Heath, of Bombas, recognizes the importance that mentorship has played in his own career, so he makes time to mentor others. “I will always carve out some time in my calendar, despite how busy I’ve gotten,” he says. “Most of the time, it’s with someone who hasn’t even launched yet. You know, it’s super, super early days, but I make the time because people once made the time for me, and the hope here is that someday this person will be in a position to pay it forward and make the same kind of time for someone else.”
So tell me, what are you doing when no one else is watching?
Believe me, I’ve done my share of deals that lean in my favor. And yes, I’m always out to negotiate from strength. But here’s the truth: I’d much prefer to deal from strength to strength than from strength to weakness, because when you give as good as you get you’re also seeding your future.
Whatever the deal is, whatever’s at stake in the near term, I tell myself I’m working in service of the next deal, and the one after that. I’m working for the long term.
It rubs me the wrong way when people step into a transaction thinking only about what’s in it for them, because I’ve found over the years that the universe has a way of rewarding you if you’re committed to working hard and adding value. So instead of asking “What’s in it for me?” when you consider a deal, you should be asking “What can I add?”
In the end, it’s what you put into an enterprise that drives its success.
When we commit ourselves to adding value instead of extracting it, we commit to making the kind of lasting impression with our partners that will serve the entire operation in the future. By growing relationships from a place of service, you will not only make yourself a more desirable partner or collaborator, but also establish a foundation of trust and goodwill you’ll be able to draw on if you’re ever in need of a good turn.
Basically, my rule of thumb is to add three times the value I extract from any relationship before asking for something in return. That doesn’t mean I’m sitting there with a calculator, trying to measure or quantify my extra efforts, but I am paying good and close attention to the way we balance the scales.
Anyway, the math isn’t hard:
I’ll work through dinner three times before asking someone on my staff to do the same.
I’ll share a friend’s tweet or post three times before asking him or her to share one of mine.
I’ll offer to help someone move or drive them to the airport or take care of their dog three times before calling on them to extend a similar kindness.
You get the idea.
My thing is to overdeliver whenever I can. It reminds me of those “Wait, wait…there’s more!” ads you always used to see on late-night television. (They’re still out there, matter of fact!) One of the reasons that line has been so effective as an advertising or marketing strategy is that it plays on people’s desire to feel like they’re getting more value, so I figure that if it works when you’re selling Ginsu knives or Pocket Fishermen or whatever the case may be, it should also work when you’re selling yourself. Go out of your way to let people know they’re getting a good deal when they decide to work with you, or hire you, or spend any kind of meaningful time with you. And then, just when they start to thinking you’re really going above and beyond, go ahead and give ’em a little extra.
Of course, in everything I do, everything I sell, I try to make sure there’s a money-back-guarantee component to the transaction. In my “Daymond on Demand” courses, I want to make sure my customers are completely satisfied—same goes for audiences at my lectures and keynotes. Whenever people deal with me, in any capacity, I want them to be happy with the exchange, and to look back on it as a positive experience. This is important to me—it’s the human element at the heart of those late-night infomercials I just talked about, because people always want to feel like they’re getting value…like they’re getting just a little bit more than everybody else, even. And yet you might be surprised to learn that less than ten percent of infomercials are actually successful—meaning they end up making money for the producer or marketer. This is key, because, end of the day, the product is king. If what you’re selling doesn’t match up with the extraordinary claims you’re making in order to sell it…well, then you’re nowhere, baby.
It’s important to try to measure the success of each relationship by its long-term impact, and not on any short-term benefits that may come your way as a result. So do yourself a favor and resist the idea of engaging only with people who can give you something in return. The better move—the powershift move—is to nurture long-term connections that will prove mutually beneficial over time.
Don’t know about you, but one of my pet peeves is dealing with people who operate from a place of laziness or phoniness—really, there’s nothing worse than having to make room in your life for someone who’s always looking for the easy way around. We all know the type, right? They’ll say anything to get themselves in the door or to close a deal, but their promises are empty. You deal with them once and never again. Or maybe you only hear from them when they need something, because they live and work on a one-way street. And so, whatever you do, don’t be that person! Got to admit, I can be quick to write people off if they don’t deliver for me. The way I look at it is, if you can’t be a good friend to yourself, you can’t be a good friend to me. Yeah, I’ll give someone the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not out there dishing out chance after chance, because that just doesn’t serve anyone in the end. Try to remember that the most important part of building, growing, and sustaining a constructive relationship is to put out the highest level of authenticity and integrity throughout each part of the process. Your relationships are your greatest source of capital. Invest in them meaningfully and honestly, and they will grow. Squander them on false expectations or selfish pursuits and you’ll soon find yourself on your own.
Another way to put it: Be good to your word and your word will be good to you.
Honoring your commitments and overdelivering on your promises is important for everyone, and it’s especially important in the world of entrepreneurs and freelancers, where you’re constantly chasing your next gig, your next paycheck. When you work for yourself, it’s easy to forget the importance of building a lasting, two-way relationship because the tendency is to think in one-and-done terms.
It used to be that this was an isolated concern, because the majority of American workers were in an office somewhere, or on some assembly line, locked into the routine that comes with a full-time job. That’s changed dramatically in our digital age: The nine-to-five model is about as relevant to today’s workplace as the rotary phone. More and more, people are working from home, making a living as freelancers or gig workers in fields ranging from consulting, to programming, to graphic design. I often sit down with the big companies to teach their executives and employees how to address this changing landscape and to act like “intrapreneurs”—people who think like entrepreneurs within a big company. People are working odd hours more and more. And people are switching jobs more and more, too. According to a January 2018 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average person changes jobs ten to fifteen times during their career, and many workers spend five years or less in every job. The workday itself doesn’t really have a clock on it anymore—meaning, productivity can happen whenever or wherever we find a pocket of time to send a text or answer an email or sit in on a videoconference call.
Also, I recently read a CNBC report that said the majority of American workers will be contract workers by 2027. It’s possible to look at this stat as an encouraging sign and a discouraging sign at the same time. Yeah, it might be an alarming indicator of the trend to cut costs by eliminating or reducing full-time payroll, but at the same time it signals that more and more workers will be able to call their own shots each time they take on a new position or assignment. It’s easy to look at this evolution in our traditional work model and start to feel like the pressures of career are never-ending and overwhelming; that technology has made it just about impossible to step away from the office and power down. I get that. In a lot of ways, that’s the thinking behind that Mark Cuban quote I used to open the chapter, but I take a different view. I take it as a giant positive, that there are all these different ways for us to call our own shots and add value in each and every transaction. So the message here, for me, is that there is great power in the new digital workplace. There’s the power to set our own hours, determine our own workloads, drive our own projects. It’s a different take on the speed of determination idea we talked about earlier: We set our own pace, together with our clients or whoever’s signing our checks.
As we bounce around from job to job, or gig to gig, it’s especially important to strengthen our relationships with customers and clients, with movers and shakers in our industry, and with our own colleagues—whether they work at the next desk or clear across the country. After all, these relationships are portable. They attach to us in a fundamental way. Even when we switch jobs, we’re able to call on the support network we’ve built to make that switch possible, so the next time you pack up your desk to hit up a new opportunity remember to take those relationships with you. Take the time to let people know you’re moving on and that you plan to call on them in the future—letting them know that you’re hoping to keep hearing from them as well.
And let’s remember that as our workdays become more fluid than ever before, it doesn’t mean we should be looking for ways to run and hide from our obligations. Many of us no longer report to any one boss, or to any one office, so it’s possible there are times when nobody really knows what we’re doing from one day to the next, but I see that as a time to double down and grind harder and smarter to make doubly sure that the people who’ve hired you know they’re getting their money’s worth.
At The Shark Group, for example, we’ve found that it makes a whole lot of sense to hire “virtual assistants” to fill certain roles for us, over certain stretches, and assign them to specific projects—usually working with them on a month-to-month basis, for a set amount of hours each week.
Lately, this setup has been working out so well for us (and hopefully, for the assistants who sign on to work with us!) that we recently hired a full-time digital manager to work with us remotely, all the way from Ohio. Her name is Crystal Volinchak, and I’m betting some readers will be able to see a little something of themselves in Crystal’s story. Previously, Crystal was working at Youngstown State University, for the Ohio Small Business Development Center. She’s got an MBA, and she studied psychology as an undergrad, so she’s certainly got the educational chops to make her an asset to any organization, and here she was putting her skills to use helping local entrepreneurs start or grow their businesses. While she was punching the clock on this straight-up nine-to-five job, she never imagined herself working outside a conventional office environment. The traditional job was what she knew. Then she got pregnant and just assumed she’d come back to work following her maternity leave—because this, too, was what she knew. But that’s not exactly how things worked out. It ended up, she had a difficult pregnancy, was even put on bed rest for a stretch. Her son Primo was born a month and a half early, so he had to spend a bunch of time in the NICU, and once Crystal and her husband got the all-clear to take him home the baby still needed all kinds of extra care.
On top of all that, there was a change in policy at the university that made it so that employees like Crystal couldn’t return to work on a part-time basis, which had been her plan for until she could sort out her daycare options. So right away she started thinking of ways she could maybe do the same type of work out of her own home, as a kind of independent contractor. Crystal’s main concern with this type of work was struggling to find valid, reputable jobs. She knew there are all sorts of scams she might come across, so she turned to the virtual solutions company BELAY. If you’re not familiar with the company, it acts as an intermediary that vets both virtual workers and online job opportunities to match up the best pairs and ensure that all of the jobs and virtual assistants are valid. I know virtual assistant might sound like something from the future involving AI and robotics, but all it means is that you’re working remotely.
Crystal was like a lot of people I talk to looking to transition into the life of the self-employed, working on a self-directed schedule—she didn’t trust that she could make it work on a full-time basis and decided she needed a bit of a safety net. So what did she do? She doubled up on her workload, adding her freelance work to her full-time job at the university, logging as much as eighty hours some weeks.
That’s the kind of foundation you need to build before you make the kind of powershift Crystal had in mind. She took the time to make an impression and establish the kind of reputation that would get her hired. Then she made herself invaluable in a way that allowed her to negotiate the best deal for herself. And finally, she worked hard to overdeliver on each job she was able to land, so that she was in the strongest possible position to land the next one.
One of the best ways to build strong working relationships—especially when you work remotely—is simply to become as indispensable as possible. With this in mind, Crystal pays special attention to her delivery schedule. She’s careful not to commit to a deadline unless she is absolutely certain she’ll be able to meet it. Very often, she’ll suggest a more relaxed time line for turning around a project, to give herself a cushion in case the other people she’ll be collaborating with are unable to make themselves fully available in a timely manner. If it works out that she’s able to beat her targeted deadline, that’s great for all concerned. If others are dragging their feet and slow to complete their assigned tasks, she’ll still be able to rally the troops in time to hit her due date.
Crystal also understands the importance of maintaining a consistent “presence” around the office. What I’ve noticed from my team is that you should set up regular meetings with your team, on a platform like Zoom or Skype if possible, and let the people you’re working for know if you’re going to be unavailable to them over a certain period. That’s why Crystal makes it a special point to send her clients a weekly update, detailing the progress she’s made on each project and outlining next steps. “It’s a great way to remind the people you’re working for of the value you’re bringing to their business,” she explains, “because when you’re working remotely it’s not like they can walk by your desk and see what you’re doing every day.
“If I’m going on vacation,” she continues, “I’ll give my clients as much notice as possible. I’ll give them a little extra time the week before I leave, and a little extra time when I get back. We’ll move our targets around, so we can find a way to hit them together. I’ll even get on the phone with them to work through a problem, if something comes up while I’m away. Ideally, it works out that they don’t even know I’m gone, so even though the vacation might cost me in terms of my billable hours, it shouldn’t cost me anything in terms of my accountability. I’m still completely there for them.”
A lot of times, it works out that Crystal finds herself answering emails or returning phone calls on her days off, because she’s made herself so invaluable while she’s on the clock that she can’t fully step away from the work when she’s off the clock—a textbook example of overdelivering on a promise without expecting anything back.
Of course, Crystal would tell you that this is probably not the best long-term strategy for creating a healthy work–life balance, but she recognizes that a certain amount of grind is necessary as she’s working to make a name for herself as a freelancer. In the meantime, she’s found a way to build relationships in this space because she’s learned to deliver as much as she possibly can instead of as little as she can get away with.
It’s kind of like how when I was working at Red Lobster while I was trying to get FUBU off the ground, I made it a special point to sell the add-ons management was always pushing on customers. I resisted the idea at first, but eventually I sucked it up and did it anyway because it was important to management—and because I knew that my bosses at the restaurant were being judged by my performance. Their bosses would be on them if I didn’t try to get people to order a second round of drinks or an appetizer or dessert. I came to see that I wasn’t just doing my job but was making their lives easier at the same time, and as a bonus I made myself more and more invaluable, because I was helping them achieve their objectives. Plus, it didn’t suck that I made a bunch of extra money in tips as a result!
Let’s face it, we all have people in our lives who are looking to coast, or get by with a minimal effort, but if we think about the people we know who’ve enjoyed massive success we tend to see that they’re the ones who overdeliver, again and again.
Just how do you put yourself in that kind of position?
1. Move with integrity.
Make doubly sure that every project, every meeting, every interaction is handled with absolute professionalism. Think of every opportunity as your first and last and best opportunity to make a lasting impression.
2. Create alliances that are transformative, not transactional.
Even if there’s a part of you thinking there ought to be some sort of immediate benefit to each and every interaction, condition yourself to think long-term. Resist the urge to keep score, or to engage only in projects that seem to offer instant results. Sometimes the best return on the investment you make in a relationship doesn’t find you for years (or even decades) after the foundational work is complete.
3. Expect nothing in return.
I’ve already made this point in the title to this chapter, but it’s worth repeating. If you keep your expectations low, you’ll never be disappointed if things don’t shake out to the good.
4. Ask smarter, not harder.
When you get to that place where you’ve established the kind of goodwill that allows you to make a request or ask a favor, make sure your ask is specific, time-sensitive, and appropriate in the context of the relationship. A lot of times, we waste our relationship capital by asking for inconsequential favors, or we make requests that are vague, elusive, or unrealistic. Don’t ask for something the other person is not in a position to deliver.
5. Manage expectations.
Yours…and the other person’s. Know what you hope to get out of the relationship, know what you’re prepared to give, and know how you’ll find a way to meet in the middle so that both parties are served.