The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea

When I received a copy of The Go-Giver, I set aside the last forty-five minutes of the day to start reading the book. Good plan, right?

However, my intent to quit reading at a reasonable hour and get to bed at my usual time disappeared. Within a few minutes, I knew that The Go-Giver had all the suspense of a top-line mystery novel. I couldn't stop until I had read the entire book.

Thanks to Bob Burg and John David Mann for this stimulating parable, filled with enriching thoughts. Everyone who reads this book will re-examine his or her approach to business and customers.That alone will be a "powerful business idea," as the subtitle says.

The Complete Communicator: Change Your Communication-change Your Life!

While I'm not usually a business parable kind of guy I found myself connecting with this one more than any I have read. In fact, it may be the FIRST one I have completed through to the end. Page-by-page I was touched by the story.

Books that cause a paradigm shift are far and few between but Burg and Mann have given the world just such a book. In a hectic, crazy, get it all done as fast as you can kind of world it delivers just the right message for solid, sustainable success. Not monetary success, although that may be the result, but human being success. The kind of success that has been written about in many other parables through history. This parable will take its place among the rest of them. Read it, experience it, practice it and touch the world in ways that are uncommon in all the craziness.

Dear Bob and John,

I could not wait to get up today and write to you about your new book, "The Go-Giver!" First you have to know that once I started reading it, I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! The story of Joe and true-life examples you gave throughout the book, not only kept my attention, they made me want to jump inside the pages and be a part of the story.

When you said, "Heidi, you will recognize yourself in the Go-giver," you were spot on. I identified with many of the challenges Joe faced in his career. The book really made me reflect on where I am in life and where I'd like to be. For that I thank you. In fact, I plan to start working on each of the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success beginning today. So Bob and John thank you for writing such a wonderful, easy to read, and most importantly easy to implement book of life's lessons. You can be sure I will tell everyone I know about it! And cannot wait to buy several copies for my own family and friends. Everyone needs this book!

I admit, I can be cynical at times, and often overly-sugary fables tend to make the eyeballs roll out of my head. At the beginning of "The Go-Giver," I was bracing for that same scenario. However, after reading the book I must say--as neat and tidy as the storyline is--I was immediately able to see how the events in the book could fit into my own circumstances. This simplicity is the true value of the book. It takes the expressions "What goes around comes around", "You reap what you sew" and "pay it forward" and weaves them into a story that is a quick, compact read. Personally I would have liked a bit more character development, but then again, this is about going, giving, and getting on with (an enriched) life. There are no deeply hidden meanings or overly-metaphoric ramblings and there doesn't need to be. We as readers will easily find ways to map our own unique circumstances into the framework of the story. I also thought I had the ending figured out, but I enjoyed the slight and unexpected twist even more. Everyone in sales --both veterans and rookies-- deserves to read this book.

This `little red book', with it's seemingly simple (yet powerful) parable, provides a special road map for true and lasting success-in business and in life. Many books have been written about the `art' and rewards of giving, yet, none have shown and exposed the differences between the Go-Getter and the Go-Giver in such a memorable way. Everyone can learn something from this book (even people who think they have given and not gotten back). People can achieve success and even monetary success with hard and honest work. However, to achieve "stratospheric" success takes some special understandings of the "laws" presented in this book. It needs a seal that says, 'Open Only If You Desire Stratospheric Success!' Those that open it and don't understand it may not be deserving yet...read it again!