The secrets of being cool to people so they’ll be cool back to you (even if they’re trying to screw you over).
On today’s episode Russell talks about how being a nice guy and always treating people with respect has helped him avoid getting sued. He also talks about why you shouldn’t burn bridges because you don’t know what the future holds.
Here are some interesting things to listen for on this episode:
So listen below to find out why nice guys don’t necessarily finish last.
---Transcript---
Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson and I am driving home in the freezing cold but I want to welcome you to Marketing in Your Car.
Typically, I do these things on my way into the office but today, I'm driving home and just had a random thought to share with you guys today. Hopefully it will help you all a little bit on stuff you're working on. Notice I said ya'll. I've been hanging out with too many friends from Georgia, from Texas, and they're getting me to say words like ya'll. Anyway, I apologize about that.
I don't know how this is going to relate to any of you guys but hopefully for the right person, for someone, this message is a big thing. I had a friend. I'm not going to tell any names or anything because it's not important but he had a partner in a project. The project went sour. Because of that, he locked the partner out, thinking whatever, but he changed passwords and locked this partner out of his business.
That was three years ago or so. I just saw him recently and asked how things were going. He said that basically for the last three years, he's been in a lawsuit and almost on the brink of bankruptcy and lost everything, and all that. I was kind of telling the guys at work with me about that, and just we were talking about how lucky we've been that we haven't had anything like that happen yet.
I was thinking, “Why hasn't something like that happened to me before in the past?” and things like that. One of the guys who works with me said, he just made a comment, he said, “If you think about it, the reason is you just always treat people good, Russell. You don't screw people over. If something bad happens, you're the first one to walk away and let it be.”
I thought about that little. I thought, “You know, it's interesting, but it really is true.” I told partners this in the past. I don’t think they believe me at first but it's true. People always want a contract. I'm like, the only times I've ever been screwed over in business is when people, every time, it's been by the person who wanted a contract. It's really weird.
I don't know what it is. Mostly, I just work with a handshake. I always tell people, “Look, this is the deal. We're going to work together. If something bad happens, I'm just going to walk away from it because I don't really care. I’ll just give it all back to you.” People don't really believe me.
That actually happened earlier this year. We had a project that when all was said and done, we invested about $50,000 in it, never could get this thing to work, and I just gave it back to the person and said, “You know what? I've tried all I can do. I spent a lot of money. Hopefully this helps you. I'm just going to give the whole thing back to you.”
It was interesting because, this may be a bad example, but the person we were working with got all upset at me. I said, “Why are you upset?” She was like, “No, we were supposed to be partners.” I said, “I know, but we spent $50,000, I redid your site and your sales funnel, everything, and I just can't get it to really work so I'm going to give it back to you as a gift.”
It was funny because she kept trying to attack me like I was trying to do something bad to her. I'm like, “No, I'm really just giving this back to you. There's no strings attached. I'm not going to charge you any money. I'm going to pay all the taxes, the accountants to close out the books. I'll just cover it. I'm just giving it back to you.”
I don't think she ever believed me. I was trying to transfer the site over and she's getting all upset. When I'm trying to transfer the site back over, I'm like, “No, you don't understand, my entire team is here to help you. We're trying to give this back to you and help you.” I think it was so backwards because most people, they think that people always assume you're trying to screw them over.
I try to be the opposite way. I'm like, “I'm just going to, worst case scenario, I’ll just give everything back to you and hopefully left you off in a lot better place than I met you.” I think that all of us need to think about that more, especially if we have partners. I know in the internet business, we always have loose partnerships we throw around all the time.
I look back over the years, people, in fact recently, it's kind of funny with Click Funnels, we had a partner who was involved and the person totally, totally screwed me over. It was funny because I remember when I got the Skype message, or I can't remember if it was Skype or Voxer, the person basically told me, “Hey man, sorry,” it wasn't this many words, but it almost was.
It was, “Hey, I'm totally screwing you over, sorry, but this is just how it is.” I was like, “Huh.” I remember being so upset and so angry, wanting to go and backlash, and yell at the person, and do what my other friend had done, lock this person out of everything but I thought, “You know what? I'm just going to let it be.”
I said, “Alright, that sucks but whatever,” and just ignored it, and left it as it was, and kept going on with my day. Three weeks later, the person came back, apologized, and ended up becoming our number one affiliate by far, and also introduced us to about 20 other people. I would say indirectly from that relationship, we've brought in almost a million dollars and over this year, it will probably be two to three million dollars.
If I would have blown up and yelled at that person when they screwed me over, none of that money or income or anything would have been there. I'm just a big believer, not that you need to let people screw you over but if they do, don't burn that bridge because you never know when you're going to need it again. I have a lot of people in the past that bad things have happened.
I'm not going to say I'm perfect. I've had times where I've screwed up and I've burnt bridges but the ones that I haven't, multiple times, they've come back and turned into huge things later on. Again, I don't know if or who this is going to help but if you've got partners, if you're working with people, give them the benefit of the doubt.
If something bad happens, be forgiving. Let them off the hook. Do whatever you can, because I tell you what, having somebody burn you and you walk away from is way better than the opposite where you spend the next three years in court, and issues and headaches, and all sorts of problems that come from it. Like I said, I would say 50% of the time that someone has done something bad to me and I didn't do much, and I just let it roll off, because that's how I approached it, later on, it came back tenfold to me.
Just some thoughts, I hope that helps someone who is out there listening. Again, I'm not saying I'm perfect. I've screwed up. I've offended people more times than I ever want to admit but I hope just that thought, I'm hoping that one of you guys, someone out there listening to this who has a decision right now is going to make the right decision and just make your life and the other person's life a million times better.
I promise it will come back to you in a positive way. That's what I got. I'm at home and I'm going to go play with the kids, have some fun. I appreciate you guys, and thanks for listening.