The Act of Generosity in Business

Why being generous is critical to your business success

By Suhaib Mohammed

Often, entrepreneurs are obsessed with accumulating material things -- more traffic, more customers, more money.

The most vocal and fiercest critics of capitalism, Karl Marx, shouldn’t be blamed. He was right when he called our obsessiveness for wealth and profit as “primitive accumulation.” Worse, our obsessiveness over wealth and profit is a never-ending game. Here are three reasons why being generous is critical to your business success. Let’s get right to it.

Generosity Begets Contentment

Looking at it on the surface, the act of giving doesn’t make much sense. But when you critically dissect it from the inside, you’ll find out that being generous is not only about losing a sheer of your products. It’s not about being favorable to some folks and doing a disservice to your venture either. It’s quite the opposite. If you give your physical product or a share of your profits to someone, you’re actually doing a personal good to both yourself and your beneficiary.

The More You Give, The More You Get

When you offer a freemium service to your potential premium subscriber, charge $0.00 for your drop-shipping business, or give out your 300page e-book for free to your new blog subscriber, you’re not losing a sale. You’re building a strong relationship with your prospective customer. You’re building a solid connection with your audience. The connection will help your buyer to not only get to know you better, but admire you and trust you. Whatever you sell, whatever you stand for, if you want to stand out and reap more rewards, you have to give more.

Giving Doesn’t Just Build Your Business. It Changes Your World

When you give out something for free, you’re not only opening the gates of the word-of-mouth advertisement for your startup. In reality, you’re inspiring your audience. You’re building your community. You’re changing your world for the better. Give out some funds or books to a person or your local community. The items you give out will do much more than put a smile in the person’s face. It will directly contribute to improving their life. Sure, that will motivate them to give as well -- when they get their business ideas off the ground -- and the engine of giving back continues to recycle.