Offhand, I can’t think of a more inspiring book than Linchpin. It has completely changed the way I see professional life and work. Written by Seth Godin, the premise of the book is that we are all artists and that we need to give more free gifts at work to advance our career or our business. And when Godin says free, he means free.

What the author means is that we need to create more and deliver more value to our work and our customers for free without the expectation of reciprocation. Expecting reciprocation turns the act of giving a gift into a transaction and strips it of its beauty.

Godin claims that the economy is constantly changing at a rapid pace due to the internet and that the most successful companies will be those providing free gifts versus those racing to provide a similar product at the lowest price possible, with the greatest sense of ease, and the fastest shipping. On the one side, he mentions companies such as Facebook, YouTube, and Google. These are companies that generate billions of dollars (and followers) every year but offer a very valuable product for free. This is a gift. On the other side, companies like Walmart, Target, and Amazon are companies “racing to the bottom”. Price cutting and undermining competitors requires huge resources and continually lowering your cost (and profit margin). Whereas, providing a unique service and giving free gifts allows a business to race to the top.

Now that is a profound truth about the economy in the 21^st Century, worth thinking about:                                                                                         The most successful businesses provide a huge value for free.

In the past, succeeding by giving free gifts would usually be impossible, but the internet has placed the mode of production at the fingertips of every single person with access to an internet connection and allowed for communities to build businesses around the gift giving model. Companies who ignore this fact do so at their peril. Godin uses the music industry as an example, showing how their reluctance to not adapt to the trend of sharing music online caused them significant problems. Had they gotten on board with the shift in music consumption earlier, they would have been able to share in the success of companies that did shift.

Godin really inspires when he speaks about how the giving of gifts can lead to success in almost any domain. He cites better customer service, doing more than is required, and adding in any way to make things better in your role or business. The idea is that by providing these free gifts, you make yourself indispensable and therefore more valuable. If you do those things and a company does not value you then it probably won’t keep you for long. Either you’ll leave for something better or another company will come and get you.

Some of the examples he gives are the waiter who gives amazing service to every customer who walks through the door, the company that provides a high-quality blog and resources for free, and people who go out of their way to customize service. These are examples of things that are not required to sell a product, but they create the magic around a service or product.

This concept is one of the driving forces at The English Business House. We strive to give our patrons as much free value as possible. We went as far as providing the gift of free classes to anyone who wanted them for two weeks after Canadian Thanksgiving (a tradition we will continue). Sure, some people saw this as a marketing gimmick, but it was truly done in the spirit of gift-giving. In the same way, we provide a blog for free, because we want to add as much value as possible for our clients. The goal of our business is to teach people how to speak the highest level of professional English possible. We believe that if we can do this better than anyone else, we won’t have to chase people, people will chase us. They won’t choose us because we offer the lowest price or because we are the same as the others. They will choose us because we offer the greatest value, and we are different from anyone else.

Go out and be a linchpin. Make yourself indispensable through your acts of gift giving. The alternative is a brutal fight to the bottom. Why not take pride in your work instead? Why not give as much free value as possible? Why not make your art for everyone to see? Be proud. No fear. Deliver. Deliver. Deliver.