Newsletter Archive

How Bank of America gave to get

Last Updated:

October 9, 2024

Table of Contents

Welcome to Edition #71 of Did You Know? (DYK), the weekly newsletter by Gorick Ng, Harvard career adviser and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of The Unspoken Rules, where we deconstruct the untold story of how someone (or something) became successful—and what you can do to follow in their footsteps.

Did You Know? Give first!

Your story this week

Did you know? Bank of America would not be around today had its founder, Amadeo Peter Giannini, not lent coins off a San Francisco pier.

You may have heard of the name, “Bank of America.” You may even have a debit or credit card from them.

But did you know that Bank of America used to be called Bank of Italy and it almost went under after an earthquake?

*A.P. Giannini (left) and North Beach, San Francisco, USA today (right).Images belong to* *Agence Rol. Agence photographique* *and Google Maps.*

It’s 1906 and San Francisco just faced the biggest earthquake in its history. As fires engulfed the city’s streets, A.P. Giannini—a first-generation Italian American and the founder of a small bank—sprang into action. Giannini rushed into his one-room Bank of Italy, pocketed as many coins as possible, and hid the money beneath vegetable crates to avoid looters.

Then, as most other banks “remain[ed] shut to sort out the damage,” Giannini did the unexpected: He took his coins to a pier in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, stood up some plywood for a desk, and started offering loans “on a face and signature.”

He lent to “the little people”—those considered “credit risks” by most banks and who would otherwise be forced to take loans from predatory lenders. His small but impactful decision “built a foundation for San Francisco's economic recovery.”

Fast forward 22 years to 1928 and Giannini merged Bank of Italy with a smaller Los Angeles-based bank called Bank of America, renamed the company “Bank of America,” and started going national.

Another 21 years later and, by Giannini’s death in 1949, the bank had grown to more than 500 branches and $6 billion in assets. It was also the largest bank in the world at the time. Today, it’s the 6th largest bank in the world with over $3 trillion in assets.

What does this mean for you? The next time you find yourself wondering, "What's in it for me?" remember Giannini—who gave first, and received an even larger payback later.

*A modern-day Bank of America building.* *Image via Investopedia*.

Your strategy this week

Did you know? Give first!

What Giannini did was what I learned—perhaps too late—when launching my book, The Unspoken Rules: "Give, give, give, give, take."

Why? The idea behind this unspoken rule (as shared with me then by a publishing industry veteran) is that the easiest way to get people to give you something often isn't by asking. It's by giving.

Here’s how it works.

Imagine a short-term goal:

To get people to click “buy” (in my case)
To get people to become clients (in Giannini’s case)
To get a promotion or job (maybe in your case)

This is what our instincts tell us:

To ask people to click “buy” (in my case)
To ask people to become clients (in Giannini’s case)
To ask for a promotion or job (maybe in your case)

What I (and likely Giannini) didn’t realize is that this is far more effective:

Give some strategies away for free (in my case)
Offer some banking services for free (in Giannini’s case)
Volunteer some of your time (in your case)

If you’ve ever gotten a free trial or level for an app or game, you’ve experienced the power of "give, give, give, give, take." There’s even a term for this in the world of software startups: “freemium” (i.e., give some parts of the app away for “free” and then charge for “premium” features).

Do you have a goal… and feel the urge to just ask for it (which sometimes still has a place)?

Try filling in these blanks:

(1) “I really, really want _______ to _______ because _______.”

E.g., “I really, really want this startup to hire me full-time.”

(2) “I could just ask for _______, but I could instead give first by _______. That way, _______ would have a taste for _______.”

E.g., “I could just ask for a full-time job, but I could instead give first by sending the CEO a teardown of the company’s strategy from an outsider’s perspective, ideas for what they could do next, and a list of where I can contribute (and where I have prior experience). That way, the CEO would have a taste for the quality of my work if I were hired full-time.”

This example in particular may sound like a lot of work, but I know countless people who have applied this exact strategy—and landed a job right away without ever needing to submit an actual application.

You of course need to focus on the select few opportunities that you really want. But, once you know what you want, it’s time to show how much you really want it—and it all starts with showing how much you have to give.

I know it because I’ve experienced it: I didn’t have much runway leading up to my book launch, but I did try to give as much as I could by dropping teasers of my content on social media. It’s hard to find a counterfactual, but I do think it helped me launch my book with a bang.

Give first!

Gorick

Sources:

Newsletter Archive