In the fall of 2008, Heather Battaglia was a director and vice president at CitiMortgage, in charge of a very successful and profitable division that she saw as recession-proof. Just before the end of the year, as the economy tanked, she was laid off.

Heather thought she would have no trouble finding a new job. She had strong academic credentials and an impressive résumé of corporate experience. But as she began going through her connections, cold calling and doing whatever else she could think of to find her new position, no job materialized. A month went by, then two, then three. Here is how Heather tells it:

I had never been unemployed before; recruiters were always finding me. Now nothing was working.

Eventually I got together with seven other laid-off executives who all belonged to a networking group and created an event for executives who were looking for work.

A couple of people in the group had your book, and they said, “Whatever we do for our event, we need to make sure we are helping others and giving first.” Here we were, all out of work — and our conversation revolved around how we could help others find jobs!”

The newly formed ExecNet of St. Louis adopted a mission statement and a vetting process for new members that included the question, “Are you committed to helping other executives first?”

By the spring of 2009, we had over 150 members in our group — and we were all focused on helping each other first. Many of our group had landed new jobs, others were in final stages of interviews, and others were just getting started. Our group was only three months old and already moving mountains!

Heather and her colleagues were in dire straights — but instead of giving in to recessionary anxiety, they took control of their own state of mind. In focusing their efforts on providing value to others, they created their own booming economy — and it paid off handsomely.

We reprinted this entire exchange in Go-Givers Sell More. A few weeks after the book appeared in the spring of 2010, Heather gave us this update:

We are changing our name to ExecLink, and now have standing-room-only monthly meetings with 500 members, and a regular 130+ executives attend the meeting. Can you believe it has only been a year?!

And here’s the best news: all the original seven founders have landed new jobs and continue to participate in the events.

Thanks, Heather, for the fantastic story for our book — and for the inspiring example!

From Arlin Sorenson, CEO of Heartland Technology Solution, who held a Go-Giver-themed business retreat in the summer of ’08 on his farm in Harlan, Iowa. Arlin also operates a business peer-group organization called the Heartland Tech Groups (HTG), where owners of different companies in the same industry get together once a quarter for two days of face-to-face meetings to share their experiences and best practices. They’ve been doing this for seven years and have eighteen groups going.

Here are a few pictures from Arlin’s 2008 Go-Giver Business Retreat, followed by his report on what happened next:

I wanted to share a great example of how your book and the culture it expresses is taking root in our peer groups.

This weekend, two of our members headed to another state to help a fellow member who had called out for help. The economy and some other circumstances were overwhelming to the point where this member’s company was considering massive layoffs or even closure.

These two volunteered to give up their own precious time (they both lead and manage their own companies) to fly to this member’s office and perform a SWOT (assessment of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), from which they could provide guidance on immediate action steps that could be taken to deal with the issues at hand. This included part of their weekend, a level of commitment that makes this even more amazing.

I just received their findings and feedback report this morning after returning from church — and they are exploding with great ideas and suggestions that will make a significant impact on the company they went to help. Because of the go-giving actions taken by these two men, things for that owner have gone from “futile and overwhelming” to “manageable and possible.”

I now require all members of HTG to read The Go-Giver and do a book report on it, which is shared within their group meetings. When they join our program, the first thing I give them is a copy of the book (now over 125 copies handed out) and talk about the culture of go-giving that makes HTG what it is today.

[Nine months later, Arlin wrote us this follow-up:]

During the fourth quarter, the struggling member was able to regain control of the business, paid off most of their debt and had enough cash in hand to pay the rest. First quarter ’09 was a banner season for sales and profits.

But here is the really interesting thing: the two people who flew out to help the other member’s business say they have discovered that they have been forever changed by the investment of time, effort and dollars they made. Not only did they feel personally enriched by the experience, but they also learned much in terms of business acumen, critical thinking skills and leadership—ideas and processes they were then able to bring back and incorporate into growing their own companies.