Reciprocity in selling

I recently was re-reading Robert Cialdini – Influence. If you haven’t caught up with it, I’d recommend it. It’s a thought provoking read.

One chapter is about the reciprocity rule. One of his examples is how the Hare Krishna movement improved their fund raising skills when they used the law of reciprocity. How does it work?

By moving to handing out a gift before they asked for donations they increased the amounts they raised. They tapped into the feeling that we have that if someone does something for us we must make a return contribution. Is it because we don’t want to be under an obligation even for something as small as a flower? Or are we being polite? Or are we frightened of what our peers might think of us if we don’t offer something back?

It’s probably a mixture of all three. Politics works on the reciprocity basis – According to Cialdini, Lyndon Johnson was a past master at handing out tactical favours and as a result succeeded in passing a large amount of legislation even getting the support of opponents.

And business definitely works on the reciprocity rule. Witness the large number of business refferal networks set up on this basis.

So how can you make the reciprocity rule work for you?

If you study some of the top marketers on the Internet, such as Rich Schefren, Stephen Pierce and Frank Kern, you’ll see that whenever they have a new product to launch, they start off its introduction by giving away information. Reports, video clips, white papers come tumbling out them in a constant stream. They’re creating interest yes. They’re stimulating excitement yes. But also they’re tapping into reciprocity.

If they’ve given me all this free stuff – which is informative and content rich – how much better will the end product be? I owe them to buy it.

How can you tap into the reciprocity rule in your business?