When is a gift not a gift? This episode explores the intricacies of the law of reciprocity and how it applies to sales and marketing. Learn the key elements that differentiate a true gift from a conditional offer and how to effectively use genuine gifts to build relationships and influence others. Discover the power of unexpected, meaningful, and personal gestures in your sales strategy.

Hello again, and welcome.

Welcome back to Connect & Convert, the sales accelerator podcast, where we share

insider secrets for small business owners to grow your sales faster than ever.

Hi, I'm Dennis Collins, and I'm joined today by my lovely and talented partner.

Hi, Leah.

Say hi to everybody.

Hey, Dennis.

Hi, everyone.

Hope everyone's having a great day.

Absolutely.

Good.

Uh, good to be back with you.

I love, uh, I love doing these with you.

You always have a great perspective for our audience and that's what we like.

Great perspectives.

Okay.

There are actually instances, Leah, you may not believe this, but there

are times when a well intended gesture of giving a gift, I mean, how can

that have any negative intentions?

But there are times when the well intended giving of the gift backfires.

Can you believe that?

It backfires.

Okay.

I don't understand.

I know I didn't either for the longest time until I took a deep dive into this

to figure out what it was all about.

Here it is just because something is promoted or advertised or offered

as free doesn't mean it's a gift.

Okay, so the topic for today is when is a gift not a gift?

When is a gift not a gift?

Part one.

We have two parts to this one.

So.

There's a lot of info on this.

Yeah.

We'll leave you hanging.

Okay.

This all gets back to my love for and my study of the

principles of influence with Dr.

Robert Cialdini.

One of my mentors, my guru on anything persuasion and influence.

The law of reciprocity, we've all heard of it.

Anybody who's in any kind of sales or marketing has heard of law reciprocity.

It's probably the most often quoted, uh, probably the most

used principle of influence.

I would say of all of them, that's the one I hear about the most.

And everybody knows this one.

Gift giving creates an obligation for the gifts receiver to reciprocate.

Have you ever, felt that, I mean, I'm still waiting for my

gifts, Leah, but that's okay.

I find it really interesting.

My dad who was in sales most of his life.

Oh, I remember him teaching me when we were doing volunteer work, that if you

want someone to take something, you hand it to them like, just, just go through

the actual physical motion of handing it.

They can't help, but, but take it out of your hand.

It's it's a certain type of person, and it's very rare when they don't.

So that act of giving forces them to take it.

It also makes them listen to what you have to say, because all of

a sudden there's a connection.

So I think that that that is the same principle.

I'm glad you said that you said two things.

Listen, listen, isn't that what those of us who make a living doing some

type of sales, isn't that what we're supposed to be doing is listening.

Okay.

And when we give a true gift, as we'll talk about in a second, that

promotes the fact, the idea that our customer is going to listen to us.

Okay.

So here it is providing a gift at the very beginning of a relationship or

a business interaction that's touted as a great way to invoke reciprocity.

I do for you, therefore you must do for me.

So many of us in sales are so invested in this.

You, you know, I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine.

It's almost like a truism.

So here's an example.

Leah, have you ever had this happen?

I know I have.

You get an invitation for a nice vacation, or maybe it's a VIP dinner for two.

All you have to do.

is sit through a sales presentation for a timeshare.

Ah, is there a gift involved here?

What do you think, Leah?

Is that a gift?

It's, it's packaged as a gift, but it's not a gift.

It's a quid pro quo.

It's you do this, you get this.

There's, there's action required.

That's not a true gift.

Of course not.

There's action required.

I, I had a guy the other day, uh, I had my alarm system, uh, revamped.

Okay.

And so the alarm guy came in and he quoted me some ridiculous price.

I mean, it was crazy.

And he said, but listen, I can get you this alarm system for 50 percent off.

I said, really?

That's what he said, you have to listen to a sales pitch by a solar,

you know, the solar panel things.

You got to listen to a sales for a sales pitch on solar.

I said, dude, I have no interest in solar.

Okay.

It, my house can't have that because there's shade and I know I can't have it.

He said, well, if you don't listen to the sales pitch, you

can't get the 50 percent off.

Wow.

Was that a gift?

Not even close.

I hope you, I hope you, you said goodbye to him.

Politely.

Very politely So, you know, these companies that offer free trials

for their product or service.

You know, what irritates me maybe you've had the same experience Oh, yeah, we're

gonna do a free trial but you got to leave a credit card on that site an actual

credit card that is verified on that site or they don't give you the free trial

You Hello, and you know, like most of us, we forget, well, I'll speak for myself.

I forget that I did it.

And all of a sudden I didn't cancel it within the three

days or 10 days or whatever.

And guess what?

I've got another subscription that I didn't want.

Yes.

And are you happy with it?

Will you ever do business with that company willingly or give them a referral?

Heavens no.

You canceled it as soon as you, I curse them every day.

Okay.

I mean, I, I fall into that trap.

I know better.

I don't do it much anymore, but I have a whole list of subscriptions.

So I could show you my screen right now.

I'll show you.

I don't even want the hell most of them are.

Okay.

So, so just because something is free, does that mean it's a gift

under the law of reciprocity?

Obviously.

No.

Here's what Chaldini teaches us.

The only type of gift that really works here is a gift with no

expectations and no conditions.

And you know, I, I'm sorry to say this, Leah, but most of us in the sales

business always have conditions on a gift.

I shouldn't say always, usually have conditions on a gift.

That's not a gift.

That doesn't work.

So what if I said this to you?

Hey, Leah, I came across some new information.

Here's an idea that could really have an impact for your business.

I've attached an article that gives you all the details.

I hope this is helpful.

What do you think?

That's a gift.

How would you, how would you receive that?

Would that be?

That's beautiful.

You're giving me information.

You are, you've identified something you think I would be interested in.

There's no strings attached.

You're not saying, you know what, once you read this, I'm going to do this.

I'm really trying to get you to read this.

If you do it, I'm going to give you a deal or you're going to get a bonus or nothing.

It's, it's freely given and then freely received given.

If the information is impactful, which I hope you wouldn't send

something that wasn't, it's meaningful.

It's personal.

It's to that, that person, whoever he or she may be, and it's unexpected.

They didn't ask for it.

That is an example.

of the role of reciprocity in sales.

One of my clients is now looking into mailing a special package with

a unique gift and some valuable information at the very beginning of

their interaction with no conditions, no selling, just information that they

need to succeed in a specific situation.

I'm highly encouraging them to do it.

Okay.

So I've often heard, Leah, maybe you have, well, I gave you something of

value and you didn't reciprocate.

This so called law of reciprocity just doesn't work.

What do you think?

Well, I think you're looking for the wrong thing to come

back if that's your attitude about it.

Because at a minimum, if, I mean, Dennis, you provided me with, with tons

of great information at a minimum, you telling you talking to me about your

mentor, has inspired me and also made you feel more solid in your belief system,

more solid in what you're able to do and more solid about our relationship.

So you do always get something back.

I mean, the adage is there's more happiness in giving than in receiving.

It's there for a reason.

It's not there because you're going to then get something back.

So then you're looking at it wrong if that's how you think about it.

There you go.

We need what we call a frame reset, don't we?

Our frame, sometimes in sales, is the wrong frame.

Okay?

Yes, we're in business to make sales.

Yes, we're in business to make money.

But a gift in the true sense of the, the law of reciprocity is a gift

with no conditions, no expectations.

That's hard for us.

It's hard for me.

You know, I, I find that difficult, but that is the purest form of reciprocity.

Actually, the science is, is pretty unequivocal.

It's not a gift if there are conditions or an expectation

that you must respond in kind.

The best gifts, gifts have no conditions.

They're unexpected, they're meaningful, and they're personal.

So in the next episode, please stay tuned.

Next episode, part two.

We'll discuss what qualifies as a gift.

You will be surprised.

Speaking of surprises, we can't let this segment, this episode end without

talking about one of our favorite topics.

The Wizard Academy.

I know you and I will be going there soon to get some education, to get

some learning from the Wizard himself.

And I invite all of our viewers, all of our listeners, wizardacademy.

org, wizardacademy.

org.

You will love the array of classes.

You will love the instructors.

You will love the way you feel when you leave the Wizard Academy.

It's a feeling like no other.

So I have a question for you, Dennis.

Of course.

On, on, on behalf of our listeners, Roy Williams sends out a Monday

Morning Memo every Monday.

He's done it for years and years and years.

I know it's a new subscribe.

I subscribe.

Is that true?

A gift?

Is, is that a gift?

That's a great question.

That's a great question.

Okay, let's, let's use the template that we just described.

Okay.

Is it unexpected?

Is it meaningful?

And is it personal?

Okay.

I would say at this point, it's probably not unexpected, right?

Because he's been doing it for like 40 years, right?

Right, right.

I don't think he's, I don't think he's missed a Monday.

So maybe it's not unexpected.

Is it meaningful?

Um, I, I think that depends on who the, the, the reader, uh, is.

I know the last couple that he has done have been mind blowing to me.

I mean, meaningful beyond description.

Is it personal?

It's not personal to me.

No, he's not sending that to me.

He's sending it to 40 or 50 or 60, 000 of his closest friends.

So, so I don't know if that would be specifically a gift.

It's.

What I love about it.

What I love about it is he has no expectation of ever hearing from

you or getting anything in return.

I think though, Uh, under our three, our three, um, uh, categories of

what, what constitutes a gift.

Maybe the Monday Morning Memo itself isn't the gift, but perhaps the

rabbit hole is because that's highly personal and it's highly divergent.

And you know what?

We're not going to tell our listeners what that is because if you don't know

what the rabbit hole is in the Monday Morning Memo, you got to find out.

Better go find out.

That's our gift to our listeners.

Yeah, the Wizard of Ads, his name is Roy H.

Williams.

You can Google it and you will find the Monday Morning Memo comes right up.

The archives are there.

You can look at past editions.

You can look at current editions.

Uh, and yeah, next time, uh, you know, we'll, maybe we'll talk more about the

rabbit hole at some point, but right now we want to leave it a mystery, right?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You can't find it unless you go on.

That's a great point.

That could be the, that could be the unexpected part, right?

That's right.

You never know what you're going to get in the rabbit hole.

Speaking of mysteries, Dennis, we, we get calls and we get

some emails from our listeners and our watchers and there was one that

really intrigued me, one question.

And so I'm putting you on the spot a little bit because it was specific

for, for you for you and the depth of research that you do with a lot

of the topics that we get into.

And this particular, um, uh, listener wanted to know when you are in a sales

position, how do you determine whether to go deep into the, uh, the analytics, into

the details, into the science is how he phrased it, or decide to go with a story.

Do you have something, is there something that clicks for you

where you go, okay, this is how I'm going to move business forward?

Yes, great question.

Thank you for whoever sent that question.

Uh, in previous episodes, we have talked about the way we communicate

with each other, our decision making styles, our social style.

Okay.

And if you may recall, there are four, uh, separate social styles.

And one of the teachings that we use when we do an engagement with

a client is one of the first things we do is social style training.

Why?

So that everybody can find out what their preferred social style is.

And most important for salespeople, what is the social style of the person

you're talking to, your customer?

Why is that important?

Because the four styles Decide differently.

So in your example, somebody who wants all the scientific data and all the,

you know, the, the backup that would be called an analytical style person.

They can't get enough data.

Who wants the story, the expressive style person.

If you start giving them the science.

They black out their brain doesn't compute that, but they

compute their world in stories.

So we'll do another episode on that.

I think that re that that that's a good question.

And maybe, maybe we didn't make it as clear as we should.

We'll do another episode.

But before we leave, I want to give a challenge.

We always end with a challenge.

Don't wait.

Okay.

We do.

Ask yourself a question.

Are your offerings a real gift?

Or are they loaded with conditions that are actually posing as

a sales or marketing piece?

Is your gift unexpected, meaningful, and personal?

Look closely at your offers.

Don't use offers that don't meet that criteria if you want to

exercise the law of reciprocity.

Okay, that's it for today.

Be sure to tune in for part two of this episode.

Uh, we'll be doing that.

Stay tuned.

We'll be doing it shortly.

It'll be coming up soon.

It's always a pleasure.

Leah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And good to see you.

And I wish our listeners and our viewers a great day.

That's this episode of Connect & Convert the sales accelerator podcast.

See you soon.