The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.

org/web/20210924092050/http…
https://web.archive.org/web/20210924092050/http…
seanwes Menu

Chapter 24: Rule with

Reciprocity
Overlap | Sean McCabe

◄ Previous View Chapters Next ►

T he Rule of Reciprocity is a basic law of

social psychology that says we pay back
what we receive from others. In other words,
if someone does you a favor, you’re likely to
return the favor. If someone provides value
to you, you’ll feel inclined to reciprocate.
Think of reciprocity as a loop. When
another person opens a loop of reciprocity,
we feel an urge to close the loop.
Reciprocity has an even stronger effect
than simply prompting an equal return. We
have a deep-seated need to feel even. If you
do something nice for someone else, they’ll
feel a strong desire to do something nice for
you. We have an intrinsic need to wipe away
any trace of indebtedness. We don’t want to
feel like we owe someone, so we’ll do
whatever it takes to settle up. For this reason,
if you give someone a gift, they’ll not only
get you a gift, but it will likely be a gift that’s
slightly greater in value.
For instance, if you and a friend go to a
coffee shop and you pay for their coffee,
they’ll be more likely to buy you lunch in
return. A lunch is more valuable than a
coffee, so by paying for a full meal they wipe
the slate clean without any doubt. Unless you
already understand how the Rule of
Reciprocity works, this kind of thing happens
all the time and almost entirely on a
subconscious level.
You can use this basic principle to your
advantage by going out of your way to give
someone value. In doing so, you increase the
likelihood of them buying what you have to
sell.
When you give something of value to
someone else, you generate credits. You’ve
built up goodwill. It’s not necessarily
guaranteed that they’ll reciprocate on their
own, but if you ask for something in return,
they’re much more likely to oblige.

Lead with Giving

In any encounter, we constantly evaluate
whether someone is a giver or a taker. “Is this
person offering value to me or trying to take
something from me?” The way we determine
this is simple: Did they lead with giving or
with asking? It’s all about the first act.
Give first, then ask. Never lead with an
ask before you’ve given value. You have only
one chance to make a first impression. The
first impression cements your intentions. Let
your first impression be an offer to help,
provide value, or give. If you mess this up,
you’re automatically labeled as a taker, and
takers get ignored. Nobody likes takers. The
worst offense is when someone responds to a
gift with yet another ask! This works against
the Rule of Reciprocity.
If you want to build a relationship with
someone who’s an influencer, give them
something of value—with no strings
attached. Just do something nice for them.
Don’t give value and then ask. Don’t ask for
anything at all. Just give.
Well-known people are constantly
solicited. Everyone asks them for favors.
Giving is the only way you have a chance at
receiving a response. You can’t ask first; you
must first provide value. Even then, that’s
just the cost of entry. Chances are you still
won’t get anything from this person because
they probably deserved whatever you gave
them. After all, they’ve already given you
value, which is why you’ve heard of them in
the first place.
Build the relationship first. If you want a
fighting chance at making a good
impression, you have to establish yourself as
a giver and not a taker. The only way to do
that is to give with no strings attached. Do
not ask for something in the first message.
Don’t even ask for something in the second
message. The words me or my should be
absent from your entire message. Your
language should be all about them. Say,
“How can I help you? Is there anything I can
do for you? I noticed you could use some
help, so I went ahead and did this for you.
Thanks for everything you do.”
The next step is to repeat. Keep giving
more. If you don’t get this through your
head, you’ll be ignored. There are millions of
people out there who all want to take. They
want to take time, money, attention,
resources, advice, exposure, audience, and
endorsement, and they’re unfortunately all
too common. These people are cheaper than
a dime a dozen, and they will be ignored.
Do you want to stand out? Be different.
Give.
 When people see you as a giver, an
incredible thing happens: people become
motivated to outgive you!
If you’re focused only on yourself and
trying to get whatever you can, you’ll blow
your chances of getting anything because
you’ll be labeled as a taker.
What you should be doing is
incentivizing someone’s inherent generosity.
Giving incentivizes giving. By offering value
with no strings attached, people are
motivated to outgive you. Not only do you
feel good, but you make them feel good for
giving, and you will get more than you ever
could have hoped for in the first place.

Close the Reciprocity

Loop
Giving value comes in many forms, but it’s
always a great way to get attention.
Depending on your goals and what you’re
selling, value could be secured through free
samples, educational material, a chapter of
your book, a lesson from your course, videos,
and more. Sometimes it can be services or
personalized advice provided free of charge.
Freely giving of yourself sounds strange
coming from a business perspective, but it’s
an investment in the long game. You could
sell everything, and certainly some
businesses do, but by giving away just 10
percent of your best material for free, you
breed loyalty. You also create an interesting
story that causes people to spread the word
about you.
Maybe you notice someone who’s been a
longtime fan. What if you reached out to
them and sent a personal message or gave
them something for free? What if you sent
them a gift? Think about the impact that can
have! Because people are hardwired to
return favors—and even go above and
beyond in doing so—you’re almost
guaranteed repayment in some form. Maybe
they come back and buy an even higher-
priced item out of gratitude. Maybe they tell
all of their friends about you. Giving some
value for free can be a great marketing
strategy. You certainly can’t give everything
away, but even something small will go a
long way.
The goodwill you’ve built up—or credits
—won’t last forever though. If enough time
passes, these credits can expire. From a
business perspective, you want to cash in on
the reciprocity by closing the loop with an
ask in a reasonable amount of time. Some
people will inherently pay you back after
you’ve done something for them. Others will
happily do so but only when prompted. It’s
important that you don’t wait too long or the
reciprocity will expire, and an open loop will
no longer exist.

Spend Your Reciprocity

Credit Wisely
This is where you need to be strategic about
how you spend the reciprocity credit. For
instance, let’s say you sell coffee mugs on
your website for fifteen dollars. If you’ve
invested heavily into a person and given
them a lot, they will likely feel the desire to
repay you. But if the value of the investment
you made isn’t clear, then any repayment will
close the loop. So, if you’ve given them two
hundred dollars’ worth of value, but that
value isn’t clear or it’s intangible, they may
simply buy a fifteen-dollar mug to repay you.
From their perspective, the reciprocity loop
has been closed.
It’s worth thinking long and hard about
the options you have available for people to
close the loop of reciprocity. Creating value
isn’t free: it costs you either time or money.
From a business perspective, you have to
think about that investment. Maybe, if you
had a five-hundred-dollar product, the
person you invested in would have bought
that. They might have bought the mug
simply because it was the only option
available. They were willing to pay you back
in any way possible, but the means you had
for doing so were limited.
Consider the extent of the value you’re
providing. If it’s significant, you want to
make sure equal and adequate opportunities
are available for someone to compensate you
back. If you don’t have products or services
large enough to match the amount of value
you’re providing, consider either creating
them or decreasing the amount of value you
deliver up front. Otherwise, such lopsided
reciprocity will result in giving yourself out
of business.

Don’t Display Ads or

Seek Sponsorships
When you put ads or sponsors on your
content, you’re selling your listener or viewer
as the product. They are the product because
you’ve sold their attention to the advertiser.
You are the seller, the advertiser is the
customer, and the audience is the product.
When you sell your listeners’ attention or
data, they become the product. This earns
you zero reciprocity credits because you
dictated the terms of the transaction. By
selling the attention of your audience, you’ve
defined the payment method: attention. Your
audience is paying for your content with
their attention. They didn’t make that choice;
you did. As a result, the transaction is
complete and the reciprocity loop has been
closed.
If you have ads or sponsors on your
content, reciprocity between you and your
audience ceases to exist. The debt has been
paid in full. It doesn’t matter if your
customers have paid you $0.00. They owe
you nothing. You don’t get to call them
freeloaders. The arrangement you set up was
to make your audience the product. You then
sold the product, your audience’s attention,
to the advertisers. This closes the reciprocity
loop and completes the transaction.
You have no leverage to ask the audience
to buy your products because you already
spent any reciprocity credits you might have
earned. You can’t guilt them into donating
because you already forced them to pay you
with their attention.
All things considered, monetizing with
advertisements and sponsors is a
shortsighted strategy. You cash in on the
immediate transaction, but no reciprocity
remains for even greater compensation.
 Relationship marketing is a different way
of doing business. We’ll cover relationship
marketing in greater depth in the next
chapter, but, essentially, you don’t make your
audience the product. Instead of selling your
audience, serve
serve them. With relationship
marketing, you don’t put ads or sponsors on
your content—you’re not selling their ears,
eyes, and attention to advertisers. What does
that mean? It means you’re providing free
value to people and giving them the
opportunity to compensate you back. You’re
not mandating the transaction terms. Rather,
you’re giving them the choice of whether or
not to be a freeloader.

Be Wary of Donations
What’s wrong with donations? Absolutely
nothing. But it might be shortsighted to
accept donations if you want to make money.
Donations are a way to give people
money if you’ve gotten value from them or
you believe in what they do. It’s an
alternative to general commerce, where you
buy goods or services and exchange money.
A donation is often based on a feeling.
Maybe someone did something good for you
or you enjoy their show and they accept
donations. A donation is a way to pay
someone back and let them know that you
appreciate something they did.
Who wouldn’t want to take donations? It’s
great to get money for what you do. Maybe
you run a show or regularly provide free
education. If someone wants to donate
money to you, why in the world wouldn’t you
take their money?
Because it closes the reciprocity loop.
Just as with small products, if you
provide an opportunity for someone to close
the reciprocity loop with something
disproportionately small, you will leave
money on the table. For instance, if you
provide a tremendous amount of value to
someone—let’s again assume it was roughly
worth two hundred dollars—and you accept
donations, that person can donate five
dollars to you and they will feel as though
they’ve satisfied the reciprocity loop.
When I was in need of developmental
work, my friend Daniel offered to help. He
volunteered his own time, came up with a
solution, and delivered it for free. It was very
generous.
I asked, “Where’s your tip jar?” I wanted to
donate to him. The Rule of Reciprocity had
kicked in, and I felt a strong urge to repay
him for the value I’d received.
He said, “No tip jar.”
 Now, you might be thinking, “How
foolish! He just left money on the table.” That
was certainly the first thing that came to my
mind.
Immediately, I thought, “If he had a tip
jar, I would have given him money right
now.” I was sure he was missing out, but I was
being shortsighted.
Look at what happened: Daniel didn’t
have a tip jar, but let’s assume he did. What
would have happened? Maybe, in the best-
case scenario, I give him fifty dollars. He now
has fifty dollars and the reciprocity loop has
been fulfilled. He gave me value for free, I
paid him back for that value by donating,
and now everything is good. The reciprocity
loop is closed and the debt has been paid.
This is what most people are satisfied
with. They host a regular show, provide
educational material, and accept donations,
and they allow the reciprocity loop to be
fulfilled.
Most people are willing to take this
donation money and call it good, but there’s
a longer-term play they’re missing out on.
Daniel didn’t have a tip jar, but what did
he ultimately get from me?
I talked about him on several of my
shows, giving him exposure to thousands of
people. I ended up buying his products. I
gave him publicity because I felt indebted to
him. I gave him thousands of dollars’ worth
of exposure. I couldn’t stop talking about the
great thing he did.
Don’t underestimate just how huge a
breath of fresh air it is when someone gives
of themselves freely with no strings attached.
According to the Rule of Reciprocity,
when we receive value from someone, we
want to pay back that value—it’s intrinsic
human nature. The important point is that
we not only feel indebted to repay someone,
we also want to outgive them. We’re
motivated to outgive them because we want
to wipe away any trace of indebtedness.
By not accepting donations, you can build
up reciprocity that, in the long term, can
come back in a much greater form than a
small donation. If you have higher-end
products and services in place, foregoing
even hundreds of donations can be worth
the tremendous amount of reciprocity that
builds up to the point where one person
decides to hire you for a large project.
Depending on the client, a large project may
be worth tens of thousands of dollars. A
high-end product may be worth hundreds or
even thousands of dollars. How many times
would it take someone donating five or ten
dollars to add up to the same amount? When
you allow people to donate, you allow them
to satiate the reciprocity at an incredibly
undervalued amount. They’ll feel like they’ve
paid you back and move on.
But if you don’t allow people to donate
when you do something for them, you’ll
build up such a great desire in them to repay
you that they’ll hardly be able to contain it.
Even those who don’t pay you back in money
will sing your praises to everyone they know.
Look at me: I still can’t stop talking about
Daniel—and I don’t think I ever will!

Key Takeaways
The Rule of Reciprocity is a basic law of
social psychology that says we pay back
what we receive from others. In other
words, if someone does you a favor,
you’re likely to return the favor. If
someone provides value to you, you’ll
feel inclined to reciprocate.
You have only one chance to make a first
impression. The first impression cements
your intentions.
Your first impression should be an offer
to help, provide value, or give. If you
mess this up, you’re automatically
labeled as a taker, and takers get ignored.
 If you want to build a relationship with
someone who’s an influencer, give them
something of value—with no strings
attached. Don’t give value and then ask.
Just give.
Freely giving of yourself sounds strange
coming from a business perspective, but
it’s an investment in the long game.
Giving away your best 10 percent can be
a great marketing strategy. You certainly
can’t give everything away, but even
something small will go a long way.
If you have ads or sponsors on your
content, reciprocity between you and
your audience ceases to exist.
What’s wrong with donations? Absolutely
nothing. But it might be shortsighted to
accept donations if you want to make
money. By not accepting donations, you
can build up reciprocity that, in the long
term, can come back in a much greater
form than a small donation.

◄ Previous View Chapters Next ►

about
blog
contact
login

Business Community for Creative

Professionals »

Search © 2021 seanwes

seanwes.. All Rights Reserved.

Privacy Policy & Terms of Service