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Reciprocity - To give is to gain!
by
Duncan McAdams
A mutual or cooperative interchange of favors or privileges.
Humankind has developed its sophisticated level of achievement
by sharing and honing the individual skills of its citizens. This
more than anything else has lead to us being at the top of the animal
kingdom, as improvement became a part of survival.
Back in the days of the caveman a spear maker may trade his spears
for food improving the spear every time to impress his clientele
and retaining a full belly. He may have given away a free spearhead
to his favourite hunter in return for a tasty morsel. (Great marketing).
In time this behaviour became instinctive to a point where if I
did a favour for you, instinctively you feel the need to return
the favour.
Business today is no different. You do something for my business
and I pay you or reciprocate with my time and skills in kind. There
must also be a balance between the amount of work done compared
to the amount received.
"How does this affect marketing?" I hear you asked with
baited breath. It is an issue when thanking clients for work, pitching
for jobs and client gift giving.
Thanks for the business
Saying thank you to clients for work received is potentially a
fantastic way of tipping the reciprocity scales in your favour.
By simply saying thank you to your client you are effectively giving
them the power to give you more. Clients will feel special, wanted
and important, something we all need to feel. I guarantee that the
client will automatically think of some way to reciprocate immediately
by you simply saying thank you or sending a thank you card. This
would have to be the best marketing word EVER!
Pitching for work
When pitching for work, that is doing work in the hope that your
company will be chosen ahead of other contenders, is not a good
way of touting for work. This does not mean that you stop going
into competition with other companies. Giving too much of your skills,
time and materials tips the balance of reciprocity whereby if you
fail you receive nothing and feel emptiness whereas the prospective
client has everything to gain. "Paid pitches" is a better
way of doing things so if you donšt "win" you do receive
some sort of compensation for your troubles.
Gift giving
Giving gifts to clients to say thank you for the work or to entice
clients to give you work is an important part of business. Beware
though I recently had a client who sent things randomly to her past
clients at an average cost of $2.50 to 750 clients this became
expensive. Most of the past clients received things like a pen or
pad or something that at the end of the day meant very little to
them. Who cares about a cheap pen coming through the mail that is
forgotten in a minute?
The best way of giving is to send something that will be perceived
as valuable to the recipient making them more inclined to reciprocate.
The most cost effective way of doing this is by sending information.
Try to personalise any gift giving as much as possible. Remember
gift giving in business is to get clients or would be clients to
reciprocate with more business so make it targeted, valuable and
worthwhile.
Tis good marketing so send me a gift any time - even a pen - and
I'll try my darndest to reciprocate!
Please feel free to
contact Duncan at anytime to give you more tips on client pleasing.
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