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Dennis Collins: Hello again, and welcome back to Connect & Convert, the sales accelerator podcast, where we share insider secrets for small business owners to grow their 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.

Leah Bumphrey: Hey, Dennis. Hi, everyone. Hope everyone’s having a great day.

Dennis Collins: Absolutely. Good to be back with you. I love doing these with you. You always have a great perspective for our audience and that’s what we like. Great perspectives. 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.

Leah Bumphrey: I don’t understand.

Dennis Collins: 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 that it doesn’t mean it’s a gift. So, the topic for today is when is a gift not a gift? Part one. We have two parts to this one.

Leah Bumphrey: There’s a lot of info on this.

Dennis Collins: Yeah. We’ll leave you hanging. 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.

We’ve all heard of the law of reciprocity. Anybody who’s in any kind of sales or marketing has heard of law reciprocity. It’s probably the most often quoted – 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 gift receiver to reciprocate. Have you ever, felt that, I mean, I’m still waiting for my gifts, Leah, but that’s okay.

Leah Bumphrey: I find it really interesting. My dad was in sales most of his life. I remember him teaching me when we were doing volunteer work, that if you want someone to take something, you hand it to them – just go through the actual physical motion of handing it. They can’t help but take it out of your hand. 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 is the same principle.

Dennis Collins: I’m glad you said that – you said two things. Listen – for those of us who make a living doing some type of sales, isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing – listening? 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.

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 know, I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine. It’s almost like altruism.

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?

Leah Bumphrey: 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 action required. That’s not a true gift.

Dennis Collins: There’s action required. I had a guy the other day revamp my alarm system. 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?” He said, “You have to listen to a sales pitch on solar.” I said, dude, I have no interest in solar. 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?

Leah Bumphrey: Not even close. I hope you said goodbye to him.

Dennis Collins: 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 or they don’t give you the free trial. And you know, like most of us, we forget – well, I’ll speak for myself. I forgot 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.

Leah Bumphrey: Yes. And are you happy with it? Will you ever do business with that company willingly or give them a referral?

Dennis Collins: Heavens no. I curse them every day.

I mean, 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 can show you my screen right now. I don’t even want most of them to be. So, just because something is free, does that mean it’s a gift under the law of reciprocity? Obviously, no.

Here’s what Cialdini teaches us. The only type of gift that really works here is a gift with no expectations and no conditions. And you know, 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 on your business. I’ve attached an article that gives you all the details. I hope this is helpful. What do you think?

Leah Bumphrey: That’s a gift. That’s beautiful. You’re giving me information. You’ve identified something you think I would be interested in. There are 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 something.” It’s freely given and then freely received.

Dennis Collins: 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 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.

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?

Leah Bumphrey: Well, I think you’re looking for the wrong thing to come back if that’s your attitude about it. Because at a minimum,  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 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.

Dennis Collins: There you go. We need what we call a frame reset, don’t we? Our frame, sometimes in sales, is the wrong frame.

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 law of reciprocity is a gift with no conditions, no expectations.

That’s hard for us. It’s hard for me. You know, I find that difficult, but that is the purest form of reciprocity. Actually, the science 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.

Leah Bumphrey: So I have a question for you, Dennis.

Dennis Collins: Of course.

Leah Bumphrey: 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 you subscribe. I subscribe. Is that a gift?

Dennis Collins: That’s a great question. Let’s use the template that we just described. Is it unexpected? Is it meaningful? And is it personal? I would say at this point, it’s probably not unexpected, right?

Because he’s been doing it for like 40 years, right? I don’t think he’s missed a Monday. So maybe it’s not unexpected. Is it meaningful? I think that depends on who the reader 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.

Leah Bumphrey: What I love about it is he has no expectation of ever hearing from you or getting anything in return.

I think though, under our three, categories of 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 have to find out.

Dennis Collins: 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. Next time, 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?

You can’t find it unless you go on. That’s a great point. That could be the unexpected part, right? You never know what you’re going to get in the rabbit hole.

Leah Bumphrey: Speaking of mysteries, Dennis, we get calls and we get some emails from our listeners and our watchers and there was one that really intrigued me. And so I’m putting you on the spot a little bit because it was specific for you and the depth of research that you do with a lot of the topics that we get into. And this particular listener wanted to know when you are in a sales position, how do you determine whether to go deep into the analytics, into the details, into the science is how he phrased it, or decide to go with a story.

Is there something that clicks for you where you go, “Okay, this is how I’m going to move the business forward?”

Dennis Collins: Yes, great question. Thank you to whoever sent that question.

In previous episodes, we have talked about the way we communicate with each other, our decision-making styles, and our social styles. And if you may recall, there are four separate social styles. 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 backup 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’s a good question. And maybe we didn’t make it as clear as we should. We’ll do another episode.

But before we leave, I want to give you a challenge. We always end with a challenge.

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. Stay tuned. We’ll be doing it shortly. It’ll be coming up soon. It’s always a pleasure. Leah. Thank you.

Leah Bumphrey: Thank you. And good to see you.

Dennis Collins: 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.

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