For your purposes, the Law of Reciprocity states: If you do something nice for somebody, human nature dictates the recipient will feel obligated to do something good for you in return. It is in essence: “you reap what you sow”. This is an undeniable rule and one that you need to teach your salespeople. The question of will someone really do something about it at a given time relies upon who asks. At the exact moment that you try to do something really nice for someone, the other person will feel obliged to return the favor. Be cautious however not to call it out like “now that I did this for you, so now you must do this for me”. This thinking destroys the entire principle. The idea is to do something and enable them to feel that they have to do something for you in exchange. Be subtle. Never dictate. The most crucial thing about this law to remember is that reciprocity is IMPLICIT. This simply means that you can never point out that you will want something in exchange. When someone does something good for you, these people IMPLICITLY expect that when the circumstances are right, you will do something of approximately equal value for them. In the matter of a recently hired salesperson, by you “going the extra mile for them” on their own basic salary, they will “go the extra mile for you” in return. Remember that people do anticipate pay back eventually and this will be based upon the concept of basic social interchange. The whole concept is that by doing what's right and doing something good for these people, they will give back the favor to you eventually. Think about it - the previous time someone did something nice for you, you wanted to give back the favor right? Say your own next door neighbor takes places your trash barrels on trash day back into your garage area for you because you had a late work day. What do you feel compelled to do on the next “trash day”? That is right, you want to take in his own garbage barrels. And so the next time you've got a situation where you could accomplish something nice to your sales person, evoke the “Law of Reciprocity”…it can pay you back significantly in improved sales productivity. The best part about it is that you simply won’t need to take in just about any smelly trash barrels… Learn more about sales management training, stop by our site all about Ralph Burns's site where you can find out all about sales management.
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