Your Inner CEO: It's Christmas! What have you got to give?

In any business interaction, building reciprocity can be a powerful strategy. And it's easy to do: just give something away! The giveaway should be free to the recipient, and it should be free to you as well. But what can you you give away that will meet those criteria? That's easy. Give away some valuable information. 

But information seems like too dry a word for what I'm talking about here. Insight is more like it. Provide a worthwhile piece of advice or service that will be useful to your client. You do it absolutely free of charge, of course, but in that way you plant an almost invisible seed of obligation. When you've given something away, and for both you and your client there will be an unspoken expectation of reciprocity. 

You can send an email suggesting the name of a useful website, or a reliable vendor, or a suggestion about how to get the best price on something in the marketplace. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. It just needs to be thoughtful. You want to show that you’re paying attention to your client's needs and you understand the business your customer is in.  

Oddly enough, many potential buyers may not even know exactly what business they’re actually in. You can be of service by helping them to clarify this. In the early years of Amazon.com, for instance, it was assumed that Amazon was simply an online book dealer. It was just like Barnes and Noble, except Amazon existed in cyberspace instead of as a physical store.

But then Jeff Bezos realized that the foundation of his company was not what was sold, but how it was sold. Amazon was really selling an extremely efficient and affordable buying experience. The object that was bought was just the trigger for the experience itself. Amazon wasn’t really selling a product. It was selling a service.

With that insight in mind, Bezos began to market his service through a much wider range of products than just books. This transformed the company from an online bookseller to a virtual mega-store with an unlimited number of potential customers. And it all began with an insight about the essential nature of Amazon’s business.

When you help your clients understand what business they’re really in, you redefine yourself as a collaborator in your client’s success. You’re transformed into a partner, not just a service provider. 

So think carefully about the insights you can offer your potential buyers. Those insights will definitely increase good will, which is good, and they’ll also increase your revenue, which is even better.