Michel Fortin Sucks...

… Words out of thin air and assem­bles them into mas­ter­ful sales pages that earn more money than you can even imagine.

Sorry about the title. I just wanted to see if I could get Michel to post that title on his own blog.

It does relate some­what to what I want to talk about, though. And that’s the power of the law of reci­procity.

I was very hon­ored when Michel asked me to be a guest poster on his blog. What do I know about copy­writ­ing, which is his forte? If I knew any­thing about copy­writ­ing, I wouldn’t have had to write Glyphius and MuVar to help me fig­ure out if the words I had put on paper were prof­itable or not.

One thing that Michel and I do have in com­mon is that we under­stand the law of reci­procity. He used it when he invited me and oth­ers to guest blog here.

The law of reci­procity is sim­ply this:

When you do some­thing for some­one else, they feel a com­pelling urge to reciprocate.

Often, the rec­i­p­ro­ca­tion exceeds what was done for them. This is just basic human nature.

How many of you mix with oth­ers in this field at sem­i­nars or other events? Have you ever watched the per­sonal inter­ac­tion? There will be peo­ple run­ning around try­ing to meet all of the speak­ers and will imme­di­ately ask some­thing of them.

That is apply­ing the oppo­site law to the law of rec­i­p­ro­ca­tion. The result is almost always a push­ing away.

Do you want some­one to men­tion your blog on their blog? Don’t ask them to do it. Use the law of reciprocation.

Men­tion their blog on your blog very promi­nently and with praise. That’s it. 90% of the time, the urge to rec­i­p­ro­cate will kick in and they will auto­mat­i­cally men­tion your blog.

In the other 10% of cases, it just can’t hap­pen due to their other pri­or­i­ties. Per­haps they have decided to never men­tion any other blogs on their blog for strate­gic rea­sons. Per­haps they can’t say some­thing good about your blog, so they are mer­ci­fully remain­ing silent.

Even in those cases, the law of rec­i­p­ro­ca­tion works. They will still feel that urge to return the favor some­how. You will see some­thing com­ing from them in another direc­tion that will ben­e­fit you… per­haps they will send you a prod­uct… or men­tion you on their list.

It is very dif­fi­cult to avoid the urge to rec­i­p­ro­cate when some­one does some­thing nice for you.

So how can you put this to you busi­ness advantage?

Sim­ple. On my daily to-​​do list from Monday-​​Wednesday, I have an item that says “Do some­thing nice for some­one.” It’s that simple.

Some­times, I send a prod­uct to some­one with a note that says “I really appre­ci­ate how you _​_​_​_​_​_​.” Some­times I pro­mote a prod­uct with­out an affil­i­ate link that I think my cus­tomers will appreciate.

It’s dif­fer­ent every day, but I can’t fin­ish my work day until I do some­thing nice for some­one with­out ask­ing for any­thing in return.

It works. It builds a reser­voir of rec­i­p­ro­ca­tion and starts to snow­ball. You start to learn that you sim­ply can’t give too much.

Want more links to your site? Link to other sites with­out ask­ing for any­thing in return. Many will link back to you auto­mat­i­cally. Many oth­ers will repay you in some other unex­pected way.

Want to get more copy­writ­ing refer­rals? Refer your clients that could be served bet­ter by the spe­cial­ties of another copy­writer to them.

Want to make more money? Help oth­ers make more money.

Want more free time? Help oth­ers free up their time.

Want more friends? Be a bet­ter friend to others.

That’s the law of reci­procity. You want stuff? Don’t try to suck it to your­self. Instead, give that thing that you most want and you will get more of it.

About the Author

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