3 Ways to Use the Law of Reciprocity to Take Your Business to the Next Level
Learn 3 powerful but practical steps to use the Principle of Reciprocity to persuade patients to buy from you now and to keep them buying from you forever.
The show notes go even deeper and are located here:
Read Full TranscriptYou may not realize it but we’re all salespeople. We sell all the time.
We’ve sold our kids on following the rules and going down the right path.
We’ve sold our spouses on what a great catch we are.
So, it’s agreed. We all know how to be persuasive. And persuasion is persuasion, right? It’s no different in the body contouring world, but it can sometimes seem more difficult.
Persuasion is not really a simple subject. Did you know there are 6 Principles of Persuasion?
They are
Reciprocity
Liking
Scarcity
Authority
Consistency
Consensus, aka Social Proof
In today’s episode, we’re going to break down one of the six principles of persuasion – the key principle of persuasion known as Reciprocity and we’ll show you how to use this principle in your body contouring practice to take both your business and your profits to the next level.
Recall the last time you went out to eat and your friend or colleague picked up the check. How did you feel? You felt the urge to give back, didn’t you? You probably said, “I’ll get the next one.” And that’s completely normal. It’s the Law of Reciprocity at work. Experts say it’s the most powerful law in human nature.
The Law of Reciprocity can be defined easily. The law simply says “You do something nice for me, then I’ll do something nice for you.”
And there’s 3 different kinds of reciprocity.
Financial Reciprocity
Emotional Reciprocity
Material Reciprocity
Financial Reciprocity
Let’s start with Financial Reciprocity. Our earlier example of your friend picking up the tab is a good example of Financial Reciprocity.
How do you apply this to body contouring?
You could put this into play by offering a particular patient a ‘special discount’ or ‘added value.’ A promotion that is not advertised. This gives the patient the perception that she is getting a special gift from you because she is important to you. She will appreciate it, but more importantly, she will feel obligated to continue to buy from you.
Emotional Reciprocity
Let’s move on to Emotional Reciprocity. Emotional reciprocation is where you make people feel good, you make your patients feel good. That shouldn’t be difficult. We like to do that all the time, right?
You do this with statements like this.
“I appreciate your time. I know how busy you must be.”
“Wow. You have 4 kids plus a busy career. I congratulate you on being able to successfully juggle that.”
Whenever you say anything that causes your patients to feel better about themselves, they have a deep unconscious need to reciprocate.
It’s not difficult finding things like these statement to say. So focus on it and make a point of giving your patients these kinds of positive strokes that will not only make them feel good but will ultimately be returned to you with continued loyalty and patronage.
Material Reciprocation
Finally, the third type is Material Reciprocation. Material Reciprocation is when you do something for someone like bringing them a meal when they’re sick. So how do we apply this type of reciprocation to body contouring?
Easy! You could offer the patient a special drink. At our medical spa, we have a Rejuvenation Bar where we serve complementary Puretinit’s, refreshing low-cal but tasty beverage served up in martini glasses.
So you don’t have a bar. You could stock a variety of drinks and ask patients when scheduling, what drink they would like to have waiting for them when they arrive.
These are all simple and just nice things to do for your patients. So make it a point to think about and plan to apply the Law of Reciprocity to your practice.
Form these habits. Make new plans.
None of these things will cost you much and they will all reward you in patient loyalty, future business, and increased sales.
Your Action Step for this episode: Determine how you can apply the Law of Reciprocity to your business or practice. What can you offer patients? Plan it. Then start doing it.
In our next episode, we’ll explore another principle of persuasion, the Principle of Liking, and how you can use this principle to send your sales through the roof.
That’s it for now.
Don’t forget to hit subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode.
Bye for now from Shannon and Kay at the Body Contouring Academy’s Proven Profits Podcast