The importance of building relationships with your audience or customer is key to the success of your business. Reciprocity sets up a system of mutual benefit that helps to drive growth and engagement, and ultimately, sales.

From your customer’s perspective, reciprocity means that if you help them, they will help your business. Reciprocity is not created immediately, however. It takes time to build trust and loyalty through your brand.

Here you will find reasons why you should build reciprocity in your business, and how it can mutually benefit you and your customer.

1. What is reciprocity in business?

Reciprocity is the exchange of value in one from entity another. In this case, the value is often given by your business to your customer for free. For instance, if your business is to sell goods, you may add on free shipping as an added value to your product.

This achieves two things. From the point of view of your customer, reciprocity gives a reason for your customer to keep buying from you. From your point of view, as the business owner, it encourages loyalty to your brand.

This is how a system of mutual benefit is built. You should find ways to keep this system going so that your customers return for repeat business.

2. Why should you build reciprocity?

As a business owner, the main reason to build reciprocity is that it gives value to customers. It builds trust and strengthens the relationship between your business and your customer.

By giving value, you achieve another effect: you build authority, which gives your customer a reason to listen to you. As you grow your brand, you will hope to encourage loyalty among your customers.

What better way to do this than to position yourself as the authority in your niche? Building reciprocity also motivates your customers to take action. Whenever you are trying to sell something, you will always get some resistance from your audience. To tip the balance in your favour, give them something for free. You will encourage their decision making and thought process, pushing them towards your offer.

Finally, this system of mutual benefit also wins new customers. A customer who is new to your brand, and has never heard of your product, needs encouragement. A great way to introduce your business to them is to give them a free taste of your product and all of its benefits.

3. How can you set up a system of mutual benefit?

If you are a new business owner, you may be puzzled as to how you will nurture relationships with your potential customers. The simple answer to this problem is to build up content that you will later give away for free.

The first step is to create the content. Called a lead magnet, this is a piece of marketing material that you will give away for free in exchange for their email address, or for signing up for your newsletter. This could be a free checklist, e-book, or audio material.

Just because it’s free doesn’t mean that you should make the material low quality. The purpose of the lead magnet is to introduce your brand to your potential customer and entice them to buy from you in the future, so don’t skimp on its quality.

The lead magnet should promise them that there is further quality to be had, and give them a reason to remain interested in your business.

Don’t be afraid to give them value for free. It will ultimately lead to a greater return on investment because your audience will want to act as your brand ambassador, spreading news of your business by word of mouth and recommendations through social media.

4. How can your business benefit from offering free value to your customer?

Let’s say that you have given your audience a ton of value in the form of materials such as blog posts, videos, webinars or photos. Your content is interesting and engaging. You also gave value in the form of free trials, limited time offers, coupons or free shipping.

How can you ask for something in return? This is where your social media marketing strategy can be of good use. You can ask for feedback, comments and reviews. By keeping your audience engaged, they will think of your brand first instead of another competitor’s. They are more likely to take action and buy from you.

The more channels you use to get your message out there, the more likely your audience will see it and remember your brand.

5. Building reciprocity in your business is really just an exercise in maintaining good customer relations.

When there’s a system of mutual benefit set up, your customers are more likely to be happy with your brand, and more willing to buy from you. The more value you give, the more persuasive your messaging is. This is how you will convince your potential customer to sign up to be a loyal customer.

Understanding what motivates people to buy will help you improve your sales strategy. Market motivators, or the reasons why customers are motivated to make purchases, is what drives sales. In this blog post I examine why some products succeed at their sales strategies, and how you can use them to grow sales in your own business.

1. Products succeed because they understand buyer behaviour

Some products fall flat while some take off. Why?

Buyer behaviour (or what makes people spend money, and on what types of products) may explain why.

For example, let’s say your business is to sell a mobile app. You do your market research, you’ve figured out that there is a market interested in the app, you design the product, and you promote your sales launch.

But it doesn’t sell.

You do more market research and gather user feedback. On further examination you realize that it doesn’t solve a problem for your customer, nor does it fulfil an unmet need.

Not only does a product need to be well designed, but it also has to be easy to use, with features that differentiates it from your competition. In a saturated market, it is harder to develop a highly innovative product than it is to develop your own unique brand. A unique brand is what drives sales and motivates your market to buy your product.

Sociologists, psychologists, and economists have built models of buyer behaviour to explain why people buy. One oft-quoted example is the Rolex watch. Its functionality is the same as any watch, yet people will splurge on Rolex watches for the status and prestige conveyed by possessing one.

Understanding what buyers need and desire are key to implementing strategies in your marketing that will encourage them to fulfil these needs and desires.

2. How can you use market motivators to drive sales?

If you’re a small business, you might not have an army of sales marketers backing you up like the big corporations. You might not have a big budget, either.

But it is still possible to strategically use marketing to drive sales. Since you did your research and you know what motivates your market, the next step would be to craft your sales strategy.

This is where it will help to understand marketing principles, which include knowing your pricing strategy, distribution channels, and marketing strategy.

In terms of promotion, the process of setting up buzz, excitement, and hype will go far to ensure a successful sales launch.

Promotions can be accomplished through word of mouth, referrals, traditional and digital advertising, and social media.

Some sellers run Facebook ad campaigns to build excitement for their product and to boost sales. With Facebook ads, it’s possible to target Facebook users in a specific niche, ensuring that your ad gets seen by the right viewers, and that your ad spend has a high return on investment (ROI).

It also helps to have testimonials, people who can vouch for the value and reliability of your product.

A successful sales strategy also prompts potential customers to beat their indecision and procrastination. This can be done by implementing urgency and scarcity. People procrastinate when spending money especially if it’s a large amount of money.

That’s why the words “limited time offer” (urgency) and “get them before they’re gone” (scarcity) are used so often. Time-limited promotions can boost sales during holidays or periods of slow sales growth. Setting up a waitlist also shows your customer that your product or service is in high demand.

3. Know your ideal customer profile and market motivators

Knowing your ideal customer profile is essential to understanding market motivation and what drives sales.

Your target demographic will have specific wants and needs that are different from another demographic.

You might think that your product is for everyone, or you’re hesitant to limit yourself to a niche. But the truth is, you can’t sell to everyone, and it’s not useful to spend your paid ad dollars targeting all audiences. Your efforts will be wasted if you try to target the wrong audience.

Focus your efforts for a greater ROI by knowing how your customer behaves, their likes and dislikes, and their habits. Get very detailed when creating your ideal customer profile. For example, what are the types of sales channels and distribution that is used most often by your niche? Is it online or brick and mortar stores? Make your products easily available through these channels.

Finally, knowing your ideal customer profile will help you make decisions about how to market your product in a cost-effective way.

4. Know how to handle customer objections

Customer objections are expected when you are pitching a sales proposal. You may see your product or service as a benefit to your customer, but they see it as a huge risk. What if the product doesn’t work? What if they don’t reap the benefits?

Lower their perceived risks by talking them through their objections, asking questions, and presenting solutions.

It helps to add some statistics, graphs, and charts in your slide deck to back up your claims.

Once you have an effective sales pitch, this will help to drive sales in your business.

5. The timing must be right to motivate your market to buy

Most often, sales are seasonal and can have peaks or troughs depending on the timing. For example, sales of gym memberships see an uptick at the beginning of the year when people make new years’ resolutions to get fit.

Also consider the current economic climate, which can tell you a lot about market conditions.

Timing is especially important if you are in the tech industry. You don’t want to launch a product that is misaligned with current innovations and technologies.

Technology always moves fast, and if you’re in the tech space, you might always be running to catch up.

Furthermore, it’s not reasonable to launch a product if there is no demand for it.

Consumer demand is what drives sales.

Take advantage of opportunities though be wise about it as you don’t want to just ride the wave of a fad that will pass in a few months.

Keep an eye on industry trends in order to stay relevant.

6. Keep repeat customers happy to drive more sales

When a good relationship is established between the seller and customer, this will motivate the customer to return for repeat business. Repeat business drives sales, all without having to nurture new leads.

You don’t want to just make a single sale and never have your customer return for more.

It takes less effort and less money to make a sale to a repeat customer than it is to find new ones.

To do this, have great customer service. If you’re a smaller operation, you may want to hire virtual assistants to answer phones or emails.

This will also help to cultivate customer testimonials which you can use in your social media or website.

Excellent customer service is what accelerates the growth of your brand by word of mouth and helps drive sales.

Market motivators are one of the key factors that drive sales. Knowing what motivates your customer to purchase will already take you a few steps ahead in your sales strategy.

Building a brand is essential to your success because if done correctly, a brand is something that people will remember.

What do people do when they are trying to solve a problem?

They think about the potential solution, and if they remember you, they will knock on your door seeking your help. This can help you distinguish yourself, and thereby open the doors to many opportunities, and make you more successful.

In this blog post, I talk about two types of brands: 1) personal brand (also your professional brand) and 2) business brand.

1. What is a personal brand?

A personal brand should be a reflection of your superior qualities and strong characteristics.

When you get an introduction to a potential client or employer, you want your personal brand to reflect your best qualities and give them a reason to hire you or do business with you. If you’re unsure about what are your best qualities, get feedback from your family, friends, or a job coach.

Think about the impression you want to give when you first walk into a job interview. You only get one chance to make a first impression, so a pleasing appearance, firm handshake, eye contact, and smile are essential. This is your first step to building your personal brand.

2. How can a personal brand guide you to success?

The next thing you need is to craft your “elevator pitch.” Your elevator pitch is a thirty second story consisting of your name, your past experience (whether it’s academic or employment), and a highlight of the qualities that you bring to the table. It should be no more than five points and brief enough to fit onto a cue card.

When you’re networking, use your elevator pitch to make the right impression. Preparing an elevator pitch is also useful when you first meet a potential employer, client, or team member.

3. Be memorable (for the right reasons)

Your brand should be unique so that people will remember, and recall you when they are looking for your services. This is why building a brand is essential to your success. Who is going to win that client, project or job? Of course it will be the candidate with the most memorable personal brand.

The person who gets the job is successful because they have a strong, memorable personal brand. You have only an hour or so job interview to make a good impression and convince them you’re the right person for the job.

This will also be helpful when you’re trying to win referrals and new opportunities to your business.

4. How often should you revise your brand?

A brand should be revised as often as needed. For example, if you’ve acquired a new skill set, or reached a milestone in your business, it’s a good idea to make these achievements stand out. Keep your elevator pitch current so that it remains relevant.

5. Your personal brand includes your social media

Your personal brand is not only the impression you give in person, but also the impression you give through your social media. So bear this in mind when you are posting through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Posts must always be professional. It also helps to post strategically and think about what you want your audience to see when they search for you online. What would you want your employer or client to see when they visit your social media?

6. What is a business brand?

A business brand is similar to your personal brand, except that with a business brand, you are trying to promote a specific image for your business that will drive sales and referrals. You want people to think of your business when they want to solve a problem.

7. Why a brand is essential for the success of your business

A brand is needed not just to make a sale, but also for both customers/clients and team members to have clear expectations of your business. A brand should guide your team members on how to deliver the mission and values of your business.

Why should they choose you among all other competitors?

Businesses can basically offer the same product, but why choose one brand over another? This is the question that your brand should answer.

Consider what emotions are stirred when using words or phrases, slogans, logos, and colour palettes to build your brand.

You want to target the right demographic and market with your brand. Is your product low end or high end, exclusive and luxurious, or casual and mass market?

Don’t confuse your audience with contradictory messaging. Your audience would rather understand than be confused about your business. If they’re confused, they’ll move on to the next business who can help them solve their problem more quickly because they don’t want to spend time trying to figure out what your business can offer.

8. How can you use your brand capture your audience’s attention?

To do that your brand needs to tell a story. Make your customer the hero of the story, not your business. Use your imagination when crafting the story. Think of the problem you are trying to solve for your audience.

Branding will help you target the right customer. It gives you focus so you don’t waste time advertising to the wrong people.

9. Your brand unites your team members to one common goal

A brand is not only useful for your audience, it can inspire the team members who help run your business. As an entrepreneur, you are a leader and one of the ways to help lead your team is to remind them why they are along for the journey. If their goals are aligned with your brand, you will find that they are more motivated to make your business a success.

10. Conclusions

The reason why building a brand is essential to your success is because a brand is memorable: no need to repeat yourself because your brand does it all for you. A brand should invoke the desire to do business with you or continue the conversation. By cultivating the right impression, your brand can work for you and pay off in the long run.

Is it your dream to own a business as a millionaire freelancer in the gig economy?

A freelancer is someone who is self-employed and usually works on short-term contracts or “gigs” for other individuals or companies.

Before you dismiss this idea as unrealistic and unstable, there are freelancers who have made it as millionaires in the gig economy. However, there are precautions that should be considered before diving into this type of lifestyle.

Why freelancing?

The lifestyle of a freelancer can be enticing. You create your own schedule and decide how many hours you want to work. You can work remotely from anywhere, whether it be lying on a beach in Spain or sitting in a cafe in Paris. If you own your business, you can make millions in the gig economy.

Why has freelancing increasingly become the ideal lifestyle for the millenial? As a millennial, you might be looking to buy your first home. You might not want to rely on a family member for a downpayment, so you have to use their own ingenuity to find other ways to afford a house, other than working a 9-5 job. More people have also opted to freelance as a result of the pandemic.

The gig economy is booming.

In the book Freelance Your Way to Freedom by Alexandra Fasulo, the author describes how she made a million dollars after some years on the freelancer platform Fiverr. Her success prompted her to run her own million dollar freelance agency.

Fasulo describes her lifestyle as a freelancer as being free from former, outdated rules of work and money. A freelancer would rather do things their own way, and not let anyone tell them that they have to do things like everyone else.

The book is an entertaining read as well as being educational. It teaches you how to freelance so that you can have the freedom to work from anywhere and have time for other things such as taking care of family. There’s also a low overhead to working either for a freelance platform or on your own agency.

The book goes into some of the same principles quoted in The 4-Hour Workweek, and gives tips on how to hire virtual assistants in your business. There’s a lot about social media and current trends, and how to go viral, which contributed to the author’s success as a freelancer. These tips may be geared towards a younger generation. But if you’re not, it pays to be social media savvy. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea though the book does emphasize that you don’t have to do anything or reveal anything about yourself that you don’t want to in order to be successful as a freelancer.

Is the freelancer lifestyle right for you?

A cautionary statement must be included with any discussion about the freelancing lifestyle. Sure, you can be your own boss, but don’t forget that you’d always be working for someone, either a client or for your audience.

You also have to be disciplined. There’s no one keeping an eye on you and your work, so it’s on you to deliver the work as required.

You have clients to please, and to deal with if they are unhappy with your work. You have to develop a thick skin, just like any other business.

Freelancing can also be precarious.

The benefits of financial security and a steady income are oftentimes lacking in a freelancer’s career. It’s called a gig economy for a reason. It can be unstable at times. What happens if there is a recession and your only source of income dries up? What if this forces you to go back to your corporate job?

This is why business owners emphasize having multiple streams of income. The more streams of income, the better. This could be investing in real estate, the stock market, or having multiple products for sale.

Just like being an entrepreneur, being a freelancer is not for everyone but the possibilities can be endless if you have the stomach and the drive for it. The book gives further tips on how to own a business and be a millionaire freelancer in the gig economy.

Creating wealth as a freelancer

Another helpful book about freelancing is The Wealthy Freelancer by Steve Slaunwhite, Pete Savage and Ed Gandia.

A concept that is described in a lot of business books is that when you are working for a salary, you’re trading your time for money. The amount of money you make is limited by how much time you have to work for that money.

However, if you outsource your tasks, or manage to create a product such as a course or membership site, you’re no longer trading your time for money and your income is limitless. The book goes into a lot of detail about how to work around trading your time for money.

Some questions that you must first ask yourself before deciding to jump into a full-fledged freelancer business include: Do you have the right mindset to be a freelancer? Are you disciplined, resilient,  and don’t give up easily? If you pitch a project to a potential client, but they decide to hire a different freelancer, can you take rejection? Are you resourceful at finding ways around problems?

Are you in the right industry for a freelancer?

If you want to work from home, or work while travelling, the type of work you want is one you can do with just a laptop and WiFi connection. Some examples given in both books include writers or copywriters, bloggers, photographers, and web designers. These also have low overhead so it’s easier to get started with.

What is the first step to be a freelancer?

Know what niche you want to work in. You also want to know how to set your fees. You can do this by scoping out the competition and price your fees accordingly.

How do you transition from a traditional job to a freelance career?

Make sure that you have emergency savings if you want to leave your job. Have a plan and an intention in place. This includes a plan for how you will get clients, whether it be through referrals, networking, associations, or industry events. Referrals are worth more than randomly approaching people you don’t know, which is more like a shot in the dark.

If you don’t already have experience, put together a portfolio, which can be a mixed media of written pieces or videos.

It’s also important to nurture your leads. If they don’t immediately buy from you, it might take several weeks or even several months for them to make a decision to do business with you. Until then, continue to keep in touch with them and to send value to them, until they make that decision.

Is there is a high demand for your product or service in your market?

You can’t sell your products or services if there is no demand for it.

Finally, both of these books emphasize that as a freelancer, you must have personal branding. Personal branding is the one thing that sets you apart from every other freelancer, and gives your potential clients a reason to hire you specifically and not another freelancer.

If this convinces you that freelancing is the right path for you, make sure that you have systems set up that can help you focus your business and your mindset on success. Owning a business as a freelancer is possible, though being a millionaire in the gig economy takes time, effort, and a lot of patience.

Further reading:

Fasulo, Alexandra. Freelance Your Way to Freedom. (2023)
Slaunwhite S, Savage P, and Gandia E. The Wealthy Freelancer. (2010)