The Favor That Opens Doors

You want to connect with someone—a hiring manager, a potential mentor, someone at your dream company.

You send: "Would love to pick your brain about your experience in product management. Coffee sometime?"

They don't respond. Your message sits with 47 others asking for their time.

Try this instead: "Saw your post on remote teams. Made you a quick reference on what's worked for us—thought #3 and #7 might help. No ask, just figured you'd find it useful."

They reply in 20 minutes: "This is great. Let's chat next week?"

The difference? You gave before you asked.

In 1974, sociologist Philip Kunz sent Christmas cards to 600 strangers. He got 200 back. One in three people felt compelled to reciprocate a greeting from someone they'd never met.

AI lets you create these gifts at scale.

Robert Cialdini documented reciprocity as one of six universal persuasion principles. When you give someone something unexpectedly valuable, their brain creates psychological debt—even when they didn't ask for the gift. AI helps you create high-value gifts at scale.

Everyone reaching out to them wants something. Time. Advice. An introduction. Your message is one of dozens asking.

But when you give first—something genuinely useful, no strings attached—you trigger reciprocity. Their brain shifts from "another person wanting my time" to "this person helped me."

The trick: high value to them, low cost to you. A curated list takes you 20 minutes but saves them hours. A template you've already built feels custom to them.

Robert Cialdini documented this in Influence: reciprocity works even when you didn't ask for the gift, don't know the giver, and the gift is small. Humans hate feeling indebted.

Give something valuable first. Reciprocity handles the rest.

Kunz's experiment revealed something profound: reciprocity works even when it shouldn't. Those strangers had no logical reason to send cards back. But receiving creates psychological debt.

Your contact isn't weighing your message on pure logic. When you give them something unexpectedly valuable, their brain makes a snap judgment: "This person helped me. I should help them back."

David Ogilvy gave away his best secrets in Confessions of an Advertising Man. The book created a waiting list for his agency—because readers felt they owed him something.

The gift isn't manipulation. The value is real. Give something genuinely useful, and reciprocity handles the rest.