Have you ever felt obligated to return a favor? Someone does something nice, and suddenly you feel like you owe them a little something in return? That feeling can be a powerful lever in marketing and I had a real-world reminder of it today. A few weeks ago, I got an email invite for a webinar. The topic? Backups. But here’s what caught my attention… it was advertised as a wine and cheese pairing webinar. 🍷🧀 Now, I wasn’t exactly curious about backups. I was curious how on earth they were going to pull off wine and cheese virtually. So I registered. A few days later, I got a call from a very polite SDR asking for my address. They wanted to send me the wine and cheese. Sure enough, today the package arrived just in time for the webinar. Here’s the thing… I wasn’t planning to attend. I had a train to catch, I was exhausted, and like most of us, my calendar’s overflowing. Normally, I’d tell myself "I’ll catch the recording later." But this time was different. They’d sent me something thoughtful. And I felt obligated to show up. So there I was boarding the train, glass of wine waiting at home listening in to a webinar about backups I didn’t need. And you know what? I also know their sales rep will follow up soon. I’ll probably even agree to a short call... not because I need what they’re selling, but because I feel like I owe them a bit of my time. That’s the law of obligation at work. Now imagine applying that in your MSP. If you can find the right prospects the ones who do have a need for what you sell and create that same sense of goodwill and obligation… well, you can probably guess where that leads. Think about what you can give in advance a guide, a free assessment, maybe even something physical that creates that tiny spark of "I owe them." Those little sparks turn into sales appointments.