VGTM_John Ruhlin_V1 VIDEO-APPROVED
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[00:00:00] Corey Quinn: Hey, everybody. I have an exciting update to share. First off, I want to thank you for being a part of this show. This is one of my favorite things that I get to do, and your feedback that I receive on almost a daily basis is truly wonderful. Okay, ready for the update? We're rebranding the podcast.
[00:00:16] Corey Quinn: Currently, it's the Vertical Go To Market Podcast. The new name will be the Deep Specialization Podcast. We're doing this for a couple of important reasons. Number one is we've gotten great feedback on episodes that feature [00:00:30] specialists of all types and not just those who specialize in a vertical market.
[00:00:35] Corey Quinn: With this new name, we'll be able to interview all sorts of amazing specialists who are doing things we can all learn from. This includes specialists in SEO, and PPC, and e commerce, and SaaS, and more. Number two is Deep Specialization is the term I use to talk about the right way to specialize. It's the intersection of focus, strategy, and customer intimacy.
[00:00:58] Corey Quinn: I talk a lot about it in my [00:01:00] new book, and you'll start seeing more Deep Specialization content from me everywhere. Okay, so what's changing? In addition to interviewing amazing guests, You're going to start hearing from me directly. I'll be sharing my strategies, tools, and tactics with you on solocast episodes.
[00:01:16] Corey Quinn: What's not changing? It'll still be me bringing in fantastic experts who can teach us all how to specialize in order to scale and simplify our businesses and our lives. I'm excited to bring it with you. Okay. That's it for me. [00:01:30] Thanks again for being a part of the show. Welcome to the Vertical Go To Market Podcast, where you'll discover new opportunities to grow your business from seven figures to eight from the world's most successful agency and B2B SaaS executives.
[00:01:43] Corey Quinn: I'm your host, Corey Quinn. Let's jump into the show. Today I'm joined by the author of the bestselling book, Giftology, and the founder of the Rulon Group, John Rulon. Welcome John.
[00:01:54] John Ruhlin: Hey Corey, man. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:56] Corey Quinn: Dude, I am so excited to have you here. I've [00:02:00] been an admirer of your work, , you wrote a groundbreaking breaking book. about the power of gifts and gift giving in business that sold like 75, 000 copies, which is amazing for a business, you know, sort of a B2B or a nonfiction book, especially self published.
[00:02:16] Corey Quinn: I read it many years ago and I've applied a lot of the principles in the work that I do.
[00:02:21] Corey Quinn: And I'm just so excited to bring you on the show let the listeners who may not have heard about your book and about the work you do, [00:02:30] benefit from it as well. so much. So thanks again for coming on, and I'm excited for our conversation.
[00:02:34] John Ruhlin: Yeah, well, you've been living it for a long time, so everything we're going to talk about Is, in your DNA,
[00:02:38] John Ruhlin: so I feel like I'm preaching to the choir, but we're, gonna go, we're gonna go deep and go fast.
[00:02:42] Corey Quinn: I really want to start by asking you, , how did your gift giving
[00:02:46] John Ruhlin: journey begin? well, it wasn't how I grew up. Uh, I grew up on a farm, 47 acres, milking goats every morning. So, I, that's not, I wasn't around a lot of country clubs or nice gifts or like the Emmys.
[00:02:57] John Ruhlin: I grew up in Ohio. but I think that when [00:03:00] you grow up poor or you grow up with, lack of options. It inspires creativity, right? Cause you're, you're like, I don't have money to throw at this. I don't have connections to throw at this. So early on I was in, undergrad to go to med school.
[00:03:12] John Ruhlin: you know, I was dating this girl and her dad was this attorney and he was like insanely like successful, but I also noticed he was super generous. So like when you're poor, you're like, why is that guy giving all the way, all these things? And because of how he showed up for people, people flocked to him from, uh, referrals, [00:03:30] deal flow, like everybody that had an idea, you know, came to Paul, Attorney Paul.
[00:03:33] John Ruhlin: and so that was really unusual. So I remember I went, I interned with Cutco, the crazy knife company. You know, I had no idea what Cutco was, but a buddy of mine was selling them. and so if anybody thinks they have a hard, like, sales job of, like, selling, like, insurance or agency work, like, imagine pitching our girlfriend's dad knives.
[00:03:49] John Ruhlin: Like, that's about as weird as it gets, right? so Paul buys himself a set and buys his three unmarried daughters a set of these knives, drops like five grand on knives, and then comes back to me, this is just who he was. [00:04:00] He said, John, I want to help you hit your goals, but this stuff, Cutco's actually really good, it's handmade in New York, it's like the Rolex of cutlery.
[00:04:06] John Ruhlin: I don't know what else I can buy. So I come back to him a week later. So, you know, pitching girlfriends, dad, knives, again, super weird. And I'm like, he's has all these clients that are CEOs of like financial advising companies, lumber yards, insurance companies, you name it. And, uh, they're all dudes that love hunting and fishing in the outdoors.
[00:04:22] John Ruhlin: I'm, I'm like, maybe Paul will buy these two, 300 pocket knives that Cutco has. And so I make my pitch again, I'm sweating bullets [00:04:30] before church on a Sunday morning and like Paul's like, I don't want to buy the pocket knives. I'm like, ah, okay, cool. I get it. Pitch you twice in a week. He's like, no, actually I want to buy something else.
[00:04:39] John Ruhlin: He's like, I like, I like the idea, but I want to buy a hundred of these, you know, two, three hundred dollar paring knives. And I'm like, Paul, like I'll sell you as many paring knives as you want, but I'd like this gear and headlights look. I'm like, why would you give a bunch of dudes like a kitchen tool?
[00:04:53] John Ruhlin: And now I'm 20 years old. I'm a country bumpkin. And, uh, and he said, John, the reason I have more referrals, deal flow, [00:05:00] access, all these things you want in business is because I found out that a simple truth, and that's if you take care of the family in business, everything else seems to take care of itself.
[00:05:08] John Ruhlin: So for me, I started to understand immediately, it wasn't about the stupid knives, although to this day on the agency side, we still sell millions of dollars in knives 23 years later. But the knife was a delivery vehicle for this emotional connection. And I could, you know, I, I started to understand Paul wasn't this big publicly traded firm.
[00:05:25] John Ruhlin: He couldn't, you know, like spend 20 million on advertising, but what he could do was go [00:05:30] build these amazing relationships and use what we now call artifacts to stand out and to draw people in and to create reciprocity. And, you know, Paul was a master at it just intuitively, but I started to kind of reverse engineer what he was doing.
[00:05:42] John Ruhlin: And, you know, as this 20 year old college kid, I started to get meetings with 200 million companies. And by the time I was a senior in college for Cutco, these people were like, John, does this really work? You know, like, it sounds like a cool academia idea of like, oh, just give gifts and be generous and give creative things.
[00:05:58] John Ruhlin: Cutco's worked with about [00:06:00] 2 million sales reps in 70 years. We became their number one sales rep in the history of the company out of 2 million reps. So at that point I was like, I ain't going to med school, I'm not going to go spend another 12 years in school and, you know, half a million dollars in debt.
[00:06:14] John Ruhlin: I decided, nobody's teaching this, and nobody's doing it. Like, there's swag companies, whatever else, but we started to realize, like, we're going to become the expert at how to use high level, unique, creative, physical goods to deepen [00:06:30] relationships, open doors, 10x referrals, do all of these things that people want to have the results in business.
[00:06:35] John Ruhlin: But we were going to use it through, you know, what we now call giftology.
[00:06:38] Corey Quinn: And so that set you on your journey. now that you consult with businesses and you help them with their gift giving, what is it like a healthy gift giving strategy look like for a business?
[00:06:48] Corey Quinn: Yeah.
[00:06:49] John Ruhlin: Well, most people, if you look at them, even like let's call it a 5 million company, not a huge company, but maybe they're like, Like, create a great lifestyle for their family and their kids [00:07:00] and whatever else, like, if you ask them, like, do you have a financial plan? Most people would say, yeah, I have some sort of financial plan.
[00:07:05] John Ruhlin: Yeah. So what's your operation plan? Oh yeah. I got a COO or I got a, you ask somebody like, what's your relationship plan? And most of the time it's like deer in the headlights look of like, what are you talking about? I'm like, well. So. Most businesses, whether you're 5 million, 50 million, or 50 billion, rise and fall on one thing, and that's relationships.
[00:07:23] John Ruhlin: Could be relationships with employees, could be relationships with programmers, investors, mentors, advisors, centers of influence. [00:07:30] I don't care what industry you're in, you know, even with AI, like, it still comes down to the human to human connection. And people forget that, and so when you ask them what their relationship, like, if relationships are gonna make your business rise and fall, how you show up for those relationships, whether that's your wife or husband, Like, if you don't have a plan for how you're going to love on and take care of your spouse, somebody else will take them away.
[00:07:50] John Ruhlin: Same with your client. If you don't have a plan on how you're going to love on, show appreciation, show gratitude. And so most people default to transactional things. Hey, we closed a million dollar deal. [00:08:00] Here, we're going to go on a trip. Well, that's not a gift. That's an incentive. Hey, you know, we do this, you know, we send you a referral.
[00:08:07] John Ruhlin: I want to do a gift. Well, that wasn't a gift. That was a tit for tat. That was a give to get. So people don't understand the psychology of how they're showing up for their relationships. And most people will spend a lot of money on sponsorships, and advertising, and marketing, and travel, and hunting trips, and ballgames.
[00:08:23] John Ruhlin: And guess what? So do your competitors. Everybody's having a pissing match. My Morton's dinner is better than your Morton's dinner. My [00:08:30] suite at the ballgame is better than your suite at the ballgame with the other 200 people. There's no differentiation in how you're showing gratitude and deepening the relationships in most cases.
[00:08:39] John Ruhlin: Why is my 300 bottle of wine better than your 300 bottle of wine? And so what we realized with relationships is you've got to find those areas where most people either are going cheap or not at all. And most people when they're doing gifting and gratitude physical gifting, they're like taking their clients to the Four Seasons and the Morton's Dinner.
[00:08:56] John Ruhlin: They're not going to McDonald's. And then those same relationships they're [00:09:00] dropping 10, 000 on, they're giving them some sort of like 50 polo with their logo on it. One is a level 10 and one is like a negative 2. And so from a relationship plan perspective, you need to map out and say, how much is these relationships worth?
[00:09:13] John Ruhlin: If I lose this employee or these employees, what's it cost me to hire them? Well, it costs me two times their salary. Well, damn, I better start showing up for those employees a little differently. Cause I don't, every time I lose one, it costs me 200 percent of their salary. And most people, last time I checked, aren't bragging about their [00:09:30] health insurance or 401k that cost a small business owner 20, 000, 30, 000.
[00:09:34] John Ruhlin: Nobody's like, oh my gosh, you offer health insurance. So we started to think about, like, even with our own team and coaching our clients, like, What are the things you could do for them that would make them feel loyal and feel different about the relationship? And so, like all of our employees at Giftology, we pay for a house cleaning every other week.
[00:09:51] John Ruhlin: Cost us 3, 000 per employee, but they brag a thousand times more. We get a thousand times, literally, more energy and effort from that than most companies get from their [00:10:00] health insurance that costs literally 20, 000, 30, 000. It's one tenth the cost, a hundred times, a thousand times the impact. And so that's the interesting thing about the psychology of humans.
[00:10:10] John Ruhlin: Like if you reached out and like you got a 500 billboard, you know, or whatever for a day Like people are like who cares but if you send somebody a 500 gift That's personalized to them that that's like holy crap like a Mont Blanc pen or a you know The Cutco knives engraved whatever it is people Respond differently to the same [00:10:30] 500 spent over here That's kind of noise and marketing and who cares but a 500 package shows up It's personal to them and their family or their kids or their pets.
[00:10:38] John Ruhlin: We call that the inner circle It doesn't make, it doesn't make sense. Like that person could go buy their own 500 thing. The lawyer, the CEO, the director of marketing. But for whatever reason, when you get that, you're like, you feel differently and you, you feel indebted to them. So like, wow, these guys, everybody says they're different.
[00:10:57] John Ruhlin: Everybody says they're best in class. But when that shows up, [00:11:00] it's like, well, maybe they really are because they're actually putting their money where their mouth is. And so that, when I talk about a relationship plan, it's like looking at all the buckets. Employees, clients, prospects, centers of influence, referral sources, and making it a math equation.
[00:11:14] John Ruhlin: So that you can say, like, I did 5 million dollars last year, I profited a million, I'm going to reinvest 10 percent of my net profits back into that, and that means I have 100 grand to reinvest back into those relationships. Whereas most people, it's like, we made money, Hey, Susie, take our [00:11:30] list of relationships, divide it by this 10, 000 dollars I'm going to give you.
[00:11:33] John Ruhlin: And everybody ends up with a fricking calendar. Right? Been there. And so, no, most people don't, aren't strategic with how they're showing up for relationships and it's, it's really costing them a lot of money. So I think
[00:11:45] Corey Quinn: the interesting reframe there is that it's not a gift giving strategy, it is a relationship plan or a relationship strategy that is just as important as these other plans or strategies within a business.
[00:11:56] John Ruhlin: Yeah. I mean, at the day, people don't care about gifts. Like, nobody's [00:12:00] like, oh my gosh, I want to have a gifting strategy. What they want is, they want more referrals, they want more leads, they want more revenue, they want more loyalty. They want some sort of result. And I tell people all the time, do you really care what we're sending?
[00:12:11] John Ruhlin: Like, if I could send out gerbils, and it produced an extra million dollars for your business, you'd send out gerbils. Because you're like, I don't care what we're sending or what we're doing. Yeah. I just want to grow my company. I want the outcome. Whether that's revenue growth or referrals or whatever it is.
[00:12:25] John Ruhlin: And so, so many times people are like, John, this is weird. It doesn't make sense. Like, we just literally, one of our clients, [00:12:30] the Jacksonville Jaguars, sent out a gift, and it was knives, but it was like a 10, 000 gift. And they, and like, the COO was like, This guy, like, runs one of the largest construction companies in the country.
[00:12:40] John Ruhlin: We're really gonna send him, he just took me to one of the nicest golf courses in the world. We're gonna send him knives? I'm like, I'm like, Chad, you don't understand. It's not about the knives. We're going to make him feel seen, and we're going to tie it to his faith and his family, we're going to tie it to his core values.
[00:12:53] John Ruhlin: The knives, who cares about the knives? He can buy his own knife set, but I'm telling you, and it's going in this 3, 000 wood box with a video screen. He's like, [00:13:00] John, you've worked with us for 10 years or 12 years. I don't, I'm not sure about this, but you've never steered us wrong, so we're going to do it.
[00:13:06] John Ruhlin: Last night I got a text from him saying, with the comments from the CEO founder, and it was like, most thoughtful, maybe the nicest gift I've ever received. Now he's been in business for 40 years. Right,
[00:13:19] Corey Quinn: I'm sure I've received many gifts over the years.
[00:13:21] John Ruhlin: And go to, you know, private, go to Pebble Beach, private, go to, you know, Gulf Augusta.
[00:13:25] John Ruhlin: Like, think about, like, people will spend tens of, or hundreds of thousands of dollars on one experience. The Super Bowl, [00:13:30] or, you know, the Final Four, whatever it is. , but it was not the thing. The thing just was the delivery vehicle for that emotional connection of like, wow, this guy gets me and my kids and my family and my legacy and my Dad who started the company and, and all that.
[00:13:44] John Ruhlin: So like people, when you used to get to that level of like emotional connection, it sounds woo woo. But like, we're emotional
[00:13:49] Corey Quinn: beings. It's real. It's kind of taken off the mask. But I don't want to overlook the fact that, uh, what you sent was based on the story you shared. Some [00:14:00] amazing knives and an experience, that was very personalized.
[00:14:03] Corey Quinn: What about that created that emotional reaction?
[00:14:06] John Ruhlin: Well, first off, it was, the box is called a strong box. It's based on a 200 year old concept of like a, A captain on a train or a ship, um, they would have this thing that used to be small, their size of like a loaf of bread, but you put like your jewelry, your diamonds, your whatever the most valuable thing on that with wealthy people would go in this strong box.
[00:14:25] John Ruhlin: They had cast iron on the outside. Well, we made one like 10 times bigger. And so there's a story [00:14:30] of that, of like legacy and like you can put your valuable things in this, whether that's watches or your kid's pictures or notes that you got from your kids or your wife or husband. So that delivery vehicle is really unusual, right?
[00:14:41] John Ruhlin: Like most people, it's like, ship it in a box, who cares? Right,
[00:14:44] Corey Quinn: right. What's the cheapest delivery vehicle I can get it across? Maybe I can throw my logo on it. And
[00:14:49] John Ruhlin: yeah, so there's no, no, the Jaguars, the logo adds value to a lot of, you know, you know, their, their logo actually can add value to a thing, whereas most people's logos take value away from the thing and make it tacky [00:15:00] cheap, but in this case, no logos, you're right.
[00:15:02] John Ruhlin: Beautiful wood box personalized to him. He opens it up. We built the video screen into it. Now it's. The, you know, the COO speaking life and encouragement of like, here's, I really appreciate not your business. I appreciate your friendship. I appreciate your partnership. I appreciate like, just who you are as a man.
[00:15:17] John Ruhlin: We got to spend, you know, three days together, all this other stuff. So that, that sets the tone for like, before you don't even know what's in, it's like, kind of like Tiffany's. Tiffany's done a great job of that emotional connection. If you get the Tiffany's box, you're excited. [00:15:30] You might be getting a spoon or a five carat ring, but you're excited because it's Tiffany, right?
[00:15:36] John Ruhlin: Because of the back, the box has value to it. And most people don't think through the emotional details of like, I don't want to make the video. I don't know what to say in the video. I don't want to spend three grand for a box. I'm like, do you realize like these relationships are worth eight figures to you or seven figures to you?
[00:15:51] John Ruhlin: Like, You probably should, like, think through some of the details, like, right? Otherwise, don't do it at all. Like, the amount of people that just want to check the box and send out crap. And [00:16:00] they're like, John, I did Giftology, and I'm like, tell me the recipe you followed. And they're like, well, we sent some stuff at Christmas from Amazon.
[00:16:06] John Ruhlin: I'm like, dude, you didn't follow Giftology? Barely Giftology ish. Like, you're not gonna get the results and the outcomes if you don't follow, it's like, you know, baking bread. You better put yeast in or don't expect bread. And so, and then on the knives, each knife had a different scripture verse, , because he's a man of faith, or it had like, he loves, you know, he's a big Gators fan, so it had Florida Gators stuff on it.
[00:16:29] John Ruhlin: It had [00:16:30] all things that were tied to heritage, legacy, faith, core values, family. So the tools, every tool you pull out, now it's a conversation piece, because where do most people gather? with their loved ones, their inner circle, their family, their close friends, their close employees. Everybody, whether you live in Florida or Africa, you gather around the dinner table, you know, breaking bread even in 2024.
[00:16:52] John Ruhlin: And so now these tools are conversation piece and joggers and triggers of like the relationship. So now the [00:17:00] client is going to be thought of at least once a day for the next probably 20 30 years. Well, that's 10, 000 thoughts. What would you pay to have your most valuable relations think about you positively, subconsciously, unconsciously, and have this emotional connection?
[00:17:14] John Ruhlin: And be like, they don't, do you ever have relationships where you're like, I like this person, I don't even know why. Like, I have these emotions connected to them, I don't even know why. And a lot of it is how they've shown up, and what they've done, and the experiences that you've had, and you don't even remember some of those things, [00:17:30] but you know how that person makes you feel.
[00:17:32] John Ruhlin: Sounds cheesy, but it's true. And so, and so each of these tools, you know, it was, you know, set that had like, you know, 40 different knives in it. So it wasn't like, you know, the set from people like, Oh, John, I gave knives. I'm like, you order a set from Walmart or like Target. Like you're giving it to somebody that lives in a 2 million house.
[00:17:51] John Ruhlin: You better, at least better make it the nicest knives you can find. And even then, like, unless you personalize it to them, it's just a thing. You might as well give them a vacuum cleaner. [00:18:00] But if you personalize it to them, and now you have an heirloom. Like, think about, like, we've had things go out to people, and you think about if your house was on fire, and you're gonna only be able to grab a few things.
[00:18:10] John Ruhlin: You don't grab the most expensive things, you grab the things that have the deepest story and meaning to you. So it might be the flag of your dad who served in the military, it might be pictures, kids, or like And we've had people that have like said, John, if my house is on fire, this is one of the things that you gave me or that the client gave me, [00:18:30] I'm gonna grab that.
[00:18:31] John Ruhlin: And it's not because it's the most expensive, it's because I feel like it's irreplaceable and the story and the meaning behind that. And you know, if somebody's grabbing something and their house is on fire Like you've gone past it's marketing and, and, and there's a place for all that swag and stuff.
[00:18:44] John Ruhlin: Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've,
[00:18:45] Corey Quinn: there's been a fire right out this window and we grabbed all this stuff. No way. That's like, right. We've had to make that decision. Wow. So yeah, it is like. I've never had to make that decision. Right. I mean, it is what's the absolute, uh, [00:19:00] things in our life that , we would regret not having, should the, you know, a fire, uh, consume the house whatnot.
[00:19:04] Corey Quinn: And so, that's, that's transformational. That's, that's getting away from the transactional, right. diving into some details, like what must be true for it to be a great business gift to help really build the relationship and to reinforce
[00:19:17] John Ruhlin: it? you know, during COVID is a great example, like the amount of people that went to Goodwill during COVID. And like, there's a lot, a mile long line at a lot of Goodwills because people had the time to go through all the crap in their house.
[00:19:28] John Ruhlin: And they're like, I don't need all these things. [00:19:30] I'm dusty. And I don't need 14 different water bottles. I don't need. I need one really nice thing, and a lot of the stuff is just stuff. I'm keeping it because I have room for it, maybe, or it's in a closet. And so, to me, like, you know, people don't need more stuff to put on a shelf and hang on a wall.
[00:19:46] John Ruhlin: Like, most people's walls are full. Most people's closets are full. So, it's better to give something that's functional and practical, but it needs to be best in class. You know, imagine if you're given a watch and you're like, ah, it's only got a thousand bucks. I'm going to give this tag hewer to this [00:20:00] guy.
[00:20:00] John Ruhlin: Well, if the person's wearing a Rolex, that's 10, 20, 50 grand, it might be the nicest tag hewer or Seiko on the planet. But guess what? They're not taking that Seiko. They're not taking the Rolex off to wear your Seiko, especially if it has your logo on it and you're, you're proud of it, right? You're like, I'm giving a thousand or 2, 000 gift.
[00:20:17] John Ruhlin: But, but not understanding the level that most people are playing at, that you're trying to take care of, and so best in class in that category or go to a different category. I mean, one of the reasons Yeti dominated, especially 10 [00:20:30] years ago, was nobody had ever seen, like, most people had a 50 cooler, and you sent them a 500 one, and it's 10 times nicer than the Igloo, and I don't care if you made 50 grand a year or 5 million dollars a year, you probably had an Igloo.
[00:20:43] John Ruhlin: or Coleman or whatever the thing was and so they created this category of like no you can get a cooler that will last the ice seven days and all the craziness and so that is a category where you could spend half the cost of the, you know, the Seiko watch and have a hundred times [00:21:00] more impact because it was best in class in that category.
[00:21:03] John Ruhlin: And it's not, you know, like if you give out a thousand of something that's where people are like, John, I gave out the gifts and somebody was complaining, you know, the client. I'm like, You could give out Ferraris and at least five people out of a thousand are gonna be like I wanted yellow and you sent me red Yeah,
[00:21:19] Corey Quinn: I've had the same thing with video brochures I mean you you're familiar with these obviously, you know, we sent these out to to law firms and You know some percentage come back.
[00:21:28] Corey Quinn: They say, you know, how [00:21:30] dare you? send us this in environmentally unfriendly, Brochure, and it was like, okay, yes, you're right. Probably not the most environmental, but that was not our intention type of thing. No,
[00:21:41] John Ruhlin: like it's creative and it's fun and um, you know, like let's analyze somebody's life.
[00:21:47] John Ruhlin: Are you like, are you drinking out of plastic water bottles ever? No, you haven't in the last year? Like get the heck out of here. Like people, that's the thing when you're, especially when you're cold marketing. Is you have to have a certain amount [00:22:00] of thick skin and know that yes,
[00:22:01] Corey Quinn: oh
[00:22:02] John Ruhlin: my goodness You're showing up to people maybe on their worst day.
[00:22:05] John Ruhlin: Maybe they're going through a divorce. Maybe they're kids sick Maybe their dad passed away and you're showing up creative and fun and playful.
[00:22:12] Corey Quinn: Yeah, and Generous and full of gratitude and you know, really, you know, genuinely interested in connecting and regardless, you know, despite that you're run the risk of just like you said, like humans are humans, right?
[00:22:25] Corey Quinn: You're going to, you're going to get some people that are just not going to be receptive to it. Won't, won't [00:22:30] see the message you're trying to deliver.
[00:22:32] John Ruhlin: Yeah. Yeah. So I, I do have a, um, now all of these rules are meant to be broken, but sometimes people like John, just give me the list of like the things not to give.
[00:22:41] John Ruhlin: Cause like if you just avoided most of those and most, in a lot of cases you'd be in the top 5 percent of gift givers now prospecting. You can get away with some of these more often than you can on the, on the client side because you're, if you, somebody has a relationship with you, you're already like, you're already in partnership, relationship with, you should be doubling down and not sending.
[00:22:59] John Ruhlin: But like [00:23:00] food is on the list, alcohol is on the list, gift cards are on the list. If your audience wants to go deliver, you know, before they buy the book, they just want to test out some of the things we're thinking about. Giftologyplan. com will give them the 10 worst gifts to avoid, and a couple articles with some of our points around.
[00:23:16] John Ruhlin: What makes a great gift, what doesn't. I mean, we're going to cover a lot on this podcast, but we're not going to cover the whole book and the whole plan and everything. I'll give as many, as much as we can. , but knowing what not to give. Like, people are like, John, I love food. And I'm like, why, why is food on there?
[00:23:29] John Ruhlin: I'm like, well, [00:23:30] last time I checked in 2024, everybody has a food allergy or is on a, on a cleanse or a diet or a diet, whether it's sugar or gluten or like you name the thing. And here's the other thing when in marketing, you're trying to get as many impressions as possible. You said a 50 thing of cookies or a hundred dollar thing of, you know, oranges or whatever.
[00:23:49] John Ruhlin: And you're like, Oh, that's cheaper than your 500 Yeti or knives or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, that's true. But how many times do they think about you? Once. Whereas, you know, the [00:24:00] Yeti, the knives or whatever, like when somebody's thinking about you every day for the next year, that's 365 thoughts versus one thought.
[00:24:07] John Ruhlin: The person who's most like trusted and top of mind is gonna win and you're not top of mind 'cause the cookies are gone. Even if they liked them or maybe they gave them away or threw them away. 'cause they're like, they're not doing sugar in January or December, or you gave them alcohol and their dad's an alcoholic or, um, so like there's all of these.
[00:24:24] John Ruhlin: nuances of like what you should be looking out for and so we try to at least coach people on like avoid this [00:24:30] stuff if you want to have like those long term impressions and have people feel a certain way.
[00:24:35] Corey Quinn: Reminds me of a client of mine who sent out, so the, the target audience was, mold remediation companies.
[00:24:41] Corey Quinn: And they, uh, they found this super interesting high end, , flashlight that it's likely that the, that the founder or the owner of the company probably wouldn't have spent money for. They'd love to have it, but it's not something they would typically spend the extra
[00:24:53] John Ruhlin: dollars for. Like a 400 flashlight or some crazy, like, like Pompact that's like Navy Seal level.
[00:24:59] Corey Quinn: Yeah, it's the [00:25:00] Yeti version and it's kind of like the status symbol, right? You flash that around the job site, people are like, Oh, you got one of those type of thing. And, uh, that worked really well.
[00:25:07] John Ruhlin: And why? Any, any one of those guys, if they really wanted to, could have bought the flashlight, but getting something that's best in class that they might not.
[00:25:15] John Ruhlin: Go out and splurge for, and you take it a step further, like everything that we send out is personalized, not with typically logos. It's with the person's name, their last name, their family name, or if it does have a logo in that case, it's not the company that's sending it, it's the company that [00:25:30] you're giving it to.
[00:25:30] John Ruhlin: Right. Right. Now they're like, do they care about your logo? No. Like you'd never, like the example I give is you'd never go to your best friend's wedding on the beautiful Tiffany's vase. You'd never, like, engrave, like, compliments of Ernst Young, or compliments of UBS, or compliments of Scorpion, like, right?
[00:25:46] John Ruhlin: It'd be the cheesiest thing in the world. But we do that in business, so we think we're branding and marketing, but when you're giving an artifact level thing, like, you, like, if you give, if I give you a watch, Corey, do I need to put giftology, if I give you a Rolex, Do I need to put giftology on it for you to remember?
[00:25:59] John Ruhlin: [00:26:00] No, because
[00:26:00] Corey Quinn: you're, you're already attached to the, to the gift.
[00:26:02] John Ruhlin: Right. So, so that flash, that 200, 400 flashlight, I hope they personalize it to the person. Cause now they're like, wow, they didn't even try to manipulate me and get like, try to get their brand on it. They put mine on it. And now like, they're really like the reciprocity kicks in.
[00:26:17] John Ruhlin: I'm like, man, these guys are different. They're classy. This wasn't a promo item. This was like, this is a tool for my, my business. It's so powerful.
[00:26:27] Corey Quinn: The thing that, um, that I love that you talk about, [00:26:30] which is that the packaging, the experience all, all around, it's not just the, the knives or the flashlight.
[00:26:37] Corey Quinn: It is every touch point. In relationship to this, this gift experience is a reflection of your brand, right? So if you are differentiating based on the fact that you are a, let's say a high touch, very bespoke, intentional brand that really cares about the details, You can't just send something that, communicates the opposite.
[00:26:58] Corey Quinn: Everything you [00:27:00] send has to be in alignment and reinforce that messaging.
[00:27:03] John Ruhlin: Yeah. Imagine if you go to your, like this beautiful steakhouse that serves a hundred dollars steaks and you go to the bathroom and it looks like, you know, somebody died in there. You immediately start questioning what's going on at the restaurant, right?
[00:27:14] John Ruhlin: Cause you're like, if they don't pay attention. to the bathroom. What's going on in the kitchen? Like, what are they really doing? And, and the brands are that same way. It's like, oh, they're, they have amazing trucks, but you know, the guy's like showing up, you know, spit and dip in the yard and like doesn't, you know, doesn't take [00:27:30] his shoes off when he comes in the house.
[00:27:31] John Ruhlin: Like, all of those things communicate. Either like first class, and these guys are trustworthy, man, these guys are great. Same thing with a brochure, like I, or a book. Like the amount of people that go cheap. I would rather not have the brochure. Like, that's why we did, like, the 3 metal business cards.
[00:27:46] John Ruhlin: Because I'm like, I didn't want to spend 30 on a brochure that people were going to throw away. You know, I decided to go down different paths and find the area where everybody went cheap. And I took it up, not 1 or 2 percent, I took it up, like, a thousand percent. Right now, like, the business [00:28:00] card, or the flashlight, or the whatever, all communicates, wow, these guys really do think differently.
[00:28:06] John Ruhlin: And now they're not putting you into a price comparison, because you're showing up as a consultant, you're showing up as an advisor. You're showing up as like somebody who's bringing real value to the table, but if you, like, yeah, like, a lot of people are like, oh, they're selling million dollar consulting and they're sending in like, you know, squish balls and stress balls and paperweights,
[00:28:23] Corey Quinn: right?
[00:28:24] Corey Quinn: Right. 70 cent pens with their logo on it. Right. Yeah, like, this is
[00:28:28] John Ruhlin: like, you really think that that [00:28:30] communicates best in class, world class, first class? No, it's cheese ball. Let's
[00:28:33] Corey Quinn: talk about timing. When's the best time to send employees or best, your best
[00:28:38] John Ruhlin: clients gifts? Yeah. Well, any relate, so, so I didn't invent this.
[00:28:44] John Ruhlin: But, , you know, the Ritz Carlton, one of their core tenants, was surprise and delight. And yet, when do most people in business, when do they take care of their employees? After they've worked here 5, years. Here's your gift. You've been here like 10, 000 hours. Here's your gift. Go pick something out of a catalog of crap you don't want from [00:29:00] China.
[00:29:00] John Ruhlin: Like, it's horrible. Or, hey, we, you know, we've been in business 75 years. Very expected. Or, or we, like, um, it's your birthday. Or, like, Most of the time, in business, the times that we're showing up for our relationships are at expected obligatory times. You know, hey, you gave me a referral, here's a gift. That devalues the relationship.
[00:29:24] John Ruhlin: Because most people, if you ask them if they're in the relationship business or the transaction business, people would say, well, we're all about relationships. Even if you're selling toilet [00:29:30] paper, nobody says, we're the worst product but we sell it to the cheapest. That's how we, that's how we win. Like, everybody's like, oh, we're all about relationship and value and all of these things.
[00:29:40] John Ruhlin: And yet, most of the time, we completely ruin the opportunity to surprise and delight our relationship. So, we say no ABC gifting. That's at a baseline. So, no anniversaries, no birthdays, no Christmas. If you think about, you know, I don't know how long you've been married, Corey, but I've been married 14 years.
[00:29:54] John Ruhlin: If I show up for my wife on Valentine's Day, birthday, Christmas, I don't earn any brownie points. [00:30:00] Those are expected, like those are, I just, I just, table stakes, but if I show up on a random Tuesday and say, Hey honey, I got the four seasons booked, spa, I got the four girls take care of, like, and I'm not asking, you know, I'm not expecting anything.
[00:30:13] John Ruhlin: Now, if you give a nice piece of jewelry and then expect something that night. How's that work out? Probably not so well because it wasn't a gift. It was a manipulation. So to me, the timing obligation, obligation, the timing is just as important as what you're sending. So when we're doing any sort of relationship [00:30:30] plan, we're mapping out.
[00:30:31] John Ruhlin: You know twice a year four times a year and if one year we do a gift in February We're not doing a gift again in February. We're gonna do it in March We're keeping them always guessing what's coming when and why and that surprise element is how you have upside Like if you tell if I told you hey Cory, I'm two weeks.
[00:30:47] John Ruhlin: I'm gonna be in town I'm gonna bring you some pizzas over to your house in your head. You're thinking I'm gluten free. I don't like right. I don't like gluten Yeah, I'm in this cleanse right now. I'm not sure about cheese But if I like show up and you're like, man, [00:31:00] my wife, my wife's sick. I didn't have time to get dinner.
[00:31:02] John Ruhlin: Hey, man I got you some pizzas. I surprise you with them. You're like, you're just elated that I showed up with some food I don't have to you know, you have to cook that night or whatever And so the surprise element is how you can really take like something that doesn't feel like that significant But a physical gift shows up and if you're not asking for anything, that's where most people, you know on the prospecting side You're basically asking for their time.
[00:31:24] John Ruhlin: You're trying to pre buy their attention And that's legit, right? Because everybody wants their time and attention, wants to pick their brain [00:31:30] and has this great offer. You show up with a nice gift, now you're at least like above everybody else that's just asking for their time for free. Yeah. On the client side, like, they're giving you money.
[00:31:41] John Ruhlin: On the employee side, they're already working for you. So finding those times that doesn't say, hey, we had a record profit year, or, hey, you've been with us for 30 years. We're doing this because we wanted to, not because we had to. And you think about the relationships that show up for you because they wanted to, not out of obligation or expectation, those [00:32:00] relationships flourish.
[00:32:01] John Ruhlin: Yeah, it's priceless. It's priceless. So, so the timing, making it truly surprise and delight. if you get that wrong and you're like, I want to give Christmas gifts, I'm like, we own an agency that does gifts and we don't even let our clients send gifts at Christmas. Which is for most gifting companies, it's like committing suicide.
[00:32:18] Corey Quinn: Right. Exactly. That's what the budget does.
[00:32:21] John Ruhlin: But what do I care? As an entrepreneur, I've had to bootstrap this business and I'm, you know, like now established, but whether I'm working with a fortune 500 company or [00:32:30] I'm working with a 10 million company, I want them to invest a dollar and get 10 back. The only way you get that 10X or 100X return.
[00:32:39] John Ruhlin: is by creating different emotional connections. And part of that is the surprise element. It's like so crucial. And so many people are like, we're having a conference. We're going to do a gift. I'm like, you're dumb. We're having a retreat. We're going to do a gift. I'm like, you're dumb. Like, no, like kick those other times when you're not getting FaceTime with them to show up for the relationship.
[00:32:58] John Ruhlin: Don't give them stuff at an event. [00:33:00] Yeah. It's like going to a
[00:33:01] Corey Quinn: conference, getting the swag bag. It's like, okay, no one ever looks at that. Just it's all throw away. Right. It's expected.
[00:33:07] John Ruhlin: You talk about being green.
[00:33:08] John Ruhlin: Anytime you're, you're law firm guys or anybody who's like, Oh, we're, you know, like this is not green. Like ask them if they've ever given out swag at an event. Cause most of that ends up left in the hotel room and ends up in the landfill. by the train car load. Like, it's disgusting. It is. It's
[00:33:22] Corey Quinn: horrible.
[00:33:23] Corey Quinn: And we never did that either, uh, by the way. But I think that, that speaks to the power of having a, [00:33:30] giving a physical gift versus, let's say, an e book or, or something that is digital. What is the power of a physical item?
[00:33:38] John Ruhlin: Well, I mean, think about if you go to Chipotle or Chick fil A, what do most people do?
[00:33:43] John Ruhlin: They look at the picture and they say, I want that. Why is that? Well, as a human, we're visual. And what's not in front of us, in top of mind, you know, is like, just kind of like, gets pushed out, and like, there's so much noise. If you think about, you know, we were talking about TikTok and all these different things, like, the average [00:34:00] person's bombarded with tens of thousands of messages a day.
[00:34:03] John Ruhlin: Between all of the different things that we see, and texts, and Facebook, and emails, and whatever else. Most people are overloaded. And so, the beauty, like, why I don't like digital, is digital used to be unusual 20, 30 years ago. Now it's Everywhere. And now like your mailbox is like vacant, right? And so a physical gift shows up and it's sitting there.
[00:34:25] John Ruhlin: Like you have to do something. You have to, like, you're thinking about it. You're [00:34:30] looking at it. It sits on your desk. Most of the things that we're talking about, the reason 80 percent of our artifacts are tied to the home and kitchen and hospitality and family is, I don't want to be something that's in a closet.
[00:34:41] John Ruhlin: I want to be something that's out on the countertop. Like if you think about like If you have something like a Vitamix, or a Knifeset, or whatever, and it's on the countertop, like that one square foot of space is very valuable real estate, because everybody sees it every single day. And so, I want to own that.
[00:34:58] John Ruhlin: I want them to [00:35:00] see, and their family to see. And so the physical element, like a digital book, to me is lame. That's why, when we originally published Giftology, I came out with two 300 versions of the book, that were in leather bags and linen boxes. And my author buddies would be bragging about how cheap they were printing their book for.
[00:35:16] John Ruhlin: Like, I print my book for 3, they print my book for 2. I'm like, dude, this is your Bible. This is supposed to be your life's work. And if you go into any executive's office, they have 37 books on their back stand, or at their nightstand at home, of books they should read. [00:35:30] Most of them never get read. They're just paperweights.
[00:35:35] John Ruhlin: Well, how do you jump the stack? How do you jump the list? How do you get to the front of the VIP line? By showing up differently. And so I remember when we did 50 of these initially, they were 250 apiece. And I sent them off to like Seth Godin and John Maxwell. They were either clients, friends, or people I respected from afar.
[00:35:53] John Ruhlin: I hand wrote a note on a sheet of 10 letterhead that's steel. I didn't ask him for a promo. I didn't ask [00:36:00] him for anything. Because if you send a gift and ask for something, like, it's not really a gift. Right. And so, it just said, hey, you inspired me. Here's where, like, you know, this book is an extension of you.
[00:36:10] John Ruhlin: I'm so grateful for you. So I send these off, they're all personalized on the cover as well, I had them hand monogrammed to them and their spouse. And um, in a leather bag, in a linen box, 250 bucks, my buddies are like, dude, you're gonna go broke with these stupid books. And I'm like, so I mail them off, and guys, I remember the response I got from Michael Hyatt.
[00:36:29] John Ruhlin: If you don't know who [00:36:30] Michael Hyatt is, he was the publisher of Thomas Nelson Publishing for like 30 years. And uh, he's now like a huge influencer, has a huge podcast, huge consulting firm. And, uh, he reached out and said, John, I get 4, 000 books sent to me every year. And all of them, unless I have a really close personal relationship with the person, all of them end up at the library or I give them goodwill.
[00:36:50] John Ruhlin: None of them get read. Your book is the nicest book I've ever seen. I read it, and my wife Gail has already read it, and I ordered 25 copies for my [00:37:00] team. Oh, by the way, would you like to come on my show? I'd love to talk about what you're doing. Didn't ask for any of that. Now, how many business owners will spend 250 in 5 minutes on a bar tab at a conference on a Friday night?
[00:37:15] John Ruhlin: They don't think twice about even a 2, 500 bar tab if it's their top people out in Vegas or a 10, 000 dinner. Nobody remembers or cares. It's not that it's wrong. You're not hurting anybody, necessarily. But in business, we're trying to look for like, where can I put a [00:37:30] dollar in and get a hundred dollars back out?
[00:37:31] John Ruhlin: Well, 250 on a book, to the right person, like, some of these relationships are worth six and seven figures. So 250 is not even rounding her. And so finding those areas where you can have this physical thing show up and have it be unlike anything that they've ever received, but you can't cut corners.
[00:37:49] John Ruhlin: People will try to mimic what we're doing, and they'll do a giftology version of it, and it looks junior varsity, because the other person's already seen my book, so it's like, you need, like, and we're always reiterating, that's [00:38:00] where the 3, 000 wood box, the strong box came from, I'm like, if I wanted to send my book out, and have it be nicer than the 300 version, what would I do?
[00:38:08] John Ruhlin: And the original version couldn't hold a book. So I'm like, I need to make it bigger. And I want to add a video screen to make it more personal. And um, nobody ever doesn't comment when they receive a 3, 000 book. Now I don't send them out, you know, I don't send 5, 000 of them out. But I might send out 20 of them, or 50 of them.
[00:38:28] John Ruhlin: And uh, and so that's like, those [00:38:30] areas of like physicality, of holy crap, of best in class, like, you know, when you do that, like, the human spirit, like, leans in and says, Wow, this is cool. And then it's reminding a week later when they look at it again, they're reminded. So that physicality matters. [00:39:00] [00:39:30] [00:40:00] I hope people are catching, you know, catching what you're, what you're putting out here.
[00:40:07] Corey Quinn: Cause this is, this is amazing, amazing stuff. when it comes to thinking about like, let's say a founder of a, of a business and they're, they want to deploy this type of relationship based, gift, , plan, how often should they be prepared to send a gift?
[00:40:22] John Ruhlin: so to me, if it's your best clients or your employees.
[00:40:27] John Ruhlin: Like remember I said, nobody needs more crap. [00:40:30] So if it's just checking a box and sending somebody a Patagonia vest with your logo on it, like don't do it. Redirect the money elsewhere. Like, unless you're, like, so our plan is figure out the value of all your relationships, each of the buckets. Employees, clients, investors, mentors, advisors, centers of influence, like all of those are different buckets.
[00:40:48] John Ruhlin: And then figure out the value of each of those relationships in that bucket, total, collectively. And then figure out, like, do you want to reinvest? 10, 15 percent of net profit back into it or 2 percent of sales or whatever your metrics [00:41:00] are. I like net profit because sometimes companies have a billion in revenue.
[00:41:03] John Ruhlin: They're a mortgage company, but really they're like profit was like a million bucks or 2 million bucks. I'm like, I don't care if you're a billion dollar company. Let's play with real numbers here because most people aren't publicly traded companies. They need to put a dollar in and they need to track that.
[00:41:15] John Ruhlin: They can't just like, you know, have unlimited funds. And so to me, I would rather send out something that's world class twice a year than send out four mediocre. So when we look at, so a giftologist meets with a CEO or VP of marketing or a CMO or VP [00:41:30] of sales or HR. We'll look at it and say, and if they say, Hey, my budget's 500 a person, then I'm, I might tell them to just do one gift because that one thing, if it's best in class, if it's the flashlight or the, whatever it is, that's unique and personal and meaningful and holy crap to that person or those a hundred employees, you're going to get way more longevity.
[00:41:51] John Ruhlin: Cause they're gonna be like, wow, versus, well, I sent them, you know, a polo shirt. And then I sent him a, you know, a Harry and David basket. And then [00:42:00] I sent it like. So, to me, less is more. Now, if somebody's like, hey, I have these relationships, these 10 relationships, I could invest 10, 000. Well, cool, then we'll do something four times a year.
[00:42:09] John Ruhlin: But in most cases, unless somebody's a prospect. We won't do more than four times a year because it starts to feel on autopilot and automated and marketing You know, it's like the jelly of the month Club, you know It's like the Chevy Chase like if it feels automated that you are not going to connect with them at a deep emotional level So once a quarter four times a year is is great [00:42:30] But a prospect like I wanted to get Jeffrey Gittemer's attention one time the big sales author.
[00:42:35] John Ruhlin: I sent him 18 gifts in 18 months I mean, it was like, pound, pound, pound, like, um, and after 18 months, I finally got the phone call. Um, but that's different. There's no relationship there. You have to keep, like, the intensity, the frequency. All of that is dialed up. That's why I like, if you can turn as many of your clients into sales reps for your brand, that's a way cheaper way to grow.
[00:42:58] John Ruhlin: But if you want to grow faster, [00:43:00] then you take the prospects, but don't go to like send him like, you know, a shoe to get their foot in the door, like do some really cool over the top things. Because every month it goes by that you don't have them as a client. It is lost revenue you'll never have ever again.
[00:43:12] John Ruhlin: Yeah,
[00:43:13] Corey Quinn: that, that, that strategy of not just the super intentional, personalized, uh, best in class gift, um, but also the duration and the frequency matters when it comes to prospecting. What I would do, [00:43:30] what I talk to, uh, agency owners about is do it once a quarter and then continue, be prepared to do it for three years.
[00:43:38] John Ruhlin: We're on the same page. We didn't even talk about this, but three years is the mark for any relationship.
[00:43:43] Corey Quinn: Right. And so the point is, is that you want to get that phone call. They're on that list. They're receiving this gift because you genuinely believe that you have the ability to really help that business to get to the next level.
[00:43:54] Corey Quinn: Like it's genuinely, you genuinely want to get them on the phone because you want to help them. Well then just [00:44:00] shower them with this gift, this amazing gift, this experience every quarter, you're going to get that
[00:44:05] John Ruhlin: phone call. Eventually, maybe two years in.
[00:44:07] Corey Quinn: Eventually, that's fine. And then you have a large enough list and they'll, you know, they'll, the calls
[00:44:11] John Ruhlin: will happen.
[00:44:13] John Ruhlin: Yeah, but you're not sending, you're not sending big pens and, and,
[00:44:17] Corey Quinn: uh, You just don't even do
[00:44:18] John Ruhlin: it at that point. No, that's where like people are like, well, I'm doing a big list. I'm like. Cut the list in half then, if you have to. No, 20
[00:44:26] Corey Quinn: percent of that list. Find the, find the gold in that list. Um, how, how [00:44:30] can this strategy be used to encourage referrals?
[00:44:33] John Ruhlin: Well, I mean, referrals for a lot of companies is a core lifeblood for them. And most people are reactionary gifters, reactionary in anything. They wait for the thing to happen and then they reward it.
[00:44:44] John Ruhlin: And the challenge is, is that most people are like, kind of like passively loyal. So they're like, they'll stick around as a client. But they're not like shouting on the mountaintops about like, Oh my gosh, I love this person because it's more of a transactional relationship. They expect you built their, [00:45:00] you know, you're a lawn mowing service and like you cut the lawn and do a good job, but they're paying you 200 bucks a week.
[00:45:06] John Ruhlin: You're meeting expectations. Meeting expectations. And so gift, so gratitude and generosity, if you're like, they're never going to brag about man, they cut the lawn or man, their windows that they put in and don't leak. Or they think about the industry or, you know, like. Like all of those things are very transactional.
[00:45:23] John Ruhlin: So the, if you think about like at a restaurant, you go and you spend 100 on a steak, but if the, if the [00:45:30] owner or the GM knows that your wife likes a certain kind of chocolate and makes a special dessert off the menu for you, and you just dropped 400, 500 on a dinner. And you show up with this, you know, what would retail for 20 dessert, but as a surprise for the, you know, for your wife.
[00:45:48] John Ruhlin: That becomes the thing, the story, that becomes the impetus to tell 100 other people. Not the steak that was 100. Say, you spent 100 on steak, it better be freaking good. Spent 100 on a bottle of wine, it better be [00:46:00] solid. And so, finding those, and the gifting is one of those areas where most people, what do they do?
[00:46:04] John Ruhlin: They do expected obligatory gifting. Whereas if you took your centers of influence that could refer you business. Or your clients that could send referrals and you find those times to surprise and delight them with Gratitude with artifacts of that are tied not to the deal aren't tied to the referral You said you could send it out that and that's where we had like literally like we have some clients All their channel partners and all potential referral sources.
[00:46:27] John Ruhlin: They send out gifts once a quarter. [00:46:30] It's not tied to the referral the deal It's tied to I was just thinking of you now the knives show up and people are like this is weird and awesome Like I didn't I didn't do anything for this. I think I didn't send a referral. I didn't send a deal But in subconsciously in our heads, what are we now thinking about?
[00:46:45] John Ruhlin: These guys are great. I already like them. How can I love them? I want to see them win. This is like ninja level getting into their heads in a positive way, right? Yeah, I mean Now if your product, if your product or service sucks, gifting won't save you. [00:47:00] You have to be like meeting the expectations. Like if, if you're like not meeting expectations and you give great gifts, then people are gonna be pissed and be like, why don't you just return my phone call or fix the faucet when you come over or, you know, take my, like, you know, not have negative 60 percent returns on my stock portfolio.
[00:47:16] John Ruhlin: But, if you're meeting expectations are close there and you choose to reinvest 10 15 percent of your net profit back into the people that are already giving you money anyway, And the Centers of Influence that could be sending you referrals. Now you're priming the pump. [00:47:30] And, and here's the key. You don't expect them.
[00:47:33] John Ruhlin: If you give the gift to the Center of Influence that could refer you to business or the employer or the client, and now you're expecting things that wasn't a gift, that wasn't given with an open hand. You're going to ruin it. If you give the gift and then hold it over their head, now they feel manipulated, now you're damaging the relationship.
[00:47:48] John Ruhlin: And that's where a lot of people will be like, I give great gifts and I'm still not getting great. I'm like, well, check your intentions here. What are you, what are you communicating with? What's in the note? Are you hinting towards referrals in the note? Right. [00:48:00] Use this QR code. Um, this reminds me, this reminds me a little bit of what, uh, Chip Conley talks about.
[00:48:09] Corey Quinn: Uh, he wrote a book called Peak. Uh, Chip Conley used to be the, um, the founder of a boutique hotel chain called Joie de Vivre. He was the chief experience officer over at Airbnb. He wrote this amazing book called Peak. And the premise of it is, or the crux of it is, is that When you, um, when you, yeah, when you meet a [00:48:30] trans, when you meet an expectation, it's more transactional, but when, as a brand or as a, as a, um, as a service provider, you can meet their unexpected needs that they're, that they're unspoken.
[00:48:42] Corey Quinn: So, um, the example of the, uh, the, the couple that's at the steak dinner, uh, the high end steak dinner, when the, when the manager stops by the table. You know, that's not expected, it's nice, and they make it, make the guests feel like they are, you know, [00:49:00] somehow, like, have status, right, and that's an unspoken need as we, we have as humans, when you send this amazing, unexpected, best in class gift.
[00:49:09] Corey Quinn: People feel recognized, right? That's an unexpected, um, need that we have. When you're able to fulfill that, that's when you, that's when you prime, prime the pump, probably not the right term, but that's when you create the opportunity for this sort of return of generosity in referrals. Yeah. And it's just fun.
[00:49:27] John Ruhlin: And like, even if [00:49:30] you just keep the client or grow with the client and they don't send you referrals, If you, and that's why like you, you mentioned the three years, I'm like, don't do this for like six months and then go to do something else. Like this needs to be a commitment for at least three years because it may take a little bit before like the reciprocity kicks in or like maybe there were some, some unmet expectations that they didn't tell you about or, you know, all of those things.
[00:49:53] John Ruhlin: But you start to like, there's a compounding effect of generosity. But on top of that, like it's just a reinvestment back of profit that you wouldn't have [00:50:00] had, had you not had that relationship. So like you reinvest 10 percent you're keeping 90 percent like that's still like a 10 to 1 ratio like you're still pretty good But but but if you can treat it like a game of like this is just fun I used to get like house money to play with here to reinvest back into relationships like It's, um, and then it takes the pressure off of like, well, this better return something in the next two months.
[00:50:23] John Ruhlin: It's like, no, like, no, wrong mindset. Um, I'd love to shift the conversation [00:50:30] to the book. You mentioned that, uh, you talked about how you brought the book to market. You sold 75, 000 copies of your book, Giftology. It launched in 2016. Uh, did you know back then that the impact of the book would be so great? Um, I mean, we're hopeful, right?
[00:50:48] John Ruhlin: I mean, we had an agency, we'd heard, you know, we, I have friends that have written books, um, like Miracle Morning, Hal Elrod, you know, he's sold millions of copies. We've been buddies for 20 years, grew up in Kotka together. [00:51:00] So I, I was around enough people, but at some level, when you write a book like that, you know, gifting, there's, there's no category.
[00:51:06] John Ruhlin: It's not like there's 10 other books that have been successful, like with leadership or marketing or, and so, like, I didn't know if more than my grandma and a few, like, loyal customers would buy it. Like, There was a fear of like, does anybody gonna care? Um, but I, I mean, the impact that it's had on like speaking, I remember begging to speak for free.
[00:51:25] John Ruhlin: And now like being paid, you know, what my mentor would call adult money [00:51:30] to, uh, to be able to go and, you know, speak at a YPO or fortune. Like we just spoke for Sherwin Williams, a 22 billion company, like. For a goat milk and farm kid to be on those stages, like it doesn't make logical sense. Um, but we've been doing it for now 23 years.
[00:51:46] John Ruhlin: But when I, when I came out with it, the hope was it would drive lead flow. It would spread the message. It would equip people that maybe would never be a client of ours, but would give them the right tools to go. You know, be able to practice this in their company, which has happened [00:52:00] internationally, which is really crazy, multiple languages.
[00:52:02] John Ruhlin: Um, and so, but the, the hope was, well, help me land some more speaking gigs. Will it land the agency, some clients and, and will it equip some smaller companies that would never be a fit for us? You know, if somebody's doing a half a million dollars in business, they're probably not a fit for our agency. But I like the idea of, um, giving back and being able to have a bunch of.
[00:52:23] John Ruhlin: You know, a million people out there that are disciples of the concept beating the drum and, um, hopefully, you know, from a [00:52:30] legacy perspective, I got four daughters, like, there is that element, too, of like, maybe this is a cool way to contribute and, and have be one of the things that is meaningful, um, from a philosophy perspective, that if I got hit by a bus, they'd know a little bit about their dad and what I was about and what I cared about and, and, um, Yeah.
[00:52:47] John Ruhlin: So, so yeah, so it's exceeded my wildest expectations. Now, like, it's funny, and you probably see this, You get to that mountaintop and you're like, Oh, there's, there's another 10 peaks that are even taller. And so like, I'm not [00:53:00] like settling. I'm not, there's still an element of like, Oh, I could, I could take this 10 times larger and bigger and better.
[00:53:05] John Ruhlin: All of that. And there's a ton more we can unwrap there and unpack about the book journey. Um, particularly for an agency owner, launching a book and the impact it's created. But, um, for now, I'd like to just wrap up with a couple of last questions. Um, where should listeners get started with gift giving? Uh, if they're, if they're, they've, they've, they've learned something here and they want to lean into this, where, where do they start?[00:53:30]
[00:53:30] John Ruhlin: Yeah, well, I would say. You don't need the book. You don't need, you know, maybe you go download the free download to avoid the 10 worst gifts, but Take 30 days, three minutes a day for 30 days and write down three people that you're grateful for That contributed to where you're at in business today. It could be mentors, bankers, suppliers, employees, coaches, whoever it is.
[00:53:55] John Ruhlin: If you do that for 30 days, you have about a hundred people on a list. And you [00:54:00] start taking that list, and whether it's a physical gift, whether, you know, the 5 Love Languages author, Gary Chapman, who sold 22 million books, Christian marriage book, by the way, he's a mentor and a friend, and, you know, the 5 Love Languages, physical gifts is one of those, but like, you know, words of affirmation, well, that's the handwritten note that you would give, or maybe it's the video that you send, or, you know, giving somebody a hug or shaking their hand and spending quality time with them, there's ways that you can combine Thank you.
[00:54:24] John Ruhlin: All elements. You don't have to go drop, you know, 10 grand on a Rolex in order to show gratitude to [00:54:30] somebody. But, but most of the time people feel gratitude and I'm like, that's weak. Like, gratitude is meant to be expressed. Like, it's an action. And most people, like, they write their gratitude journal and then they do nothing with it.
[00:54:41] John Ruhlin: Like, I'm really grateful for this person. I'm like, great, we'll do something. Acknowledge them, whether with a note, a video, a gift, something. But you do that for 90 people? Um, you're going to start to get addicted to the impact and the response. Some people are probably going to cry, um, because most people, whether they're a janitor or [00:55:00] CEO, like we're all human beings and we're all craving that acknowledgement and that gratitude and wanting our lives to have mattered and I'll give somebody who's worth a billion dollars, like they still care about how they're impacting people.
[00:55:11] John Ruhlin: And so I w that would be the first step is to, to take that, create the list and then start doing something with it. Beautiful.
[00:55:19] Corey Quinn: Last question. What's your motivation?
[00:55:23] John Ruhlin: I mean, from a faith perspective, I feel like God's given me a lot of gifts. Um, and He was given a lot as [00:55:30] expected of a lot, uh, at least in my opinion.
[00:55:32] John Ruhlin: And I have four daughters to not only provide for, but to lead. , and to create, you know, a vision of like what's possible. Um, so from a purpose perspective between faith and, And family, I know a lot of people say that, um, but that to me is, you know, I felt that at an early age, like, you know, it wasn't easy, but I always felt like God gave me some, some trials and tribulations, but also gave me some open doors and some mentors and some people in my life that I'm super grateful for.
[00:55:59] John Ruhlin: [00:56:00] Um, and so my goal is to, to pay it forward and pay it back. do something that ripples into eternity, um, which is a big goal.
[00:56:08] Corey Quinn: Yeah. Well, the, um, I want to thank you for your, your time here, John. I think you've definitely, uh, lived up to that, um, that, that goal in giving of your time and your, and your wisdom and your advice here.
[00:56:21] Corey Quinn: I think it's been a really great episode. So thanks so much for coming on.
[00:56:26] John Ruhlin: Corey, thanks for having me, man. We'll talk soon.
[00:56:29] Corey Quinn: All [00:56:30] right, folks, that's it for today. I'm Corey Quinn, and I hope you join me again next time for the Vertical Go To Market Podcast. If you receive value from this show, I would love a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts.
[00:56:43] Corey Quinn: Thanks, and we'll see you soon.
