049: John Ruhlin - The Strategic Way to Use Gifting

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done? I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent, and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have talent. Talk to Doxatalant and you won't be disappointed. Go to doxatalent.com Bill G. Again, that's doxatalent.com Bill g. One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G. Check it out today. Hello and welcome again to the Scaling Up Business podcast. I'm your host, Gazelles growth coach, Bill Gallagher. Oh, we're talking today about the strategic way to use gifting. Using gifting like a rifle to knock down your top prospects and go after those strategic accounts. Not gifting in some namby pamby lightweight kind of way, but gifting as a strategic thing. So we're talking with the preeminent expert on this, John Rulin. So I met John Rulin at one of our Gazelle's fortune growth summits and actually we shared dinner together, a great steak in Dallas. And I've been looking forward to getting him on the show ever since then. So we've been in the same business organization for some years. So John is the author of Giftology. He talks and he specializes in, as you'll see, the art and science of using gifts to cut through the noise and drive real referrals. Not some like throwaway ad specialty kind of thing, but something. Not that ad specialties are bad, but there's a time and a place. Right. And you'll talk about that more. So he's also the founder of this Rulin group that helps the company develop VIP gifting programs and do real cool relationship work. So he's in the St. Louis area. He's got a couple kids. Couple, three kids. Yeah. How old are your kids now?

Six, four and one. Little girls.

Oh my. So I'm, I'm a newly an empty nester.

You're on the opposite end of the spectrum. Totally. Yeah. I can't even imagine what that would be like.

It's unsettling. It really is. Our daughter just moved out now. She moved like 50ft out. Right. She moved to the guest cottage in the back of our property.

So you're kind of emptiness does she come in for milk and eggs and.

Whatever else, which she does, which is nice. And I actually had lunch with her today, but if she came home or didn't come home at night, I don't know it. And that's a weird thing to have the house empty. Right. We had recently a lot. So I have a son and daughter both who are out on their own now and to varying degrees.

Wow. Wow, wow, wow.

So you're going to talk to us all about this. Let's talk about kind of how you got started a long time ago, right? This whole world of gifting. I know you got a story around kind of its genesis in college and probably there were even things in your earlier years. But tell us about how you got into this.

Yeah, it wasn't a master plan, that's for sure. I didn't go to college majoring in gifting or think that this was going to be my calling. I went to college. I was a farm boy, kind of an overachieving farm boy from Ohio. One of six kids, milk goats before school every morning. And so I wanted to not do that the rest of my life. So I was going to go be a doctor because I thought that's where you made all the money and I had good grades. So you go be a lawyer or doctor. And basically was looking for a way to pay for school. I worked for Time War Cable as a subcontractor, made good money, but fell off the ladder a couple different times. I'm like, this is dumb. I'm never going to make it through school. I'm going to end up like, you know, in the hospital for life kind of a thing. And so was looking for opportunities. One of my friends was actually interning with Cutco, the knife company. And you know, they work with, literally they've worked with a million and a half college kids the last 70 years. They have great training. But I was just motivated by the money. I just wanted to make some money to pay for school and get out of school debt free. And fortunately, I was dating a girl at the time. Her dad was an attorney, but he was the kind of attorney that would take like three hour lunches and never seemed to be in a hurry. And all the business in the community came his way. Like, he had more referrals than he could handle and he would have to outsource all of that. And he also owned real estate, oil wells, banks. Like every deal in town seemed to come his way. And so I'm like, Paul, you're always giving gifts away. Like he Would find like deals like on noodles and buy like a semi load of noodles and everybody at church, like 300 people would end up with like 20 cases of noodles. He dropped 20 GS and never asked for anything in return. So I thought, maybe he'll give away pocket knives. Cutco made these cool pocket knives. And I remember before church, Sunday morning, we're sitting around the dinner table there and I said, paul, would you consider doing this? And he got the little twinkle in his eye and he said, what about paring knives? Could I give away the kitchen knives? And I'm like, you're going to give CEOs of insurance companies, home builders, lumber mills, a kitchen knife? That's, that's weird. Like, I'll sell you as many as you want. I'm desperate. But why? And he said, In 30 years of business, I found that if you take care of the family, I call it the inner circle now. But he's like, if we can take care of the family, everything else in business seems to kind of work itself out and take care of itself. So for me it was like that lightning bolt moment when I realized it really wasn't about the knife. Paul understood the psychology and kind of like a lot of the Robert Cialdini stuff of influence and persuasion at a really just gut level, a very deep level. And so I started to apply these principles as I was selling these knives, going to school. And so I would invest like $200 as a college kid in a carving set. I'd engrave the CEO's name, the wife's name, put a little handwritten note inside, said, carve out five minutes for me. I promise it'd be worth your time. And I'd get the meeting. And I walk into the boardroom and there's a 60 year old guy who's CEO expecting a seasoned sales executive in their 50s to walk in. And in walks a 21 year old. And he's like, I'm confused. Like, do you want me to sell knives? Like, why are you here? And I'm like, no, I'm here to help your thousand sales reps do exactly what I did to you. And so I'd walk out with like a thousand piece order. And by the time I was a senior in college, I was Cutco's largest international distributor in the history of the company because of not salesmanship, but more like problem solving and using these gifts as a kind of a leverage point. And that was 17 years ago.

Well, you know, I hear you. Maybe don't underscore it. As much. But it's not just strategy. There is a creativity to it and there's something that stands out, that gets attention. It's just not what every other salesperson is doing. You have a little flair and there's always a little piece of logic or something to it, which I hear you getting from that early experience. Right?

Yeah. No, it has. I mean, all the little details of the theme and the timing, and that's where people are like, oh, I've tried the gifting thing. It doesn't do anything. Like, so I'm just going to cut it out. And I'm like, well, tell me what you did. They're like, oh, we sent a gift basket at Christmas and with a bunch of cookies and crackers. And I'm like, oh, so you broke all 20 of the rules of what we teach? And you think that that's the same thing as what we're teaching? Like, it's like, people don't understand. There's a big difference. It's like comparing watches. Like, there's a difference between a Casio in a Patek Philippe. Like, yes, they're both watches, but very different operating and very different value and worth. But to some people, they don't care. And so they're just like, oh, yeah, all watches the same. Like, no. Like, all gifts are not the same. They're not all created equal.

So let's talk about the gifting mistakes, right? And because I bet we've all done these, tell us, what are the crappy gifts? What shouldn't we do?

Yeah, well, part of it is the item itself. So, like, food is horrible and people are like, oh, I give food. Everybody loves to eat. And I'm like, yeah, we eat our drink ourselves to death, number one. So it's not original. You know, everybody gives food to the point of tables collapsing at the holidays. Like, literally conference tables. There's so much food, they're giving it away and they don't even realize. And some of Those things are 50, 100, $200 baskets.

Oh, yeah, we get the big baskets. Parade of baskets in the winter. Pears, salami, lox. Just like, everything piled up. Lots of filler, big cellophane. It's a huge business, Harry and David.

Oh, it's massive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so they kind of created the whole corporate gifting thing. But number one, it doesn't stand out because everybody does it. Number two, you spend $100 to have one impression. So people eat the food or whatever else, and it's gone in five minutes. Whereas you know, if you're looking for an ROI, I want something, I give a gift, and 10 years later, they're still talking about it. Like, cost per impression. Like, I want to measure it the same way I measure any other piece of advertising or anything else I'm doing. So food is horrible. Alcohol is even worse. Food, you know, you have food allergies, everybody's gluten free, or I'm not eating meat this month, or I mean, food has gone crazy. Alcohol is worse. Like, you don't know. Like, you give a bottle of wine to somebody, number one, they might be into a certain kind of wine, and you give them the wrong kind of wine, or maybe they're a recovering alcoholic. Like, I've seen that happen hundreds of times. They send the same bottle of wine to everybody, and they don't realize they're spending money to actually piss people off. Like, I've seen people that are Jewish, they get hams in the mail, they're like, what the heck am I supposed to do with this? And so there's, yeah, there's so many ways to offend people, and it's not a good investment. Like everybody. You know, as an entrepreneur, you want to spend a dollar and get 10 back. And people don't look at gifting that way, and they should. And so it's really unfortunate that they're not, they're not looking for an roi. They're looking to do things as a nice to, not as a, as a real strategic business decision. Gift cards are the worst.

Well, I hear you're really talking about gifting as, not only as a reward, as a thank you, but as a communication tool, as a way to stand out as a promotional item, as a combination of these things. Right?

Yeah. I mean, at a core level, if you look at how gifting was done, go back to biblical times, like Old Testament, a gift represented the value of the relationship. It was an artifact. Like, you'd see kings give other kings, like a thousand head of cattle. Because the relationship was important. And I think in our DNA, even in 2017, when somebody, it's like you get a million dollar referral and somebody sends you a Starbucks gift card, you're like, seriously, you just sent me 50 bucks and I just sent you a million. Like, in our heads, we can't help but think, like, the value of the relationship is based upon, like, tangible things that are in front of us. And when somebody does something really nice for us, there is like a deep rooted, like, DNA of like, they want some reciprocation, not Everybody there are, there are true givers. But most people in business, when you do nice things, like you're expecting to plant some good seeds that eventually come back to you. And I think that most people view that as, oh, it's a token of my appreciation, which basically means my gift was too lame to put any thought into it. So I'm going to call it a token so I don't really have to try or do anything over the top. I hate the word token. Like, you would never describe a relationship as a token relationship. Why would you describe the gift that's supposed to represent the value of the relationship as a token? It's a, it's a cop out. It's a way to be lame. And so what we've seen is most people's bar is so low in the corporate world with swag and crap, with logos the size of softballs on it, that you know when you actually do it well, like people are like, oh my gosh, like in 2017, I'm being treated as a human being, as an individual, like I'm being acknowledged as a person. And that's really what the gift is. You're right. It's a communication tool of value, of relevance, of quality, and even of your values. Like everybody says they're first class, best in class, world class. And they have these beautiful headquarters and beautiful cars and beautiful suits. And then they give a bar of chocolate with their logo on it that's not congruent in any way, shape or form with the values that you're saying your business operates under. And it's the one thing that you're giving as a tangible act to that other person who's supposed to be your most valuable relationship. It just doesn't. In fact, it's better to do nothing at all than to do things half baked because you're actually spending money to have negative consequences. It just doesn't make any sense.

So let me share some different ones that I've heard along these lines. Give me some feedback, right? So different ones that I've used, my clients have used over time. So one thing that I did at a series of trade shows, public, so consumer level festival type events, not trade shows, but consumer festivals, Right. And I wanted to have a bigger impact than my booth. And I didn't want to pay the big sponsorship dollars or hire the banner plane or whatever, right? So I just bought loads and loads of neon sunglasses, right? Sunglasses, my logo on the side. And everybody was like, oh, where'd you get those? And they. So they all came over to get the sunglasses. And the cost of return was really good. So one, it got people to come over, and two, then for the rest of the event, for the rest of the day and then beyond, people wore those sunglasses. Right?

Yeah.

So that was one that felt like a real home run.

No, well, see, here's the difference. There's a dig. People confuse what a promotional item is and what a gift is.

Okay.

What you did was a great promotional item. Like, you used this unique thing and you can put your logo on it, neon colors, and have flashing lights and you know, like, that's fine, but you would never take that same thing and give it to your million dollar client and say thank you for your million dollars in business. Right. And so most people try to do both, basically.

And in fact, you can't really do the glasses too much anymore because everybody uses those now.

Right. It's been overdone. It's been whatever. But at the time it was unique.

And it was a great 30 years ago.

It was like, ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So our rule of thumb is think about, in a personal, like, setting, would you ever go to a wedding and give neon sunglasses to the couple that's getting married with your logo or your name on it, like, compliments of Bill Gallagher? No. Like, that's cheesy even for, like, somebody like Donald Trump. Like, you wouldn't put, you'd never put, like, your name on something you're giving to the person. But in a business setting, we do that all the time and we call it like marketing. But if it was a personal setting, you'd engrave the couple's name, maybe their wedding date. You'd make the gift all about them. The gift, by its very nature, should be all about the person who's receiving the gift, not about the giver. And in most business settings, we make the gift all about ourselves and we call it marketing. Well, you're trying to blend two things that don't go along, like determine, is it a promotional item, Is it a gift? If it's promotional item, make it neon yellow and big and crazy and bring them in from China as big as possible. But don't try to call that a gift to your most important employees, clients, referral partners, because they're not the same.

Yeah. So I can say that I've never done it. Right. I mean, I've sent chocolates, I've sent gift packets, I've sent pears, I've sent, you know, I've sent all kinds of delicious things around gifts and like wine and like all the things that you mentioned, I've sent them all out. Things that were consumed, but I can.

Think what time of year.

Yeah, the holidays. Right, the holidays. Lost in the crowd make you cry, right? Okay, but here's the one thing I did do. So I wanted to reward a salesperson. And she was like, okay, I wanna. You know, this is a big, big game. Okay. Big stretch goal. I wanna. If I hit this number, will you send me to Hawaii? I mean, to Hawaii, to Bali? Like, sure, you hit that number and it seemed fantastical, right? Absolutely. You and your family go to Bali, go visit the factory, go check things out and so on. We'll call it a training trip, but you can go. So we set that thing up and sure enough, she hit the number and we sent her to Bali. And in reality, it was less expensive than the cash bonus I would have had to give to make that feel rewarded. But she got to be a hero to her family. Hey, guys, we're going to Bali, right?

Heck, yeah. So you nailed it.

Yeah. So in that case. That was a good one.

Yeah. And that's the thing that's interesting is if you do gifting well, you actually spend less money than the dinners, trade shows, you know, entertaining experiences, advertising. A lot of the things that we spend money on that we feel good about. A lot of it is the same as our competitors. It's the same playbook. And if you do gifting, well, you can actually. Yeah. I mean, Gary Vaynerchuk talked about it the other day. Like, he sent one of his top employees to, like, the World Series. Cost him like four grand to keep. That employee probably would have cost 40,000. Like, it's one of his top guys. But he's loyal for life because he did something that was really thoughtful and meaningful as a gift. And all we say is, like, if you're going to do the gift, go all in and make it a memorable experience. Maybe if you're sending somebody on a trip, send them a couple pieces of custom luggage that they're going to travel with. Now, every time they use the luggage 10 years from now, they remember the warm, fuzzy, deep feelings of going to Bali or going to the World Series or whatever else. Like, there's a way to really amplify your investment. And most people cut corners and they say, what's the cheapest I can get away with doing this versus how can I dial this up to a once in a lifetime experience or gift or relationship? And that's where the magic is. I mean.

I want to underscore one of our mutual friends, Cameron Herald, you wanted to thank for giving some referral or something too recently. And so you sent him a briefcase full of cash. And I noticed two things about it. One is it was huge style points, over the top, flashy, glamorous, creative, everything like that. And then Cameron went live with it, opened it, put it on Facebook, opening the thing up, looking at the whole thing so he talks about it. So it has this huge thing that not only celebrates him and you and is clever and comical.

Our book sales of Giftology spiked during not only the live portion, but it was viewed a few thousand times. Which a guy like you or Cameron, like, the people that you're friends with, they're all business owners, CEOs, executives. Like, the advertising value of that was worth. And I didn't know he was going to do that. Wasn't like, I put a note in, said, please livestream this. Like, you know, but if I had sent him, like, you know, but you.

Figured he was going to talk about it.

I was hopeful, but I wouldn't have been pissed off if he hadn't. Like, there was no strings attached like the gift. But most people hold back and they send, you know, they're like, you know what? It's too much of a pain to get all that money and put it together and write the note and create. Let's just send them a check. It's the same amount of money, right? It costs me the same amount whether I sent him a check or whether I sent it as, you know, a bunch of cash in a, in a, in a briefcase. But the extra effort, time, energy, creativity is what made it special and what made him feel like a vip. And most people, you know, like, have never held on to that much cash. Like, in our digital age, like, the tangible is really powerful because everything is now digital and a check just doesn't feel real. That's why casinos want you to gamble with chips, not with cash. It feels like, you know, monopoly money when you're playing around with chips. But you give somebody, you know, 10 grand in cash, and holy crap, like $10,000 cash feels a lot different than $10,000 check. So I think a lot of what we teach is really based around core psychology. It's not, you know, the gift is the delivery vehicle, but if you don't think through all the details, it doesn't work.

Yeah. So I think, and I hear that, and it seems to me like some of the ones that you said don't do, you maybe could do if you did them with that spirit of mind. So what comes to mind right away is if I gave you tickets or passes to dinner at some special Disney restaurant and I sent you so that you could take your family there or some really cool, hard to get romantic restaurant, you could take your wife there or your husband or. And so if I gave you something in the food or wine category that I knew was meaningful, that I knew would get shared back, especially outside the office, but to someone that touched you personally, then I might achieve that.

Yeah, I'm taking my kids to Disney May 13th through the 18th. So if somebody really wants to go crazy and impress me, Disney's one of those places that's difficult to get the hookups and the connections. So you're right.

What's that special club you need to go to that. The 33 or 66 or whatever it is.

I have been to the 33 club. That's at Disneyland out in California, taking my kids to Disney World down in Orlando. But. But there's no question that there's every rule is made to be broken. Like, I normally say, don't send money or cash because it's meaningless. But if you, if you are going to send cash, it better be a lot. It better be done the right way. Better be a surprise and delight. It better be all the other little details done to the nines. And then, you know, then you can sometimes break the rules and have, you know, like just this 10x effect. But most people aren't that way. And so we have to lay out the rules to get and give them boundaries of don't do this, do it this way. And there's no hundred percent, like, you're dealing with human beings. And there is an art to it. There's a science to it, but there's also an element of that. I don't bat a thousand. Like, I've gotten gifts sent back to me. And most people get all afraid and fearful, like, oh, they didn't like my gift. I'm like, I'm gonna focus on the 99 people that loved the gift I sent, not the one that I could have sent him a Lamborghini and he would have said, like, the color was wrong. Who gives two rips about the one that doesn't like it? Let's focus on the people that I can, you know, that, that are blown away by it and pour gasoline on that fire. Most people are very fearful. And you know, in this world, like, they're like, oh, well, they have gifting policies. I'm like, that's 20% of the companies that are out there and even the ones that do have policies, like, it's so gray. Like, if they can, you can take somebody to the masters, you can probably send them a gift. Like, it's, it's funny how everybody like plays like, oh, I can't do gifting right now. And I love it because it means very few people will what we do because they play scared.

I gave a low value but a high sentimental gift to a politician once and their office contacted me back. They're like, oh, wait, we can't take this. And I'm like, well, we can only take items of a certain value. I'm like, okay, what's the value? And they're like, it's. I forget what the dollar amount. But something was something like that. I'm like, okay, my cost is less than that. Here, I'm going to send you a thing proves that my cost is this, some receipt so that you can see and a letter and all that so that that person can keep it. So the politician kept it and used it and wore it and like that. So it was an accessory item, right?

Yeah, but you had to do some extra work to make that off. Just a little extra work to pull that off. But most people are lazy and they think gifting doesn't matter. And so it's just easier to send an Amazon gift card. And, and I've actually had where authors have said, you know, that they got, you know, they would do a talk for, you know, 20 grand. They do it for free as a favor to somebody. And somebody sent them like a really nice handwritten note, but they put a $25 start or $25Amazon gift card inside. And they're like, it actually pissed me off and offended me. Like, my time is worth 20 grand. You could have sent me the handwritten note and I would have been very appreciative of the thought of taking that time. But the fact that you kind of cheapened the thank you by putting some Token coupon or $25 gift card in actually demeaned the handwritten note and the whole experience. But people are lazy.

I had somebody once, I went to speak to a group and visiting another country for the first time. I've done a lot of international speaking and when I go there and I'm in a terrible hotel and then they gave me a gift later, I'm like, why don't you not give me the damn gift and put me in a nice hotel? First time in your country, I was in this weird hot.

But people don't think through all the details. And they don't realize that there are times when a gift can actually put a magnifying glass on the. You know, like, if your business isn't dialed in and you try to send a gift to make up for something, sometimes it can backfire and piss people off even more. And so there is, like, times to send gifts, not time to send gifts. Like, there is, like, and that's what we walk people through in our core businesses. Here's how you execute. Here's how you think through things. No, like, you shouldn't send a gift during an RFP because it could be looked upon as a bribe. So send the gift either way ahead of time or wait till you land the deal and wait six months and send the gift then. And so there are rules, like, some spoken, some unspoken. And there's times you're going to piss people off no matter what you do in business. Like, but in general, like, there are certain guidelines.

Keep it classy.

Keep it classy. And, you know, don't go cheap on the hotel and send somebody a gift. Like, that's a. That seems like a. That seems common sense, but you know how often that happens. It happens a lot.

It does.

It's such a simple concept, but most people don't get it.

It does. So you've got some big ideas here, and I think we should talk about them. Some main points I think you've been speaking a little bit about. First thing here is don't think about what you can get away with giving or what you can do, but think more about, like, how big could you go. Right. I love this idea.

Yeah. What's the most. So most people, like, when you're going to. I liken it to go into, like, a. You know, you get invited to a high school graduation party or a wedding as guys. Guys in particular are the worst at this. Their mind immediately goes to, is this a $100 relationship? Do I need to spend $100 or give $100 to this kid? Or is this a $50 or a 250? Or, like, we go to the lowest common denominator of, like, what's the least I can give and not look like a schmuck? And my earliest mentor was the opposite. Like, if he could afford the 20 grand in noodles, he just did it. If he could pick up the restaurant tab after a basketball game for the little community hometown pizza shop, he would just do it. Not because he measured the roi. It was just the right thing to do. It was a cool thing to do. It was a way to be generous and love on people. And he knew that he was well taken care of financially, he could afford to do it. And so I think in business, if you can say, ask yourself, what's the most I can do in this situation? Oftentimes it might be not just 5% better, it might be 500% better. And it's when you start to do like the cash over the top or you do like the Brooks Brothers experience that we did for Cameron 10 years ago that started the relationship. They're not rational and they're not like you can't put them into a spreadsheet. But that's where you get the lifelong relationships and lifelong referral partners and lifelong people going to bat for you at times when maybe they, you know, normally they wouldn't. And that's where the special moments happen is when you take an employee and say, what's the most I can give this employee? Not what could I, what's the minimum I could do to keep them as an employee, but what's the most I could do to light them up for life? Even if they move on to another company, they're still advocating like I've seen times where people move on from a company and then they end up becoming their biggest client because they love who was leading the company and they left on good terms and they never forgot how generous they were. And so I think we, we don't view business as a 50 year marathon, we view it in quarters. And we don't realize that we're really cutting ourselves short of the momentum that can be built by being radically generous with our employees, our clients, even our suppliers. Like I treat my suppliers better than most people treat their best clients because I don't have a business without my suppliers. And I think the smart companies that are out there, I've seen 500 million dollar companies that when they take their suppliers out, they pay for dinner, even though the supplier wants to and could and very well should. It's amazing how when you're radically generous with people at times when it's not expected, that's when things really are meaningful. When you do things not because you have to, but because you want to. It's so powerful.

Totally. So you're then talking about doing this against your top clients and your top partners or referral sources and that kind of thing, right?

Yeah, I think it's, I mean, you do it for, you know, for us. You know, we send out a quarter million dollars a year with the gifts to our clients Our partners, our referral sources. And we're not a huge company. I mean, we spend more than some Fortune 100 companies probably do on their top relationships. But our view is that when you gift like a king, you get treated like a king because it's an area where most people are just not involved. And so we are huge advocates for laying out and having what we call a relationship action plan lay out a year in advance. We're going to invest this money. Here's the times we're going to send the gift. Now, the client doesn't know they're getting a gift four times a year, but you do. And it's never the same time. If one year I'm doing it in February, the next year I'm doing it in March, I'm keeping them guessing. So it doesn't become an obligation. It's just an. It's an option for me to do. And it makes people feel special versus how most people do gifts, which is very expected at the holidays. And they really. It becomes just part of the noise. So we're big believers in taking care of your most important relationships and listing out whether it's 100 people, 500 people, 5,000 people, and really knowing, like, what's the value of that relationship now and over a lifetime. And oftentimes people are like, oh, my gosh, I could afford to give, you know, $5,000 gifts and it wouldn't be enough.

So what about the holidays, then? Do you give anything on the holidays?

No, it's. If you're going to give a gift at the holidays, maybe the first week in November, so it's the first thing they receive. But our view of a gift is a just because it's not attached to a referral. Although I do a referral gift for Cameron just because I. Just because. But there was no referral agreement in place, right? It was just a just because. But I think the holidays become an obligation, and that's when everybody's doing it. So I think doing gifts three to four times a year, for some people, we do it once a month, but in general, it's just a surprise and delight. It's an acknowledgement of them being a human being. It's not attached to a deal. It's not attached to anything other than the relationship. And that's where the specialness happens. You sign a $10 million contract and you send them a $500 gift. Who cares? You give a 500. A $250 gift as a, hey, I was just thinking of you and all Of a sudden, people are like, I didn't do anything for you. I'm like, I know, but I appreciate the relationship. And that's where people start to be inspired to act on your behalf versus most people use gifts as rewards and incentives, and there's a time and a place for that, but that's not as meaningful as a I just appreciate you as a human being type gift.

Yep. Well, and I hear that coming out then the third point really being have it be expressive of your values and something special about them. So something that I care about, something that matters to me, something that you know about me, and something that's consistent with your values, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I think if you're going to say you're best in class, world class, first class, you're all about quality and whatever else. Like, then anything that you put your hands on that represents you and the business relationship.

I'm going to send you diamond ink. If I'm best in class. Yeah, no, you might want real diamond.

Yeah, it does it. But people do that diamond ink kind of crap all the time. Like, yeah, you're our most valuable person. And like, you're like, really? Like, this doesn't communicate that. And so I think that when you can personalize it now, you know, you don't have to do every gift, like crazy cash or $7,000 clothing experiences, but at least personalize it with their name, their family name, their spouse's name, make the gift all about them. So it looks like it was created just for them. Versus, hey, we just pulled this out of the closet and sent it to you. Because we had some laying around, like, nobody feels special. Especially the higher up the food chain. You go with employees or clients, they can read between the lines of this was mass, automated, or this was really thoughtful. And they put some time into this and they made the effort to figure out what my wife's name was. And they got the spelling right and they put a handwritten note with it. I mean, that's the reason Ruling Group exists is because all of those things are hard and most companies don't want to take the effort to do it. So we do it for them, but they still have to give us the right data and information. A lot of that comes from listening to their clients and having those data points because they actually have a real relationship with people. And a lot of companies say that they do, but really they're in a transactional business and they really don't know who their real clients are, who their employees are, and it shows.

Well, I can think of multiple clients right off the bat that have key influencers and people that they want to cultivate relationships with over time that move lots of business for them and where they want to do it. And through all of this, I hear kind of the final point, that gifting and this generosity in general is a lot of fun. It creates joy on both sides of the equation. So I want to point people to some of your resources and some of ours. So if you'll go to giftologybook.com scalingup we'll have that list there for you of the worst gifts to do and a little bit about that so you cannot make those mistakes. And we'll put a link in here as well to the ruling group so that people can find you and learn about how you work and how you help people develop gifting as a kind of a strategic program. And we've got a couple gifts for you as well. So if you'd like to learn how to apply the Scaling up framework and get started with your company on your own, we've got a little growth kit for you that you can get right on our website@scalingupbusiness.com you just put your email and that kind of thing in there and you can download it right away. It gives you an overview of the Scaling Up Framework and then tells you how to get started, gives you an agenda and how to run your first meeting and like that. Of course, if you love the podcast, subscribe and like it, share it with some other people, give it away. You'll also find us on YouTube. YouTube.com Bill Gallagher and you can subscribe to our blog. We put up posts and things like that all the time. With this, we'll have this, we'll have this show posted on our blog, we'll have it on our podcast, we'll have it on YouTube. We'll have it everywhere for you as well. So like it, share it, subscribe, pass along so that we can keep bringing, bringing great folks like John to you. Thanks so much for being on the show with us today, John.

Hey, Bill, thanks for having me. This has been a lot of fun.

All right, until next time, Bill Gallagher Scaling Up Business Podcast. Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our Scoreboard software. Powered by Align, it's the official software for Scaling Up. With Scoreboard, you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go with their mobile app. You can rest easy knowing that Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software, it's what I actually use to manage growth in our scaling up client teams. Unlock clarity and results with Scoreboard by Align. To try it now, go to aligntoday.com Bill G One more time. Aligntoday.com Bill G that's aligntoday.com Bill G Check it out and try it now.