Building Business Relationships with John Ruhlin

This is a huge honor to be here. I mean, yeah, I've known Cameron for a long time and what I love about getting to speak, most of the time it's not on Cameron stage, it's around the world. And I get to kind of sing his praises as I do. So I really feel like I wouldn't be on the stages, wouldn't have written the book if it hadn't been for Cameron and a few other people. And so I'm super grateful to be here and to be able to have my daughter here is just, I don't know, it just warms my heart. I know you guys already got the book, which just lights me up. I never get tired of seeing that black box sitting there. I'm going to talk, talk about the book, but the book takes a couple hours to read. I'm going to condense what's in that book down to what I feel like is the core and the essence. But before I do that, I think it's helpful because sometimes people, when they hear giftology or they see the packaging or they hear me speak, they assume that I grew up in LA or New York. Like this guy's into high end gifting. He probably grew up in a country club and grew up in the right family. And the exact opposite is actually true. I grew up in a wonderful family, but I was one of six kids. We grew up on a 50 acre farm not far from Where's Rachel at. Yes. And about 45 minutes from Canton, Ohio. I don't talk to anybody hardly ever that knows where Canton, Ohio is, let alone lives there. Like, this is crazy. I still have a triplex back there, but we grew up milking goats every morning. Like that's the kind of farm that it was. We had a one acre garden. We heated the house with wood. So I learned super early on what I didn't want to do for the rest of my life because I just didn't like blue collar, like baling hay in the middle of the summer when it's 100 degrees. Like what it is right now. Like that was just not for me. And so when you get really good grades in school and you're one of six kids and you're poor, you go do the thing that you think is going to make you a lot of money so you don't have to do that. So I thought I'd go be either a doctor or a lawyer. And my mom was super into health and wellness back in like 35 years ago. She was like anti vaccine, she was anti like she was a nurse and she had left the medical profession. She was having nature, sunshine, vitamins shipped into us. So I was like, I'm one of the oldest kids. I'm going to go make mom proud. I'm going to go be a doctor, make a lot of money and never have to bail hay ever again. That was my plan. So I went into college, I was pre med and my life really changed. I was motivated to make a ton of money and I had started a side business. I was working for Time Warner Cable. And if you've ever seen the poor sob climbing a 30 foot ladder in the air in the middle of the winter, in the middle of the summer, that was me. But I could make about $60 an hour. And this is 15, 20 years ago. So I was hustling. And as luck would have it, as fate would have it, there's two different times where it was kind of misty out and I fell off the ladder two different times, 30ft in the air and I landed both times in mulch. But I was like, I'm never going to make it to be a doctor. I'm going to end up like a paraplegic. I'll end up being a patient for life, not so much a doctor. So I was like, I got to do something else. There has to be a better way. And when you're in college, you can go work for Gap or you can go work as a waiter. There's not a whole lot of other options. And so I decided these crazy friends that were selling these knives. Anybody familiar with Cutco knives? I'm sure a lot of you guys are now. I said, if Steve Wiggers, one of my friends from high school, who is 6 foot 8 but was the smallest 6 foot 8 guy you've ever met, like the antithesis of a salesperson. Like he couldn't sell ice to a freaking person in the middle of the desert. Like he was horrible, but he was selling these thousand dollar knife sets. So I said, if he can do it, I can at least try. And so I remember going into my interview, I wore the one tie I had, it was a Mickey Mouse tie. I wore my glasses to look smarter. And I'm pouring with sweat because I'm so nervous because I'm just not a salesperson. And I got hired and my life changed when I went to go pitch my girlfriend's dad now to give you guys kind of a picture of what he was like. He was an attorney, but he wasn't your typical attorney. He seemed to have his hands in everything in town. He owned the oil wells, the banks, the real estate magically became the Walmart. And he always had time for people. He'd go out for these two or three hour lunches and was super chill. And the other thing I noticed, he was always giving things away. He was super generous. Like, he'd find a deal on noodles and literally buy like a semi load of noodles. And the next Sunday at church, like 200 people would walk out with 20 cases each. I'd be like, Paul, that was 20 GS of noodles. Like, I'm thinking, like, doing the math on semesters. I'm like, that paid for a semester of school. That'd be amazing. He's like, I know, but did you see their smiles on their faces? I'm like, who's not going to smile if they get 20 cases of noodles? Of course they loved it. And so he also, it was kind of interesting. Like, he had more deal flow than you could possibly handle. Like he was having to outsource. He was a small law firm. He was always outsourcing things. So I thought, maybe he's this generous guy. Maybe he'll buy pocket knives. All of his clients are men. We're in the heart of Amish country. He literally grew up Amish. So he spoke Dutch. And I thought, all of his clients are into hunting and fishing. Maybe we'll give away Cutco pocket knives. And so I work up the courage. Like, the next week, sitting before we go to church, we're at this, like, little, you know, dining room table, and I'm sweating once again because I'm pitching my girlfriend's dad knives. Like, it doesn't get much more embarrassing than that. And so Paul put me at ease. He's like, he leaned back in his chair and he said, john, I love the pocket knives, but what could I order? Paring knives? Could I engrave those and give those away? And I'm 20 years old at the time, I'm sure I had like this deer in the headlights look. I'm like, you're going to give these CEOs of like multimillion dollars, sometimes $100 million companies, you give them, like, kitchen items. Are you kidding me? I'm like, paul, literally out of my mouth came, I'll sell you as many as you want because I'm desperate, but I don't know why. And he got this smirk on his face. He was probably 60 at the time. Kind of salt and pepper hair. And he said, john, the reason I have more deal flow than I can possibly handle is that 40 years of being in business, I found that if you take care of the family, everything else in business seems to take care of itself. And so for me, it was like this lightning bolt moment. I literally remember being like, oh, my gosh. Like, Paul's a genius. Like, the reason he has more deals coming in. He's not the best attorney in town, but he has the best relationships. He's the most top of mind. He understands that's not really about the knife. It's about the relationship and the psychology. And I hadn't read any of Robert Cialdini's stuff about influence or persuasion or any of those books yet, but I saw in Paul, like, he's a magician. Like, he is amazing. And he didn't do it to manipulate people. He literally did it because of the relationship.