The #1 Lesson Every COO Must Learn from John Ruhlin
John Ruhlin explains giftology: strategic gifting that deepens business relationships. His five principles are personalization, including someone's inner circle, timing it when it matters most, going big, and giving what they actually want. He budgets roughly 5% of net revenue for relationships, with 80% aimed at the people closest to his clients.
Chapters
All right, so without further ado, I'm not even going to do an introduction. This is one of my very close friends. We've known each other for 10 years now. We met at the EO 20th anniversary in Las Vegas 10 years ago. Like, when people say, this is my good friend, this is one of my really good friends. So everybody welcome John Merlin.
This is, 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's 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 stage, 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 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 baling hay in the middle of the summer when it's 100 degrees. Like what it is out right now, 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 and 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 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, you know, 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. Like there has to be a better way. And when you're in college, you can go work for Gap or you can go like work as a waiter. There's not a whole lot of other options. And so I decided I had 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. He couldn't sell ice to a freaking person in the middle of the desert. 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. Like 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? And I'm like, who's not going to smile? 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 Cutco, like the next week sitting, like 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 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 multi million 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. What I want to talk about over the next 50 minutes that I have here is I want to boil down giftology because we started to apply these principles. I'm 21 years old in college and I'm desperate for money to pay for school because I refuse to go in debt. And I'm going to a private university, Malone College. And I started to invest as a college kid. I'd buy a carving set which, you know, $200 carving set for a college kid might as well have been $2 million. Like it's a lot of money. And I engrave on the knife, you know, the CEO's name, the wife's name, the family name. And I put a little handwritten note inside saying, carve out minutes for me, I promise it'll be worth your time. I'd send it off this 200 million dollar company and two weeks later I'd get the meeting. And I walk in at 21 years old and in walks a 65 year old CEO expecting like a 50 year old seasoned sales executive and inbounds me with my Mickey Mouse tie. And he's like, I'm super confused. Are you here to sell me knives? And I start laughing nervously. And also because it was kind of humorous and I said, no, I'm here to help you and your thousand sales reps do exactly what I did to you, to your top 10,000 clients and your top 1,000 referral partners. And I'd walk out of that meeting with a PO for an order that was so big that Cutco literally thought it was fraud. And they turned down the first few orders because they're like, it's not possible to sell this many knives unless you're selling it into another country or on ebay or something else. Like something fishy is going on. And over the next couple years, I started to apply these principles and landing professional sports teams as a 22 year old and getting invited into crazy places. And by the time I was a senior in college, I was Cutco's largest distributor in the history of the company out of a million and a half people. Not because I was the best salesperson in the world, because if you would have saw me in the Mickey Mouse tie, you'd be like, that's not even possible. It was because I applied the principles that are in that book. And I have over the last 17 years to land speaking engagements and deals with Google and some of the biggest companies on the planet. So what I'm talking about today is not like this pie in the sky, like hold hands and sing Kumbaya. These are real tactics, real principles, real concepts that I've used to help other companies land some of the biggest meetings on the planet to attract some of the best talent on the planet into drive more referrals than they can possibly handle. So it's not lofty like, hey, just love everybody and everything will be fine. Like, these are real things. And so there's five core things I'm going to talk about today. Five core questions in the book, there's 10. I boil it down to the top five that I think are most relevant in the first question. Super simple concept. Is it personalized? Is it personalized? Now, if you date back to 10, 15 years ago, I qualified barely just to get into EO. And I remember going to the first event and it was literally 1200 of the top CEOs and entrepreneurs and owners out in Vegas. And like Steve Wynn speaking to us, and it's the anniversary I signed up to go to this event before I was even officially an EO member. Because one of my mentors who owned 20 companies said, you'd be really good for this EO group. And when somebody who owns 20 companies says, you should do something, I was like, 27 at the time. I was like, I am in. Here's my amex. I was like, is there any else I can sign up for. He's like, well, actually, there's this anniversary thing out in Vegas. I'm like, I don't care how much it is. If guys like you were there, I'm in. I put my amex down and I got the bill, and it was like 10 grand. I was like, oh, crap. Okay, I'm playing at a different level now. And so I went out to this event, and I almost left the event because I started to look around. I'm like, I don't belong here. Like, my business was barely qualified. I mean, I barely qualified. And all these speakers and Steve Wynn. I was like, this is out of my league. But I remember, I'm like, john, just give it another 24 hours. Like, just see if you meet some people. Because I didn't even know people from my own chapter. And I started to look at the breakouts, and I'm like, you know, guy talking on customer service, I'm like, that's really odd. Like, guy talking about junk, I'm like, that's the most unsexy thing on the planet. Then I read his Bio and, like, 2 million to 120 million, whatever else. And then I walked past the breakout room, and it was, like, standing room only. Literally, like, busting out the doors. And I'm like, I guess I'm gonna go check this guy out. And so I walk in, weasel my way in, and he starts talking about getting on Oprah and 5,000 articles written about him and, you know, all this other stuff. I'm like, that does not sound like a junk company. I'm like, that's crazy. Like, everything that came out, like. Like, I want this guy. Not just as a client. I know I can't afford him, but I want him to be a mentor, an advocate. Like, I want him to be my corner. I want him to be a friend. Like, you name it. Like, I wanted him. Like, how am I going to get this guy? Like, to show that I'm for real? And so afterwards, I wait in line for, like, an hour to go up and talk to him. And I go up to him, and obviously you guys know who I'm talking about. And I'm like, hey, I hear you're coming into Cleveland, our chapter, in, like, three months. And in my head, I'm like, I have Cavs tickets. LeBron's in town. It's opening night. Like, we have great seats. We'll go out to a steak dinner and a ball game. You know, pretty much the same playbook as every other company on the planet. But in my head at that time, I was like, this is gonna be. He's gonna be so jazzed. And so I'm like, cameron, hey, I got these tickets, got this dinner. Like, you know, what do you think? I'm expecting him to be like, heck, yeah. And I remember the response like it was yesterday. He's like, I don't really have anything else going on. Sure, I'll go. Dinner, ball game. Like, talk about deflating. Like, my sail was, like, full go. And then all of a sudden, it was, like, dead. I was like, ugh. Like, that just landed like a, you know, fricking iron balloon. What's up, babe? You want to come up here and talk? Okay. So I'm like, I got to come up with something else to get this guy's attention. And I said, what else are you going to do in your town? And Cameron's like, I'm probably gonna go shopping. The dollar's really weak. He kind of, like, rubbed that in. He's like, dollar's really weak. I'm gonna go buy a bunch of stuff. And I said, maybe this is my angle. I said, where are you gonna shop at? And he said, brooks Brothers. And on the spot, I'm like, what's your shirt size? I'm a Jose bank guy. I want to send you a shirt. And he looked at me pretty bewildered, like, you know, what's going through his head? Is this guy have a man crush on me? Like, this is a really weird question to ask another man within two minutes of meeting you. But he's got the Canadian charm, very pleasant. He didn't make me feel aw. He said. He said, yeah, here's the size. And I said, great. We changed subjects and talked about a couple other things. I said, I can't wait to have you in three months. So as soon as I walk out of there, I call my business partner. I just sold half the business. We're 50 50. Not 51. 49. We're 50 50. And he's really the COO, CFO. I'm the crazy, visionary relationship guy. He's the guy that makes sure that we make money. And he just bought half the business. I'm like, rod, I got this amazing idea. This guy could change our business forever. Here's what I want to do. And there's dead silence on the other end. And he's like, john, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. He said, we can't afford to do that. Are you crazy? I let out this sigh. I'm like, you're right. Like, that's just stupid. So I go about the rest of the conference, met some really cool people, and I'm like, I'm all into EO and three months later comes by, and Cameron's coming into town. I'm like, hey, we'll go to the dinner and ball game. Silly idea. And he starts texting me. My flight's delayed. I think I'm going to miss my connection. I'm not sure if I'm going to get it in time. And I think part of it he won't admit, but I think part of it is he wanted to get out of this dinner and a ball game. He's like, I just want to go shop and sleep and be done with it. But in my eternal enthusiasm, I'm like, doesn't matter when you get in. Even if we miss the ball game, we'll go to dinner. He's like, okay, sure. So I call Rod back, and I'm like, rod, we have to do this. And he said. He asked the infamous question. He's like, do you believe in the idea enough that you'll that if it doesn't work, it comes out of your personal draw? I'm like, frick, yes. I believe in it that much. He's like, okay, I think it's a dumb idea, but go for it. So five hours before Cameron arrives, I drive up to Brooks Brothers up in Cleveland. It's about an hour away from Canton. Go inside. I'm pouring a sweat again. I'm nervous. I put the Amex down. I'm like, here's the guy. Sizes. I want one of everything in your new fall collection. All your jackets, pants, sweaters, belts, pants, you name it. And the guy thinks I'm joking. He's like a junior sales associate. And he's like, you're joking, right? And I'm like. With a deadpan face, I'm like, I wish I was, but no, I want everything. They're like, everything, Everything. I'm like, yes, everything. Takes them like an hour. Bring everything up, and it's like multiple carts. And they go to ring it up. And I'm like, please go through. Please go through. Like, even though it's an amex, I'm like, this is insane, because I looked down at the bill, and it was over $7,000 for the close. Oh, my gosh, this better work. So we drive over to the Ritz, where he's staying. I go ask for the gm. I'm like, one of the top business coaches in the world's coming to town. Do you want to do something amazing? Just blow his mind, you know, put Cleveland on the map. Guy's like, sure, what are you thinking? And I said, I want to turn this guy's hotel room into a Brooks Brothers store. Shirts here, jackets there, pants there, just outfit it all. Guy gets a smile on his face. He's like, we can do that. They outfitted everything. It looks beautiful. I go downstairs a couple hours later, lobby bar with my business partner and I'm drinking like triple on the rocks because my business partner's like, he's going to think you're a stalker. This is stupid. It's going to blow up in your face. Like, he's just chiming in my ear over and over again. And I'm sweating. I'm just like, oh my gosh, this is so dumb. So Cameron gets in, like one of those travel days from hell. Like, oh my God, you can tell, like he was not excited about the dinner, the ball game or anything else. And I said, cameron, go take a shower, you know, come down, whatever. Even if we miss half the game, it doesn't matter. He comes back down about 25, 30 minutes later and he's freaking glowing. And he said, john, I've had a lot of people, like in Dubai do crazy things. I thought the Four Seasons was amazing. When I'd go out for a jog, they'd remember my name and have a towel and a bottle of water waiting for me. He's like, I've texted pictures to friends, to authors. He said, I've never had anybody treat me this way. He said, whatever you want to talk about, for as long as you want to talk about it, I am all ears. So we proceeded to go for the steak, went to the ball game, and we had this amazing conversation. And after that, I followed up with gifts for Kim. And over the next couple years. But over the last 10 years, Cameron's opened doors that I couldn't have pried open. Like, hey, I need a connection to the president of Starbucks. Sure, no problem. Here's the email. He's included me in books, he's mentioned me from stages. My first 15,000 hour speaking engagement came as a direct result of Cameron. Like, he's done things for me that a million dollars or $10 million in advertising couldn't do. Now the kicker is, is that a lot of times, even when I speak at Google or wherever else, the analytical part of people start analyzing, like $7,000 a customer, like we have 1,000 customers. Like, we go broke or they just start doing the math. And they're like, we could never afford that. That's insane. Like, even Google, you know, they got slides in their headquarters. They're like, that's even a little pricey for us. And I'm like, you're totally missing the point. Because the kicker is, Cameron came back to me, said, john, what you did for me, the experience, the way you personalized my visit to Cleveland, that was the gift. So one of two things are going to happen. You're going to tell me how much the clothes were that I picked out, because I couldn't fit all of those clothes into five suitcases. So I could only pick out so many clothes. And you're going to tell me that, and I'll write you a check for that. Or I'm going to guess and round up by 50%. I'm going to send you a check for that. Because I can't let you buy the gifts as well. I can't let you buy the clothes. The experience, the personalization, the way you made me feel, the way you took care of me, that was the gift. So that entire experience cost me Nothing, cost me $0. And to this day, like, we send people saunas and crazy stuff. Because going back to that example with camera, my business partner's like, I think it's a really silly idea, but I just got to kind of trust you on these insane gift things. Because the way that it's worked out, and if you're thinking also, like, I just can't afford $7,000 or even $1,000 per person, it's still not what's relevant. The core element of what made that work. Like, if I just gave him a $7,000 gift card, would it have worked? The answer is no. It was the element of personalizing it. So, you know, when we're gifting, I don't care if it's the Miami Dolphins or who. It is one of the core things that every single gift that we send out has, it's personalized with the person's name. People are like, ah, big whoop. Does that really matter? And I'm like, well, let's take Stephen Ross. He owns the Miami Dolphins. He's worth $7 billion. He just gave $250 million away to the University of Michigan for their, like, athletic and their education department, which, as a buckeye, like, royally pisses me off. Like, you know, like, they're going to be good for a really long time. And I say, well, is Steven Ross, like, he lives in, Spends most of his time in New York and Florida. Like, he's not even in Michigan that often. Like, why would he do that? And like, oh, he loves educational sports. Yeah, maybe. But at a deep rooted level, it's because. What, what's going to be on the side of the buildings, like 50 of those buildings for the next hundred years? His name. So if his name is important enough that he'll give $250 million away to create a legacy with his name on the side of it. Like everything that we do for our employees, for our clients, even for our suppliers, like I treat my suppliers better than most people treat their best clients, we always personalize the gift. And if we can't do a $7,000 experience, even if it's $100 experience or $500 experience, it's always personalized. If I can't personalize it, it's game over, I'm not doing it. The name is so important. In the name of the spouse even. It's amazing how I've had people come up to me and I'm going to talk about this in question number two, related to the personalization. It's incredible. Just that person's name on it changes the entire game. Question number two. Does it include. Does it include the inner circle? Does it include the inner Circle? About 12 years ago, I got this infamous phone call and it was the office of the Orlando Magic. Now, I'm an Ohio boy and that's a big football town, but I'm a basketball guy. Like, I love basketball. And so in my head I worked with the Miami Dolphins, but I was like, if I could get an NBA team, it'd be like the coolest thing ever. Courtside seats, it'd just be ridiculous. And so I remember the phone call. It was, hi, John, this is Cheyenne. I'm from the Orlando magic. Yeah, the CEO's office. I was wondering, could you help me? We got these really nice knives from somebody. I was curious, could you help us buy a bunch of knives? I was like, am I dreaming? Like this is this, like, it's one of those, like, perfect, Like, I can't even believe, like out of the textbook. It was amazing. I start laughing. I'm like, yeah, I think we can help you with your gifts and knives and. And who do you work with? Oh, the CEO, Alex Bartons. Awesome. Yeah. So we start this dialogue and we start doing gifting for them, not only at the team, but across the NBA. And I'm like, this is like, amazing. And so over the course of like three years, I never met Cheyenne, but every Quarter, I would send a gift to the CEO and most people are like, well, that's a no brainer. Like it's a CEO, it's a decision maker. But what's unique about our philosophy is every time I sent one to the CEO, I sent the same gift or nicer to Cheyenne. Every quarter, like clockwork. Knives, leather goods, you name it. And that went on for three years. I didn't ask for a referral, I didn't ask for anything. It was just, hey, appreciate the relationship, just because. And then the third year I said, hey, I'm coming down to Orlando to speak at this event and I would love to get some time with Alex. And she said, I'll call you back in five minutes. She's like, I got you blocked out for five minutes. I'm like, awesome. She calls me back an hour later and she said, john, can you clear your entire afternoon? I'm like, I had like five meetings that I said, yeah, my afternoon's clear, no problem. Like, because I'm thinking in my head, I'm gonna get five hours, like four or five hours with the CEO of, you know, we're gonna do a brainstorming session. Like I'm envisioning this amazing, like dreamlike brainstorming. Like we're do gifting across the world. And so I fly into Orlando, go meet Cheyenne. She takes me up to Alex's office. I go to meet Alex, shake his hand and he's like, we love the gifts. They're so unique. They're so different. They're not the, you know, signed basketballs and all the crap they, that we normally do. People are really responding to them. You're in great hands with Cheyenne. And he shakes my hand and five minutes later he's gone. And I tried to like paint on this like fake smile, but in my head I'm thinking like, I canceled five important meetings for this. And I'm like, what that? Like this is five minutes. Like, what the heck? And she got this little smirk on her face and she said, john, follow me. And I said, okay. Walked down the hallway into a boardroom. And in that boardroom was the head of sponsorship and the head of suites and season ticketing and like the six department heads for the entire Orlando Magic. And normally when I walk into a boardroom like that, I don't know if you've ever dealt with pro sports students, but they're like, it's like a kiss the ring kind of moment. Like you got to bow at their feet and basically beg them for the business and like, you're not going to make any money in most cases. We've been fortunate. All of our deals have been profitable, but in general, like, there's this wall of, like, we're the Orlando Magic. Who are you? Like, you got to like, bow to get their business in. The exact opposite. When I walked into the boardroom, they stood up, they came over and they gave me a hug and they're like, we're so excited to meet you. Cheyenne has been talking about you for the last two or three years. She won't shut up about you. We know we're going to do business with you. We know we're going to buy. You just got to show us what we need to buy. Once again, I'm looking for cameras. I'm like, this is. This has to be a setup. Like, this just doesn't happen. It was incredible. And we started dialoguing. It probably lasted, I don't know, an hour and a half or two hours. We wrapped up early, but I walked out of there. I was like floating. And I thought, is this going to be one of those moments where great meeting but doesn't go anywhere? Six months later to the day, we get the email. And for their 800 biggest season ticket holders we were doing gifting for. It was our first six figure deal that we ever had with a professional sports team. It was incredible margins, amazing. They were elated, super happy. It was one of those moments where I was like, oh, my gosh. What we teach works at such a deep level because Alex was great. He's the one signing the check. But in business, most of the time we completely forget about the people around the decision maker. And so we'll take the decision maker on trips and golf outings and we'll spend hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands. And what's interesting, we budget about 300 grand a year for our top relationships, clients and people, employees, suppliers, you name it. 80% of that is not targeted at the decision maker. It's targeted at the inner circle. And what I define by inner circle, it's their assistant, it's their spouse, and it's their kids. If you wanted a fourth, it'd be their team, their entire team. And the reason is, in order to get my attention or Cameron's attention, you got to do something crazy. I get to travel and golf. I golf pebble beach, even though I shouldn't be allowed to be on Pebble Beach. Like, I'm not that good a golfer, but we golf it all the time. We get to stay at Nice Hotels. We get nice dinners, we get nice wine, we get amazing things. Guess who gets the worst side of being in business? My spouse. Most of the time I'm not traveling with my kids. I remember one of the speaking engagements I had in January. I left and literally the next day everybody got the flu. There are like bodily fluids everywhere. Like it's like throwing up city like crazy. And I'm like being treated to the nicest dinners and the nicest places in San Diego. And she's dealing with just like literally crap like for four days straight. She gets the worst side. So guess what happens when something shows up for her. Well, in many cases I've had times where literally billion dollar companies, VPs, owners, you name it, the spouse comes up and says, John, in 30 years of being in business, this, this is the first time I've ever received something that was personalized to me. That was for me. That was not another bottle of bourbon or another golf related thing or another sports, whatever. And they're crying like this happened multiple times. They're blinged out, they got more diamonds or whatever else. It's not like they were not taken care of. But it's the first time that they were treated like a peer and not a pawn. And so if you're looking for ways to spend a dollar and get $100 of impact, taking care of the inner circle is one of those ways. Like out of the 300 grand, 80% of it we spend on the inner circle because it's such, it's amazing. The assistant don't ask for anything. You're just treating them like a peer, the spouse. You're not asking for things. But guess what? Like I've one of our mutual friends, John Bowen, who runs one of the top financial advising coaching companies in the world. Like, amazing. I didn't get the deal with John because of John. And I had met him at mastermind talks in these cool events and drank amazing wine together. But he thought the idea of doing gifting strategy was like this insane thing. Like he was like, whatever, that's stupid, I have no time for that. And so I started to send gifts to his house that were personalized with his wife's name, leather handbag, a couple knives, whatever else. And over the course of about six months, he started to get like berated by her. Like, have you talked to John yet? Are you going to go to dinner with John? Have you done business with John yet? She became my internal sales advocate, advocate and close the deal. He was like, if my wife, who is like Very difficult to impress. Is that impressed and blown away by this? Imagine what we could do for our clients. And he actually did it. He actually gave gifts before an event. It was about 150 people. It was all of his top financial advisors, most of them netting over a million dollars. So pretty elite crowd. We sent knives to all of those people, personalized with the name, handwritten note thanking him for carbon out time. And they showed up at the end of his little form. It was like asking for referrals. And normally he'd get a few referrals. When he started to add up the number of referrals that he got after this event, it had gone up by over 100%. 100%. These are like literally like seven figure people. It was incredible why the guys could care less. Most of the advisors, 98% of their men, it was their spouse who are like, oh my gosh, like this is the first time something showed up in the mail. And in many cases, and Lance can attest to this, we've had instances where people were not going to show up to an event that all of a sudden magically made time in their schedule and canceled things because the spouse was like, you're going to that event. And the guy would be like, I'm already traveling enough at this other event. I don't care if this is the first time we've got something. This place is classy, this person's classy, you're going to accept that award. And the guy's like, oh my gosh, I've never had my wife push me out of the house to go on a business trip. Like usually it's the opposite, the inner circle. And it works the same way with employees. It works the same way because it's dealing with human beings. I don't care if you have a 5 million dollar janitorial company or a 25 billion dollar sports team, you're dealing with humans. The inner circle works. Third question. When? When would it mean the most? When would it mean the most? So we're a gifting company and we do gift strategy, whatever else. Take a guess on the percentage of our $300,000 budget. What percentage of the budget do we invest in? Q4.0. Yeah. A lot of people are like, oh, all of it. Like, no, like the exact opposite. Yeah, it's zero. Now why is that everybody gets Christmas gifts, huh? It's expected. It's expected. Yep. So one of my first clients reached out that was wanted to do high level consulting prospecting, and they were a seed corn company. So not the sexiest business in the world, but they were, like, $100 million company, and they were competing against companies like Pioneer that were doing, like, 20 billion in revenue. So they were like, the, you know, $100 million company is nothing to sneeze at, but they're competing with, like, literally, the. The Goliath. John. We got this great product that we could sell if we could just get meetings with these farmers that are farming, like, 10,000 acres, like huge farms and above, but they won't even take our meeting. They jump on a tractor, and they're gone for, like, 30 hours. They just won't even give us the time of day. We think you might be able to help us. Can you develop some sort of program that would get them to take a meeting? And I said, what have you done so far from an appreciation standpoint? They're like, well, we do these really awesome baskets. I'm like, okay, what's in the basket? Like, oh, it's swag and wine and whatever else. I said, when do you send it? Like, oh, we send it right before Christmas. I'm like, how's that working for you? They're like, it sucks. It's not working at all. I said, okay, well, let's develop this program. Instead of wine and swag for the farmer, let's do something that's more holistic for the inner circle. And I said, when would it mean the most? And they're like, you know what? Planning season sucks. Nobody wants to ever talk to us, but, like, that's when something might actually resonate and mean something them to people. And I said, awesome. I said, so right after planning season, I said, yeah. So they had their 80 sales reps pick their top 20 prospects. So 1600 people. And, you know, if you're targeting farmers, even though they had the budget, like, you can't send them Rolexes. Like, that's a little weird to send a farmer a Rolex to get their attention. So it has to be something that's relevant, unique, quality, all these things. So I said, what do you want to build the program around? They said, we're thinking about ice cream. I'm like, it's not the sexiest thing in the world, but we can work with ice cream. It's going into summertime. So we built this whole program around ice cream, and instead of hitting them one time, we're gonna hit them three times. And the first gift was this handmade ceramic bowl, and it represented the foundation of the company. They're beautiful. We sent out 1600 of these all across the Midwest. We waited a week. And then, of course, I'm a Cutco guy, so I get the Cutco ice cream scoop. It's a $50 ice cream scoop. Little note inside. Here's the scoop. Here's the background on the company, why you might want to work with us. We sent out 1600 of these, waited a week, and then we went. Anybody familiar with Schwan's, the delivery service? Anybody had Schwann's? Like, it's nostalgic for people in the Midwest. My grandma had, like, Schwann's, like, little. Like, little drumsticks that were, like, the best thing ever. And so we went to Schwann's and said, hey, will you package up 1600 gallons of ice cream and package them into coolers and send them off? They said, sure. So along with that cooler of ice cream that was dry, ice packed was a little dvd and said, hey, we know you're tired. You don't want to meet with us. You've worked hard. You've earned it. Sit down with your family and enjoy a bowl of ice cream. And if you get time over the next couple weeks, pop in this DVD and learn why we think we really make a strategic partner for you and we add a lot of value. And then the fourth week, the sales rep, after waiting a couple weeks, would call on these guys with ice cream toppings in hand instead of getting like, the heisman, like, hey, I'm jump on the tractor for. For 30 hours. They got invited and not into the office. Where did they get invited to? To the house. Guess who was there? Not just the farmer. It was his wife. It's like, you know, hi, ho, daddario farmer and his wife inside at the dinner table. Not for two minutes, not for 20 minutes. In most cases, it was a two, three, four hour visit. Now, I ask if we'd done the exact same gift. Because a lot of times people are like, yeah, we've tried the gift thing. Nobody ever sends a thank you. It doesn't work. It's just a waste of money. We're cutting that out. I'm like, okay, well, when did you send the gift? They're like, oh, we sent the gift after the referral. Oh, we sent the gift, you know, right before the holidays. I'm like, it was expected. It was an obligation. You had to do it. It was like that. You've made it transactional. Because every business on the planet says their business is about relationships, Relationships with their clients, relationship with their employees. But are your actions Lining up with what your words are. And, and in most cases, most companies, they say, this is our most valuable relationship. And then they treat them like average. They treat them like an obligation. They do the same thing at the same time as all of their competitors. And they wonder why nobody's bending over backwards to refer them 10x business. It's because you're treating them just like everybody else. And so the gift, the timing, something as simple as sending it in May versus in December made all the difference in the world. And so when we're working with, with people, we're challenging them. When would it mean the most? Oftentimes it's not when you expect. Like, we don't do gifts typically at an event, although the book is one of those gifts. We'll do a gift ahead of time or we'll do a gift afterwards because they're not expecting it. It creates buzz either leading up to the event or it creates this exclamation point afterwards. Like, I hate swag bags. Like, if you want to be a green company, don't give a bunch of crap with your logo on it at an event and then like, fill up landfills with, like, semis full of crap that nobody wants that they can't even get home. Like, Cameron can tell you, like, he speaks at EO events and they give him like, these glass plastic figurine type things. It's like, hey, thank you so much. Like, Cameron's like, what the hell am I supposed to do with this? I'm gonna put my bag. Like, it's horrible. Like, they're not thinking, like, timing, like a nice handwritten note three weeks later, make all the difference in the world. So the timing of the gift, such a small detail, can make all the difference in the world. Number four, questions we ask at the end. Yes. I mean, if there's time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Write down any questions for sure. So number four, what's the most that I can do? What's the most that I can do if you're like me? And I think guys tend to lean this direction than just in general across the planet. If you get invited to a wedding or a kid's graduation, what's one of the first things that goes through your head? Huh?
Have to put on a tie.
Okay, question number two. Can we just send a gift and not go? Yeah. Do we have to show up? Number one, do we have to wear a tie most of the time? One of the. One of the first couple questions is, you know, I haven't seen that niece in like, five years, is this a hundred dollar relationship or a five relationship? Like, we ask ourselves, what's the least we can get away with and not look like a schmuck or look like a deadbeat? Like, is this $150? Like, we're going back and forth in our head, like, what that should be? And then if our wife, like, writes a check for $100 a month, like, really, like, we haven't seen that person in a decade, we're sending them that much. It's just natural. Our tendency is to go to the lowest common denominator and what's the least we can get away with? And what was unique about Paul was that he asked himself the exact opposite. Like, he would go to a pizza parlor after the, you know, the high school team won the game. And he would ask himself, what's the most I can do here? I can pick up one tab or I can pick up the whole restaurant. And he'd take two grand, sign for it, didn't draw any attention to himself. He just picked up the whole tab. He always asked himself the opposite of what most people would do. And so he was the most top of mind, was the most generous person in the community. So anytime anybody had an idea, they came to Paul, because why? He was always known because he was so far above everybody else in his generosity. And so I started to apply the same principle to other things in my business. I remember early on, 10, 15 years ago, a website was expensive and I didn't have money. I was a college kid. I'm like, I need to communicate that this whole idea of generosity and using that as a competitive advantage, it mattered. It wasn't just this warm kumbaya thing. And I'm like, how can I communicate that? What are the things I'm doing that I could take up, you know, and not good. The least I could do, do the most. And I remember pulling out a business card. I'm like, everybody hands out these stupid business cards at networking events. It doesn't matter where you're at. Everybody has a business card. And I'm like, most people, like, they spend like 2 cents on it. Like this is supposed to represent their brand, who they are, whatever else. Everybody spends the same dumb two cents. I'm like, I wonder if I could create a card that would do the exact opposite. That would be a dollar business card. And so I set a goal. I'm like, I want a dollar business card. And I remember going out a couple weeks later with some of my buddies for a beer, and I'm like, guys, I got this really cool idea. I'm like, I'm gonna spend a dollar on my business card. I don't know where I'm gonna find them, but I'm gonna find these dollar business cards. And it's gonna communicate the value and the details matter. Relationships. My business or my buddies are like, dude, that is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Like, you're gonna go broke. You won't even be able to buy beers. Like, passes out dollar business cards. Do you know how many cards you're probably gonna pass out? Like, that's stupid. I'm like, but you don't understand. Like, it's a dollar. Like, that's dumb. So I went back to the drawing board. I'm like, can I even find a dollar business card? I remember I was watching one of my favorite movies of all time. I'm kind of a hopeless romantic. Hitch. Anybody seen the movie Hitch, the love doctor? He's Mr. Cool. Well, I grew up watching Fresh Prince of Bel Air, so anything Will Smith is in, I don't care if it's the worst movie on the planet. I'm gonna go watch it. And so I'm watching this movie, and I'm loving it. And he's like, you know, Mr. Cool behind the scenes. And then anybody remember his business card in the movie? It was shown literally for, like, two seconds. He hands it. It's a perfect square. It's thick, like a cardboard stock. And it has his name, Hitch, and his cell phone number in silver. And for me, it was, like, in slow motion. Like, there's a ray of light shining on this card. I replayed and watched it over and over again. I'm like, will Smith's card. I'm gonna have that card. And so I remember researching. I couldn't find the exact card, but I found it. And I could do it out of. Out of aluminum. It was metal, and it was a dollar. And I remember, like, going to my first. One of my first NASCAR races, and I had, like, I don't know, 10 cards that were in my pocket. And it was, like, weighing down my pocket, like, had this huge bulge in my pocket. It was, like, a little bit awkward, but I could not wait to hand out one of these things. And I'm in this suite. Scott's was a client of ours, and we're in this luxury suite, and in walks the CEO of Lowe's, you know, multi billion dollar company. I'm like, this is gonna be great. So I walk up. Hey, I'm John. We Have a gift strategy company. We help. Dah dah dah. And you could tell, like he was looking right through me, glazed over, only caring about the nacho bar behind me. Like anything I was saying out of my mouth was not registering. He was like smiling and nodding, but there was no lights on. I'm like, this is not going well. Like I need to do something. I'm like, I need to give him my card. But I don't want to just give him a card. I need to ask him him for a card. So I ask him for a card. Of course, everybody's polite. He gives me the card. He's like, I'm never going to respond to that email. Gives me the card. I'm like, hey, I'd love to stay in contact. And I hand him one of the metal cards. He looks down at the card, looks up at me, looks down at the card, looks up at me, looks down at the card. He goes, that's the coolest frickin card I've ever seen. Except he didn't say, frickin' Cameron's just waiting for me to swear. He said, what do you do? Again he was locked like eye to eye for the next five minutes. I'm like, gift strategy. Here's how we help, here's what we do, here's how we could work with Lowe's. He's like, email me, my assistant will respond and let's start the dialogue. This sounds really cool, I'd love to at least explore it. And it was amazing when I emailed him and I put metal business card in the subject line, I got an immediate response. And what's even crazier, we now have. We said, what's the most I could do after the dollar? Some people started copying. I'm like, I'm going to take this up. And so this is a $3 business card. Because I'm like, I can't have other people the same. But what's been amazing over the last eight to 10 years is that we've had people that have literally taken pictures of my card at their office. We don't know what to do with this thing. We feel uncomfortable throwing it away. It's a little, you know, it's so nice. I play with it when I talk on the phone. I've had some people take pictures and they're like, I have it on my nightstand at home. I don't have to do it the same. Like it's sitting besides like your wedding picture beside your bed. Like that's just creepy. And Weird, but okay. Like, over a dollar or a $3 card. And even five or 10 years later, like, if I put metal business card in the subject line, they may they remember immediately where they were at when they got the card. The conversation, like, out of the thousands of cards, or tens of thousands, thousands of cards, a dollar or $3 investment has completely changed our networking and interaction, completely changed the game. And so I mentioned this at Google, and they're like, oh, my gosh, three hours for a business card, we'd go broke. And I'm like, show of hands. If anybody spent $3 on a cup of coffee this morning, and of course, the whole audience raises their hand. I'm like, did anybody freak out when the Starbucks barista said that would be $3, Mr. Or Ma'? Am? Like, did anybody freak out and say, we have to plan for this? Like, I don't know, this is a little crazy. $3. Like, we have to work that into the budget. Like, nobody thinks that way. Like, $3 for a cup of coffee has just become kind of standard place. But $3 for a business card, it's like, literally, like a thousand times more than what they're used to, and it freaks them out. Even big companies that have big budgets can't wrap their mind around. And so we haven't had very many people copy the $3 business card because it's just so insane. And so what I'll say is that in business, in your industry, the way that this kind of applies to you is where are the areas in business where everybody in your industry goes super cheap, where it doesn't matter, It's a nothing thing. And where are the areas in your business where everybody goes super expensive? Is it dinners? Is it entertaining? Is it trade shows? Is it brochures? Because what's funny is people are like, Ah, $3. That's such a waste. I'm like, well, in our industry, a lot of people spend 20 or $30 on a brochure, and guess what happens 99% of the time when you hand them a catalog or a brochure when you leave the office gets used as toilet paper. It's gone. It's like, nothing. Guess what happens when I hand them a $3 business card? They take it. I've had, literally instances where people have shown it to 50 people before they got home from the event. And so I look for areas where everybody's going super cheap. And I say, how can I take that? Not like 2% higher. How can I take it 2000% higher and do it in such a way that shows excellence, that communicates the value. We say we're world class and this, and we're world class and first class and best in class. Like, every little detail matters, even a business card. And we applied that same thing to our letterhead. We said, how often do you get, you know, a handwritten note? You know, show of hands. If you've gotten a text message within the last hour, if you've gotten a text message, or if you've gotten a handwritten note within the last 24 hours. Okay, that's unfair. If you've got more than one within the last 24 hours, it's rare, isn't it? I mean, a handwritten note is just like it's 2017. It's easier to send a Facebook message or Snapchat or a text or whatever. Like it's an email. Like, we all. We have digital overload. And one of Cameron and I's mutual friend now, Connor Blakely, who's 18, who's speaking all over the world, is talking about how all these old school things that, like, our great grandfathers would have done have now become new school because they're so rare, like the handwritten notes. So our letterhead is now $9 piece of steel. And when somebody gets a handwritten note from us, they freak out. Some of them frame it, they show it off. Like they'll keep it on their desk. Like, we have one financial advisor who's like the branch manager. The amount of referrals we've received from a handwritten note just sitting out and people being like, what the heck is that?
How do you write on steel?
With a sharpie? Yep. Yeah, Sharpie stays on, no problem. So you gotta really make sure you don't make a mistake. Yeah, you don't want to screw up. But a $9 investment, I mean, people will spend $9 on a flashlight that breaks within nine days and slam their logo on it and think nothing of it. But $9 letterhead, whew, that's freaky. I don't know. I can't handle that. So I challenge you in your own company, in your own industry. Look for those areas where it just seems crazy. Why are we doing that? And trade shows and entertainment are one of those great examples. Like, why is your Morton's dinner any different than anybody else's Morton dinner? Why is your trade show booth, oh, we put flashing lights and we spend an extra five grand. But all of your other competitors are spending about the same. They're all doing about the same thing. It Just becomes part of the noise. And so what we really are teaching people is how to stand out and be memorable by completely flip flopping what's the norm and where everybody goes expensive. Like, we cut it out. Like, I don't do trade shows. They're like, what do you mean you don't have a booth? You don't. I'm like, no, I wrote a book and I go speak at those events because I don't want to be the guys that are being compared with the other 10 people. I want to be the person on the stage. I want to be the person that is willing to invest 20 grand into going after the 20 prospects I really want at that event. And they're like, why would you do that? I'm like, because all my competitors spend 100 grand. So I save myself 80 grand and I get more clients. So it's about being more effective with the things that we're doing. It's not just about gifts. It's about completely reorienting how you're looking at relationships and how to stand out and how to be memorable. The last question, number five, what would they really want? What would they really want? So if you rewind back to the time where I sold half the business, I thought it was to grow the company and do amazing things. Like my business partner, Rod, had been the CEO consultant for a number of years, got hired as kind of a hired gun to go take over multiple companies. And he came in and bought 50% of the company to really grow it. And it was right around 2007 when all of that happened, right about the time that Cameron and I met. And I thought, man, this is gonna be great. I got this partner who understands finance or whatever else. Like, we're just gonna rock this thing. And then in the course of about six months, everything that could go wrong as an entrepreneur went wrong. First thing was on a date with this wonderful girl who I met through the seed corn company. And we're at her. We're near her hometown. I get a phone call from my mom, and she's frantic. She's crying. I'm like, mom, what's going on? And she's like, billy's son, Billy's, you know, Xavier. He was at a birthday party, you know, da, da, da. He's only 18 months, but he's dead. He didn't make it. He drowned. And I'm like, you know, like, you know, motion. It was one of those horrible. Somebody that close to me had never passed away before. So my girlfriend and I drive through the night to Oklahoma for the funeral. And it's just horrible. I don't know if you've ever been to the funeral of a child, but it's just gut wrenching. And so then about a month later, my business partner started asking about these charges on the credit card and some money that's missing. And he said, this doesn't make sense. Does Amy have authority to do some of these things? I'm like, no, I don't know what you're talking about. And found out that my assistant, who was also my CPA all the way through college, was stealing. And so going into our busy season, like, had to let go of our right hand person, show up at our house. All of our employees work remotely with like a box truck and unpack all this stuff and pack it away. Like, it's horrible. Like, she was like my right hand person since I started the business. Literally like three months into the business. And then about three weeks later, you get the notice, little envelope, three letters on it, and nobody wants to get in business. It was a nice IRS audit because she had been doing the taxes and everything. Everything was done wrong. And so I was going through like this horrendous audit. And then the financial meltdown started happening toward 2007. Going into 2008, I invested. I was like, anything I touch turns to gold. Let's invest in some commercial real estate, let's invest in some other businesses and all this other stuff. And literally went from like doing $7,000, Brooks Brothers experiences and saunas and crazy stuff to living on about $1,000 a month take out of the business. And my business partner for two years took nothing out of the business. No salary, anything. So my girlfriend, who then became very serious girlfriend, had just moved to Ohio a few months later. And so I'm barely keeping my lips above the water, and I have this girlfriend who's serious, who doesn't know anybody. It was like the worst time to start a dating relationship. It was like entrepreneur hell. Like, everything that could go wrong, we're just barely keeping the wheels on the bus. And so I decided she had moved back to St. Louis. And we're doing this long distance relationship. I'm like, this is a girl I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. I want to create an experience for her for the engagement story that's better than anything I've ever done that would make like Brooks Brothers look like, you know, child's play, like Candyland, like, I'm gonna go. So all in that she will never Be able to compare any gift I ever do for an executive compared to this engagement. And so I start playing. I'm like, no holds barred. What's the most I can do? Like, crazy stuff. And so I'm like, what's our favorite movie? Maybe we can make a movie out of this. And I'm like, the Notebook. We both love the Notebook. I'm this hopeless romantic. Anybody ever seen the Notebook? It's like on replay on TBS like three times a day. So I'm like, I'm gonna recreate the Notebook for us. So I start like, I'm gonna write our story, our Notebook story. Because in the movie, like, he reads the story to his wife who has dementia, and she remembers who she is. I'm like, this would be perfect for the storyline. So I start writing this handbag and leather journal and it's like 80 pages long. It's like every detail of our relationship from the start, from the time that we are talking on the phone, back and forth and all this other stuff, stuff that she, for sure I would have forgotten. And then I'm like, the plan. I'll tell you what the plan was and then I'll tell you how it actually played out because there's a bit of a gap there. The plan was she's living in St. Louis, it's right around Valentine's Day and she's going to be coming into Ohio and thinking that it's just a normal Valentine's Day. She knows I'm broke. As a joke, I don't have money for anything, let alone a ring. And the plan was that Friday morning I fly in with my brother who just graduated from film school and we'd fly into the airport past security in the morning. She'd be flying out at 5pm and my brother who went to full sail, would completely transform me into a 90 year old man. Like, false teeth, prescription bifocals, a wig, NASCAR jacket. Looked like I gained 100 pounds. Looked like John Candy. I mean, I was like huge. I was like, Velcro shoes, gold watch, Brute cologne, you name the detail. We had it dialed in because I'd arranged with Continental to be on the airplane, seated right next to her, and my brother would be in another seat over and he basically would deliver this beat up box with the notebook in it and a little ipod mini at the time, they just come out and she wanted one and it was me reading it to her. So she'd get this box, go on the airplane, be listening to it, reading it, and she wouldn't think anything of it because I'm crazy. So flying my brother down to find a box and wouldn't seem out of the ordinary. And at the end it starts asking, will you love me when I gain £100? And I start to describe this old person who smells like brute cologne. And she realized the guy that's next to her, this old dude, is actually me. Because then in the back of the notebook was a ring that I cut out Shawshank redemption style and sealed it with wax to get down at 30,000ft on one knee. And then when we landed, her family had driven nine hours from southern Illinois and was one waiting in a stretch Hummer limo with my family, a photographer ready to capture the entire off the plane moment going into the Hummer. And then our 200 closest friends were waiting at rent out entire restaurant to celebrate the engagement. That's what was supposed to happen. So literally months are going into this planning. Everything is perfect. We do a makeup run the night before. My brother's loving it. He's like, this is going to be amazing. We fly in, 9am, go into a bathroom stall. Three hours later, I come out like, I was like lifting my legs up in the bathroom stall. So there's not two sets of legs inside of a airport bathroom stall. I draw attention. 5pm rolls around, Lindsay shows up. My brother delivers the box. She opens it up. She's on cloud nine. She's listening to it, she's reading it. And they start doing pre boarding. Of course, people that need help, old people get on first. So they go to escort me onto the plane, you know, taking me in. Right here's the ticket desk. And I go and I collapse. And my brother thinks I'm kind of hamming this up. Like how he's old. Like he's just really playing this up for the camera. And they. But I'm not moving. And they roll me over and I'm not moving. And there's blood everywhere, solid blood. And I'm unconscious. My brother's like, this is not part of the plan. Holy frick. So he starts texting people. Like, I'm not sure what's going on. I'm not sure what's going on. Now Lindsay's watching this and she's like, what the heck? Like this old person. Where's this people at? Like, this is weird. And a pilot comes off the plane and sees an old guy laying on the ground unconscious and pulls a defibrillator off the wall. Thinks I'm having a heart attack. And so he puts the paddles on, and it says to hit me. They start cutting clothes off. Hit me. I'm bouncing off the ground now. This time, the wig's coming off the glasses. And Lindsey goes from realizing it's an old guy to being like, oh, my gosh, that's an old guy that looks like John. Oh, my gosh, that's John. What is going on? And she melts. She freaks because I'm unconscious. There's blood, there's vomit, there's everything. And they have to build a wall of people around me to keep her from getting to me as they're working on me because they can't stabilize me. Now, guess who gets a phone call when you're in an airport in disguise and you're unconscious? Yeah, the FBI. So the FBI shows up, three letter jackets, and they're like, what's going on here? They're asking questions. My brother's over there with the notebook, like, showing him the ring to try to explain. And they think it's like they're talking to my brother, that I'm gone. So she's crying. She's a mess. She tries to get into the ambulance that they bring, and I'm on a ventilator, but she's not family, so they won't allow her in. So she has to follow in a cop car. In the back of the cop car, like, she finds out I was going to propose from the cop. And she's just praying. She's melted down. She's just hysterical now. Meanwhile, everybody back in Ohio, nine hours away, is getting text messages. John had a heart attack. He's on his way to the ICU. Party's off. So that 200 people are getting that message. So they take me into icu. They can't. I'm on a breathing machine. They're running every test, CAT scan, mri, you name it, under the sun. And Lindsay's there for all. My brother's freaking out. My mom flies in the next morning, and the next morning I wake up, and I'm a little bit loopy, but. So I'm on these drugs from everything, but I'm like. I'm conscious. And I start asking, like, what happened? Like, what happened? Like, you almost died. And, you know, this happened, and this happened, and this happened. And I'm like, now I have these huge fat lips. I'm like, that's amazing. It's like Romeo and Juliet. But I didn't die. And I think it's the most incredible thing, but I forget every five minutes. Have to keep telling me the story. Because I'm loopy. I'm on these drugs. And Lindsay, my girlfriend, is like, this is like the worst nightmare come to life. She's over in the corner, like coward, like fetal possession. She's just shocked beyond belief. And six days later, we take the same plane flight back, no disguise. We read the Notebook, listen to it, and no 200 people know any of that kind of stuff. She says, yes, we cry. Like, we're just ourselves, you know, there. And over the next couple months, like, this conversation would get brought up, like, people in EO or ypo, whatever. So we'd be at a conference or an event. People, like, tell the engagement story. I'd be like, big room. People, like, sure, I'll tell the story. And I'd tell the story. And she'd be like, over in the corner, like, no, don't tell the story. And I'd be like, you don't appreciate me. I almost died for you. And she'd be like, that was the worst story ever. Like, it went horrible. It's like, my worst nightmare. And so for, like, the first four or five years of marriage, we would battle, like, we'd fight over this thing. I'd be like, you're just not appreciating it. And I was meeting with a mentor of mine who's kind of a counselor mentor. And he started asking john, what do you like? And I said, well, I love. You know, I love surprises. I love this. I love that. She's like, what's Lindsay like? And she's like. And I'm like, she hates. She hates. She hates surprises. She wants an itinerary, actually, for her birthday. She wants to know, minute by minute, what we're doing and what outfit to wear. And she'd like to know 30 days ahead of her birthday. And it, like, hit me like this bolt of lightning. When he asked that question, I answered, I love surprises. She hates surprises. And I'd made that entire engagement. If I'd actually pulled her off, it would have been pretty cool. But I made that entire engagement story about how cool I was and how wonderful I was and things I liked. I loved the surprise. And my wife would have loved nothing more than to have a walk on the beach, maybe a private dinner. No fanfare, no 200 people, no disguise, no any of that. She just wanted to start a life together. I had made the entire gift of engagement about me as opposed to the other person. And what I realized was, and the reason it's in the book is she had to approve everything that was in the book was. The lesson I learned is that in business, we do the exact same thing. If we like steak, we take our customers out for steak. If we like golfing, we take our customers out golfing. Now, we don't ask ourselves, do they really want another night away from their family? Do they really need another trip away from their kids? Do they really, you know, like steak? Do they like. We make the gift. If we do a gift, it's all about our colors. Our brand is all over it. It's all about our preferences. And we make it all about us, how cool we are and what we want, not about the other person. And we would never do that in most situations, like a wedding, you'd never, like, engrave compliments of John ruling on a Tiffany's vase. But in business, we do that all the time. We call it marketing or promotion or whatever else. It's not really a gift. We're using a manipulation or a tool or a marketing tool. And what I've realized is that when we start to put ourselves in the other person's shoes and say, what would they really want that they wouldn't buy for themselves? Or how would they really want treated? Or maybe they don't even want anything. They just want their spouse to be treated well or their kids to be treated well. And so we've started to do that for our employees. Like, we have all stay at home moms that are college educated that work remotely. And we said, what's one thing that would be amazing for them that they wouldn't do for themselves? What would they really want? And we said, our wives hate cleaning. We have house cleaners, but they probably would never take the money to do that. And so we're going to make it a. It's not even an option. Like, you either accept it or you don't. There's no cash value, but we pay to have their houses cleaned every other week. All of our employees cost us $2,000 per employee. And people like, oh my gosh, like, even Google was like, are you hiring? Like, there's a number of people are like, we get food and this and this, but we don't. Nobody pays for our house cleaning. It was amazing how in their head, like, that was such a radical concept, but it's such. It costs $2,000. And people are like, well, we can't afford to do that. I'm like, well, the last time I checked, your salary range even for an assistant is like 35 to $45,000. That's a $10,000 swing that you don't think anything of like, you don't say, oh, if we paid him 35 versus 40, we would go bankrupt. But all of a sudden with a $2,000 perk or benefit that makes their life easier, their spouse's life easier, their kids life easier and better, they're less stressed and they would never do it for themselves. They'd always feel guilty if you gave them the option of not taking the cash. And so we've started to incorporate that in not only to our own business, but challenging our clients to do the same thing and say they really want another frickin polo shirt with your logo on it. No, they probably don't. Like what could you do and give them that would be really meaningful to them that would make their life easier? Like we have mandated date night and the babysitter's covered as late as they want to go. Because when I'm out with my wife, that's the first thing that she starts thinking about is, oh, we're paying a babysitter, we better make this worthwhile. Like she's not relaxed because of the babysitter. I'm like, I'm going to take that out of the option for my employees. Unlimited babysitter for date night, then go out to 2am we'll pay for it, no problem. And that one little tweak of saying what would the other person really want that they wouldn't do for themselves has completely shifted not only our culture, but it, but it started to help shift cultures of the companies that we work with as we kind of, I guess, decompress here and open up for questions. I think it can be overwhelming sometimes to hear like $7,000 gifts and whatever else. I think at a core level, the essence of giftology in our book is if you want to start somewhere, start with gratitude. And people are like, what do you mean? I said, well, it's hard to go from 0 to 100, like starting out with something simple like the 5 Minute Journal. Who I know Cameron, we both know the founders really well. The idea of writing down who you're grateful for in your company could be investors, could be mentors. If you start to look at the last 20 years in business, like a lot of us wouldn't be where we're at without relationships, without people, and taking the time to write down on an everyday basis who those people are. If you write down three people, three different people every day for the next year, you got a thousand people to appreciate. And it doesn't have to be with a gift. It could be the handwritten note. It could be words of affirmation. It's kind of like the five love languages. Like, it doesn't have to be just tangible gifts. That just happens to be the one that we see people do the worst at. And so we build a whole business around it. But it's the idea of showing gratitude to the people in your life. And what's been really cool about giftology is to see people as far away as Vietnam reaching out, saying, I'm applying your book not to business. I'm applying it to my spouse. And I actually see my marriage changing is a direct result of how I engage my wife or my husband. Because I'm making the gift about them. I'm not making it about me. And I'm doing these things. I'm personalizing. I'm not buying that. You know, it's like the guy that buys a lawn mower for his wife for Mother's Day. Like, really? Is that a gift for you? Like, no. So the principles work, whether it's in business or personally. But it starts with that kind of concept of talking about and writing down and putting an action plan in place of what you're grateful for. And that's really. I think a lot of what we do is just get people to take it seriously and to realize there is a true ROI to showing gratitude thoughtfully and strategically. So with that, thank you guys for your attention, and I'll open it up for questions. I have a question regarding, like, sending gifts around the holidays. Do you want to do it? You don't want to do it? Do you send them anything, like a card or anything? You just don't in business, I mean, for my kids and for my family. But in business, if you're going to do something, if you're like, gosh, we just have this tradition and we can't get away from it. Make it the first gift or note that they receive, like, November 1st. But I think that a gift that shows up just because is 10 times more meaningful than, I have to send this to you. And I think that a lot of times what we don't realize is we're actually spending money to not really generate anything other than noise, because people are. I mean, most conference tables and most businesses are ready to collapse from all the crap that they get between November and December. And so it's not, don't do anything. I would do something at the end of January and then do something the end of March. Like, we call it planned randomness in the book, which is, we know when Things are going to go out to people, but they have no idea what's coming when. And so we never do the same holiday in a row. So if one year we do, let's say first quarter gift is St. Patrick's Day, the next year it might be Valentine's Day. So we always keep them guessing, which I think is part of the element of what makes it work. Because it doesn't feel like, it doesn't feel automated. It feels like, hey, this person just was thinking of me and sent this. That could be for an employee, it could be for a supplier, it could be for a client. So I avoid, I mean, literally zero budget dollars for between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We've had articles written that were like, the Grinch that wants to kill Christmas. Like, like it's like committing Harry Cary to a gifting company that tells you not to send gifts. When most companies go into the black is the last two months and we're saying you're wasting your, you're lighting $100 bills or thousand dollar bills on fire. Like that's how dumb it is.
From my perspective as a CEO who gets gifts all the time, I don't notice who doesn't send me a gift at Christmas. And I really don't even remember who did because. Because there's so many coming. What I remember is like the random CEO who bought me a gift where he found this wine called Harold and it spelled exactly the same and it's this beautiful, nice high end wine. And he sent it to me and it was just like, hey, I saw this and I thought about you or John who saw that we had some stuff at our home and it was like we needed to clean up and so he sent like all this naturopathic organic house cleaning stuff. And it came in like some random month, that kind of stuff or you know, it's, hey, I saw you were doing something with your kids and it's just, it's more about the thoughtfulness. Nobody will remember or not remember if you sent them a Christmas gift.
It's a hard habit to break. It's amazing how even companies are like, logically, I get what you're saying, but there's been such an indoctrination of we have to do this. It just becomes really difficult to. Not especially when you're getting like a.
Christmas card with everybody's signature. But the, there's nothing there. I get, I have CEOs, a friend, Rob follows, who writes me this really long, amazing note that comes like in the summer and it's like Hey, I thought I'd just let you know what we were doing for our last year thinking about you. And it comes when no one else is sending me anything. So he's got my complete attention versus the rest of the time. It's like another card, another card, another card. You don't even remember who they are.
I read the book after the last time being here. Cameron, Sydney, were going to be here and I'm in a B2C space where there's no reoccurring revenue. Word of mouth is kind of hard to track because it's a huge direct response. Like there's no way to track really what industry? Real estate. So we buy homes directly from home sellers. So I kind of like trying to frame this and how we can execute it and I think I have the answer now. But just curious on your thoughts. Do you see that being as any effective way to really gift when you're like it's a one time thing or more of just doing the things to kind of like stand out from the competitors writing the note, then maybe something after like a transaction has actually happened. I mean I don't know specifically but I think that if you view business as like a marathon in a 10, 20, 30 year game and you're trying to plant as many good seeds of people that are raving fans about you you as possible, then sometimes there's, if you look at, you know, it might not be recurring revenue but the lifetime value of if you could get each one of your clients to at least open their mouth. And I don't know who they would tell if there's other people in their circle. But most businesses have an opportunity to leverage it. It's just a matter of figuring out who they're more as once they're a client versus kind of like a prospect in that kind of scenario. I mean it depends on if it's a bunch of people calling on, you know, like we have sometimes financial advisors that we work with that are like how do you stand out and just show class, not bribe. Like there's a, there's a fine line between doing something too much. Like a lot of times people are like, oh, we're going to spend this. I'm like, you're actually communicating. We're trying to buy your business. And that can be just as powerful as doing something too cheap. So there is that. There is a sweet spot depending upon who the clientele is. But from a prospecting perspective, I mean some of our best clients are on the prospecting side of here's our dream 100 relationships, or here's the people that are in our funnel that we need to accelerate or move through faster. It just depends upon what the dollar volume is to make, whether it makes sense or not, and whether it makes sense to keep dripping on them or, you know, hit them with a, you know, an atomic bomb one time and hopefully that, that, you know, stands out. Is that helpful? Yeah.
Giving key ratios of like you have.
A hundred thousand dollar average deal size.
Like what you budget.
Yeah. Our benchmark, some people are less than this, some people are way more than this is 5% of net that we're willing to reinvest back into relationships. So if you look at lifetime value or even current value or what could be, if it's a prospect scenario, you start to reverse engineer and say, okay, this is worth $100,000 in profit, then we're willing to reinvest five grand back into that relationship. And if it's $100,000 over and over again, if they stay on as a client, then sometimes the numbers get pretty silly. Doesn't mean you have to spend that much into it. It just. Most people are like, if we could grow the client, keep the client and turn them into a raving fan and Referral source for 5%, it shows you what you could start to do from an investment perspective back into those relationships, whether it's a supplier, client, prospect, even employee.
A friend of ours, Joe Polish, who runs a group called the Genius Network, which is Darrell's company, and Joe bought a friend of his at Tesla as a thank you gift. And he's like, what do you buy the guy who like flies private and does everything, and he bought him a Tesla, but he's gotten more marketing value out of telling everybody that he's bought in Dean a Tesla, and Dean saying he's bought him a Tesla that, you know, that that cost was nothing.
He paid for himself immediately. That's.
That's why they started the 100k program together. So the Tesla was probably 80 grand or 100 grand, and they've already done 2 million in business together this year.
John, how do you address the tax.
Implications when there's certain thresholds that people can accept gifts? How do you address those?
It depends on the industry. So it's a depends kind of answer. I would say that, like in the financial services, you're allowed $100 a person, $200 per couple per year. That's if you're sending out gifts versus if you're. It's interesting. A financial advisor could take their clients to the super bowl as long as they're with them. So there's all these weird regulations. So what we've done in those instances is we charge wholesale on the gift and we make all of our money as a consulting fee to execute, to handwrite the note, to engrave it, to ship it, to take care of all the back end stuff that we do anyway. And so we're able to allow them to do a nicer gift. Now, you can't send a Rolex and say it's $50. You still have to play within the rules, but it gives them more flexibility of what they can do. I'll also say that Even in Fortune 500 companies that Google has gifting rules, we get probably 1% of our gifts back. And it could be Lance's case where we engraved the ex wife's name on the knives. There's a lot of reasons why you could get a gift back because they.
Said they couldn't accept it. Was the Columbia Sportswear?
Yeah. So one out of 40. In fact, we sent one to the guy who runs it. He accepted it.
His sister Sally rejected it. Because of the gifting roll.
Yeah. Gosh. Was it too good for your brother, though? Yeah. So, yeah, there's what's written and what's filed. Our goal isn't to break the rules, but in most cases, if you do think, you know, if you send a Louis Vuitton bag that costs 20 grand, then there better be reason to justify why you're doing that. But most of the time, we're using the same gifts like the knives and other things where I can take and take a $5,000 set and break it up into chunks. And nobody's like, oh, they tried to buy my $10 million in business because they sent me knives. Now, they're nice and they're used and they fit a lot of our core principles. But we're not necessarily sending Teslas on a regular basis unless it's necessary. The goal is to find under the radar and be thoughtful, not look like you're trying to buy the business. And so I would say 90% of our gifts that we do are the same cost as a dinner out at a really nice restaurant with wine, ball game tickets, or a round of golf. And so I would say $100 to $1500 is where 90% of the gifts that we do fall into line. And if you have more budget than that, then do gifts more frequently. But don't. The goal is not to. I mean, there's always risk involved Anytime you do something unique or different, and most people focus on the one that they got back versus the 19 that loved it. And so I love that because it means everybody else is going to play safe and send brownies and cookies and bottles of wine. And I'm like, this means what we do is that much more different. Yeah. My industry is home care and home health care. So our referral sources are in hospitals. Yep.
Talk.
Talking about hitting the inner circle.
What do you feel about gifts that.
Go to the office that are for, say, the nursing team versus the discharge person alone? So I would reverse engineer and say we have that question all the time. Like, man, there's 20 people at this organization that could really influence the decision. And I would say if you multiply the 20 times the gift, would it be over 5% of what the value of those relationships would be? And if it is or if it's not, then send 20 gifts. Like we have some companies we'll send 50 gifts to because there's that many different influencers and decision makers and sales reps and regions. And I'm like, but the account's worth half a million dollars to us. And so I would say that if you're trying to, you know, there are times when you can give, you know, food or whatever else that could be shared, but most of the time we, we try to give things that are going to have some lasting value and be around for a while. And if it makes sense, then I would give to everybody on that nursing team versus just giving one or giving something that's consumable. We can talk more later, but that's kind of the off the cuff answer.
Thanks, John boy.
Thank you, guys.
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