How To Be Unforgettable and Get the Most Profitable Clients

A couple years ago, I was in Palm Desert with my wife Vivian. Vivian was about to give birth with Zach. So she was in a little one of those expensive shops, just browsing and looking around. And outside, I gave a friend of mine a call. That guy's name is Merlin Quiggle, I kid you not. And I said, hey, Merlin, what are you doing? He said, I'm out shopping for Rolex watches right now. And I'm like, for who? And he goes, I'm giving them to some friends of mine. I'm like, it's a really generous gift. How much do those things cost each? He goes, about $12,000. And I said, well, why are you doing that? That's an incredibly generous gift. And he said, well, these three people are responsible for giving me all the work I've had over the past 25 years. And it's just a way of showing my gratitude and my appreciation for what they've done. And he said, and selfishly, who do you think they're going to think of every single time they check the time? And at that moment, I was blown away. That was one of the smartest things I've ever heard. Well, if you fast forward a little bit, I got introduced to someone a few years ago, someone I'm about about to introduce right now. His name's John Rulin, and he has developed a brand called G. He works with major clients and brands like the Chicago Cubs, Morgan Stanley, Keller Williams, Jacksonville Jaguars, Shell, Caesar's palace, and me. And this book, Giftology is a system that's all about standing out and getting more referable clients and referral sources, and also about developing real relationship retention and growth through gratitude. And he also drives sales through deepening relationships. He's also Cutco's number one naive sales representative, because if I add to the story a little bit, I wanted to introduce him to the strategic coach team, and I've been working with the sales team over there. So I dialogued with John. And of course, John is always developing relationships himself. I thought, what a great way to really inspire and connect with the entire sales team. So we sent them gifts. And the responses, reactions, the gratitude I got from everyone was phenomenal because everyone received custom knives, inscribed knives. And of course, this is something they're going to pass on, they're going to have forever because they're very, very high quality. Well, this is a lot more than talking about knives today. This is really about the science of giving, the science of retention, the science of getting referrals. So, John, my friend, nice to have you here today, sir? You ready to rock and roll?

Yeah, man. I feel like we could cut the episode right there. You basically just walk people through the stories that, you know, show that gratitude isn't a woo woo thing. It's like a roi driver and people, you know, nobody cares about gifts, but we all care about relationships.

Holy cow. Well, I'll tell you what. The first time and part of the reason I want to just frame it up and get it going is I was am skeptical at first and I'm like, yeah, it's going to be one of those trinket, you know, just sending out trinkets and baubles and that kind of thing and custom inscribed mugs or like thermoses and flashlights and just junk swag and trinkets. But yeah, yeah. And you go way deeper in being thoughtful and developed a science and a system to this. So I wanted to. I hope I didn't steal too much fire, but I thought, well, what the hell, I might as well frame this thing up. Because. Because people who listen to this podcast, they want to cut to the chase.

Yeah. Like, get to the brass tacks.

Right on.

Yep.

So I think the best way to begin here before we get into the science and some of the tactics and some of the things that stand out that are really, really big is why don't you talk a little bit about why gift giving in the first place and how did you happen upon this and figure out how powerful it is? I'd like to go through a couple transformational journeys and stories about how you've used this and seen massive changes happen inside of businesses and also the way people think.

Yeah, well, I didn't grow up around nice gifts and country clubs and Rolexes. I grew up the opposite. I'm a farm boy from Ohio. I grew up milking goats, balin hay. We had a one acre garden, and I really wanted to get out of Dodge. I grew up in town of 417 people, and my life changed because of a mentor. A lot of people talk about masterminds and groups and coaching. I didn't have access to any of those things, but I did when I went into college. I was going to go be a doctor. And my girlfriend's dad was this rainmaking attorney in the small town. And when you're poor, you notice when people are generous. And Paul was radically generous with everybody. Like whether it was the assistant and the janitor or the CEO, he was just like. He'd find deals on noodles and everybody at church the next Sunday would walk away with like 200 cases. And I'd be like, Paul, that was like 30 or 40 grand. Are you nuts? And he just smiled. It wasn't tactical for him. It was who he was. It just. He just exuded this. And because of that, he own owned oil wells, banks, real estate. Everybody came to him because he was the most liked, trusted, and top of mind person in the community. And so I pitched him. I went and interned with Cutco out of desperation. I had no idea what Cutco was. And I pitched him the idea of giving away pocket knives to all his clients. They're CEOs of insurance companies and lumberyards and home builders and all the financial advisor firms, that kind of stuff. And he changed my life forever. He's like, john, I don't want to order pocket knives. Pocket knives are like 100 bucks. He's like, I want to order a bunch of the $100 paring knives. I'm like, paul, you want to give a bunch of grown men CEOs of like, million, you know, from a million dollars to a billion dollars was his range of clients. Why a kitchen tool? And he changed my life forever. I'm 20, I'm sitting on the edge of my seat before church at the dinner table, and he's like, john, I found out in 35 years in business, if you take care of the family in business, everything else takes care of itself. So it was at that point I had the epiphany that it wasn't about the stupid knives. Although to this day, we still do millions of dollars in knives. And I'll talk about why that is. It's not about the knives. Paul understood that knife was a delivery vehicle for an emotion. And people loved and trusted him because he was always around, even if he wasn't there. His name got brought up magically. And so I started to mimic that and started to pitch the idea to CEOs of $200 million companies and $2 million CFOs or financial advisor firms and wealth firms and private offices, all these different companies. And they'd be like, if I said, hey, I want to pitch you knives, I would get click. If I said, hey, I may, I would. In my dorm room was mailing off $300 carving sets to these guys with the note handwritten said, carve out five minutes for me. I'd get the meeting. I'd walk in. This guys are in their 50s, 60s, 70s. They're like, are you the John Rulin that sent me the knives? I'm like, 21. They're like. And I'm like, yeah, I'm nervous. I'm pouring with sweat. I'm in these mahogany boardrooms, and they're like, I thought you'd be like 60 years old, some seasoned sales executive. What are you? You're here to sell me knives? I'm like, no, I'm here to help you and your thousand sales reps do exactly what I did to you to your top 10,000 relations on so by the time I was a senior, Cutco's worked with 1.5 million sales reps. So people are John. Like, this sounds like, woo.

Woo.

Like, is this like one of those things that was born in academia? I'm like, out of 1.5 million sales reps, we became the number one in the history 70 years of Cutco by applying what we now call the giftology system. But it's really. It's understanding the psychology of building relationships to inspire them to go refer open doors. Be loyalty, you know, be loyal, be engaged. All the stuff that we want in business with humans can be accomplished if we show our love and gratitude a certain way. So that's the core. I mean, I could tell you 100 stories, but it all started back 20 years ago by mimicking somebody who did it naturally. Right.

And I think for me, again, I'm not sure. Did we meet through Hal Elrod? Is that what our connection was?

Hal and Justin?

Hal and Justin. Okay.

And I've been a slow, skeptical sale, even though I knew better to get enrolled in this. And I'm part of. It's just because I'm just such a man. It's so weird. I'm trying to think of what my resistance to it all was, because at first I'm like, God, it just felt corny at first until I really got to know you better. Yeah, it feels like I know this business. At least I think I do. But my big fat ego stood in the way. And I want to start a little story for you because there's a couple transformations that I think are meaningful. One of them was.

It'S Pete.

Pete Vargas and the Tony Robbins story. And I want to prep this up by saying, you know, 25 or so years ago, I was in a really. I think it was longer than that. Shoot, it's 30 years now. Damn. Okay, I was in a spot. Here's the backstory. I had my first company, which was called Digital Cafe, is one of the first digital marketing agencies. We had huge clients. Sony, 20th Century Fox, BMW. But the. And a lot of, like, visibility and television. And news at the Point. And we were doing some of the earliest crazy things like building websites in the 90s, when the web was brand, brand, brand, brand new. And we used to do branded video games. We developed a video game called Chex Quest that shipped in 6 million breakfast cereal boxes.

Taxes.

But right before that, we were really struggling because we're working with these big companies, but they didn't pay their bills. It took like six months to get paid. And we were broke. I mean, I was a quarter million in the hole. I had recently gone through a divorce. I was fat drinking, and I was living on a gas card. So a friend of mine introduced me to Tony Robbins and told me about him. He had a huge transformation himself. I bought Personal Power. I immediately, I, like, got a fresh credit card because I had no more credit available. I'm paying my employees on credit card checks. We're down at the very end, found out about Tony, got Personal Power, signed up, packed up my credit card, thinking, I'm going to get a miracle. I ended up going to an event, and it changed my mindset, came back, turned the business around. Six months later, we're being acquired by $1 billion marketing agent agency. That's the basic story. So if you fast forward a little bit further, and from that moment on, I just thought Tony Robbins was a miracle worker. Completely changed my mindset. And I introduced him to a lot of people, too. So if you fast forward a little bit, I eventually met Tony, helped him out with some marketing, wound up introducing him to the big marketers like Russell Brunson and Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, all the originals, produce some products with them, et cetera. Well, from that moment on, everyone wanted to say, like, how do I get hold of Tony? I want, can you introduce me to Tony? Everything was like. It was like, I got hundreds of requests. And I always told everyone the best way to get Tony Robbins attention is write out a check for a million dollars to his nonprofit. And you'll get a few minutes with him and he'll listen to you. Okay?

Magic.

Now, having said that, that was a long setup. I want you to tell the story about how Pete Vargas got Tony Robbins attention.

Well, yeah, it's. So Pete is a close friend, and he's a big advocate for relationship building. He teaches people how to get on stage, all these different things. And he had started to do some things for Tony on the mastermind side. Last couple years, him and Dean, the three of them had collaborated, but really, Tony, it really wasn't on Tony's radar. No, no, but they collaborate and work on some different projects together where Pete was getting ownership in some of these things, even though, you know. And it was more. Dean was handling things, but he wanted to show gratitude for this new partnership and really, like, stand out. And. And so he reached out and said to John, like, what do we do? Like, you know, like, you're the giftology guy. Like, you know, we send gifts to all of our clients. We do these things, but this is a, you know, this isn't a $200 gift. This isn't a thousand dollar gift. Like, we want to, really, like, love on this guy, but I don't have an unlimited budget. Like, I can't write a check necessarily right now for a million dollars.

That's right.

And. But I want to show gratitude. And I said, we're going to do knives. And he's like, come on, John, we send knives to everybody.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, like knives. And I'm like, no, it's not about the knife, remember? And Pete's like, yeah, okay, tell me, what are we gonna do that's unique? I said, well, we're gonna take the big, the four or $5,000 knife set. And there's 32 knives in that set. You know, they're all handmade. Blah, blah, blah. Tony already has 100 knife sets, but this is what's gonna make it different. I said, on each side, we're going to take. And we're going to do the research, and we're going to take 40 years of his wisdom, of who he is, what he spoke into existence that's poured into people, that's changed people's lives. He's, you know, like, he's a miracle worker. You know, a lot of people have your story, Mike, of, like, transformation. And I said, for his kids and grandkids and great grandkids, they are going to fight over this knife set because it's an heirloom now. It's an artifact. And so that's what we did. And then we put it inside this crazy. It's called a strongbox. If you imagine like a royal ship, you know, 200 years ago, walnut, cast iron. And we had these made, custom made, they're a couple grand. And you open it up, it automatically starts playing a video. It's got a 7 inch video screen built in. And so Pete made a custom video saying, hey, Tony and Sage, you poured into my life. This is. I just want to show gratitude. I hope these knives remind you of what matters, who you are, what you've poured into the world. And Someday your future generations will be able to break bread and talk about the legacy that you created. And so he made the video, we made the knives. It took like, we sent it off. We didn't hear for a number of months. Yeah. But Sage, his wife, reached out and left a message for Pete and said, pete, it's one of the most thoughtful gifts. Like, literally wasn't a gift. It's like, it's a leg. It's an heirloom. I don't even know what to call it. Like, but like, it's. It's one of the most thoughtful things anybody's ever done for us. We can't thank you enough. And Pete sent me the message and was like, dude, like this. You told me it was gonna work. You told me like, like, like the gratitude, whatever else. But I didn't. I kind of in the back of my mind doubted because it seems silly. Like, these guys, you know, like, when you're dealing with people that are worth six, seven, eight, nine figures.

Yeah. For the man or woman who have everything, what are you gonna do? Yeah.

And so a lot of the things that we do aren't about spending. You know, it's not about the. A hundred thousand dollars watch. We can do something for a couple grand or a grand or even sometimes, you know, it's the handwritten note that provides the meaning, the tears, and the context. Like, we all, like, even billionaires, I don't care if you're Richard Branson. We all want to make feel like our life has mattered. We all want to be appreciated. Even a billionaire craves to be acknowledged because we're just humans. And that's what, like, so many people, you know, they'll sponsor things. 100 grand for this Facebook sponsorship or ad campaign or a million dollars for this trip to, you know, or to Pebble Beach. All of those are fine. But almost everybody in business follows the same playbook, and they suck at showing gratitude in a tangible way. And so that's really at a core level, if everybody was really good at it and world class at it, wouldn't work. But because people think they're a 7 out of 10 and really they're negative 3, we see these relationships evolve into where people are moved and inspired to tears into action in ways that wouldn't take place in any other way.

Yeah. I think there's two things that I've learned in my 30 some years of doing marketing and now I've been coaching with ultra high net worth individuals over the past few years especially. And the two key things that stand out for me. One of them is.

I haven't met anyone who isn't challenged with what I call their own value gap, meaning their own self perception of self worth and value and what the world sees in them. So in other words, there are many, many celebrities. First of all, being an entrepreneur, being a business owner, being really, really successful is a very lonely place for a lot of these people. And the second thing is their ability to receive is oftentimes 10 years or 20 years behind, meaning as they've evolved, their own internal self worth hasn't evolved with that. And their willingness ability to receive a compliment or a gift or something like that is also delayed. This is where I can actually use the word retarded. It's a retarded ability to receive. And then the other thing is people on the outside assume they have a imprint of where someone is in terms of the social hierarchy or where they are on the value system. And they perceive that this person's way up here where that individual doesn't see themselves that way. In other words, your projection on status is an illusion. And so entering into every relationship without projecting your own value vomit on someone is very, very important. Right. And not assuming their perception of their own self worth is as well. And so back to this whole thing is being able just to stand out and be different. And, and there's a couple of great quotes along that line, which is Jerry Garcia said your goal should be to be not be the best at something, but be the only one who does a certain something or be the first one to put the flag on the moon. A flag is no big deal, but the first flag on the moon was. And there's a lot of opportunities to be a first by crafting and creating something that's meaningful and what you've done. What I really learned after spending time with you is how you really have a methodology in thinking about what would be meaningful to an individual. So why don't you talk a little bit about, you know, you use Tony as an example, going through his sayings and putting those on the knives. What are some of the other ways of thinking through the meaningful filter and researching the individual? So you really get and leave not just an initial impression, but a lasting impression that shows up over and over again.

Yeah, well, I think that, you know, we have a recipe and oftentimes people will say, john, I did giftology, it didn't work. And I'm like, did you follow the recipe? Did you follow the system? And they're like, why? Kind of ish. I did give theology ish.

Messaging matters. Messaging matters. Yeah.

Yeah. And I'm like, if you bake bread and you leave out yeast, guess what you don't get? You don't get bread. That little thing makes all the difference.

Get a host.

Yeah, you get a host.

That's a Catholic joke for the Catholics in the audience.

Yeah, you get a host. Get communion. Matzo. Okay.

Matzo.

Yeah, it's unleavened bread. So. So oftentimes, like, the reason the knives work so well is I call them practical luxuries, like we don't in America and really worldwide affluent people, we don't need more stuff. We don't need more trinkets and things on the wall to collect dust and tchotchkes and paperweights and all that kind of stuff. So. So giving something that people can actually use is important. Include. The other thing is, is that Paul got this. And, you know, people, when they hire us to do all their gifting for them, we'll. We'll walk through and say, 80% of it needs to be targeted at the inner circle. And they're like, what do you mean? And I'm like, you're gonna target the guy or the gal that loves bourbon or golf or whatever else. Who cares? They get stuff in that category all the time. If they like hot sauce, people send them hot sauce. If they like racing, they send them racing stuff. I'm like, guess who doesn't get treated like gold? Their spouse, their kids, their assistant, their chief of staff, their admin, their pets. We're gonna do things that are family centric or inner circle centric. So the reason the knives work so well is so many people only target the influencer, the CEO, the employee. We just did this big thing with Zoom, the chief people officer of Zoom and I talk about the power of, like, we're starting to send our employees and encourage our clients to do the same thing. $5,000 mattresses and people are like, five grand for a mattress. Why would you send a mattress? I'm like, because most of our employees and most people in general are married. And you'll put $5,000 match towards our 401k that nobody brags about or cares. We'll teach people and execute for people a $5,000 gift that they're talking about 15 years later because they use it every day. It makes their life better. They're more rested. So the thought process is, how can you ingrain yourself into somebody's life at home, with their family, with their spouse? You know, like most People say, like, they only target the hobby, the office, the interest, and they leave 90% on the table because they're not including people around them that actually become the sales advocate. You know, like, the person who called Pete wasn't Tony. It was Sade.

That's right.

And oftentimes we get myopic. Guys are the worst at this. Women are way better emotional, intelligence wise. Understanding the dynamics of relationships and marriages and people. Guys are like, they. And this is a generality, but we type A. We're straight laced. We want to go, like, kill something, check it off the box and go to the next thing. Relationships don't work that way. You want to get, you know, I have clients, you know, like a Cameron Herald, who I did the $7,000 Brooks Brothers experience for. He went, you know, like, he's become my sales rep. I couldn't pay. I could pay him $2 million and he wouldn't sell for me. I loved on him for a decade. I inspired him to go open doors for us that we couldn't have pride open with a million bucks. Yeah. And it was because I took care of not just him. I took care of his wife, his kids, his inner circle. I loved on him. I didn't, I didn't use it as a manipulation. I use it as a true friendship, a true relationship tool. And so a lot of our methodology is mapping out, how do you personalize it? How could I take the same stupid knife set? And based upon the handwritten note, the timing of the gift, the inclusion of the spouse, all the messaging, how could I send that to 10,000 people and get the same response I got to Tony Robbins as somebody would get to sending it to somebody that works for them and makes 200 grand a year or somebody that's employed and makes 50 grand a year. Like, there's the little delivery vehicle could be the same. The details of packaging around it are going to be different. And that's where people think they can mimic what we do. And they're missing the heart, they're missing the meaning, they're missing the thoughtfulness. They think, well, John, it's the thought that counts. I mailed 100 things from Amazon and I'm like, are relationships automated? Do you think that you can outsource that and. And not include. Does it feel the same when it comes from Amazon as if it came from a human being?

No.

That one detail you get wrong. You don't get the impact. You don't get the emotional connection. You don't get the referrals. End of story.

Well, as I'm listening to you and I'm thinking through the structure, you know, here are some of the things that you brought up. A practical luxury. How do you personalize it? Which is messaging? So, you know, the system that I've been using for years is it's market model, message, medium. Okay, so who's your market? In other words, who is your ideal target? Who do you want to be a hero to in. In what we call Dan Sullivan vocabulary? And the model is, you know, what's your business model? Which is, you know, what's your outcome? And like you said, the intention matters so much. And if this is just intended to manipulate, it's gonna feel gross. Okay, this has really gotta be heartfelt, and you've gotta. This is not a game you're playing. So that's something that I think is I want to spend a little bit of time on not being manipulative. When I come back to the question. So then the message, which is, how do you personalize it? So in Tony's case, it was grabbing some sayings. You know, the same could be true with Dan. For example, to communicate with Dan, there's a whole bunch of Dan Sullivan sayings. There's his wisdom throughout the ages. But that takes a little bit of research. It's thought and then the media. In this case, it's the device, it's the gift, or as you said, it's the artifact. And I think that's a really important word to really spend some time to grok. If anyone's familiar with Stranger in a strange land and Heinlein's book grokking is fully comprehending on a, like, a spiritual level. It's not in pure intellectual exercise.

So.

And there's one other big idea I just want to drop in here. We've been doing something, we call it ambassador marketing lately. So again, getting back to think of the first circle as being those you want to be a hero to. The target, the ideal client or customer. And then outside of that, if you want to access a lot of those, you find out an affinity group that many like that exist in. I always say focus your energies on your top 2%, not on the 80%. Don't go wide and shallow. Go narrow and deep. But then outside of an affinity group, you've got influencers. But if you really, really, really want to gain maximum leverage and maximum access and do it in a subtle, nuanced way, you focus on ambassador marketing. In other words, the ambassadors influence the influencers who thereby can access the affinity Groups. And one ambassador can give you access to all the customers you ever need or want. So an investment where someone will be like, hey, what's my cost per acquisition? It's like, how about instead of thinking about how you're going to, you know, not spend more than 50 or 100 bucks to gain access, how about thinking about, how do you own the mind and the soul and the heart of an ambassador?

Yeah. What we did with Cameron, I mean, over a decade, we invested 20 grand, and people are like, well, 20 grand's a lot for one relationship. I'm like, well, it's produced over seven figures.

Yeah, yeah. A million dollars. Would you trade 20 grand for a million bucks? Duh.

I mean, that's an ATM machine. Put 20 grand in, get a million dollars out. And, you know, like I said, I could have given him $2 million in cash. He wouldn't have done anything. He would have been like, I'm not working for you. But when you love on people, when you inspire people, when you, you know, they call it return on relationship, everybody says it's sexy because of Vaynerchuk. And all these guys talk about playing the long game. I'm like, your long game is days, not decades. I played in decades. And when you get somebody as, like you said, your ambassador, and I would take it a step further. If you get the spouse or the assistant of the ambassador to become your internal sales advocate, now you have somebody on the home team that's in their ear when you're not around talking. And I can tell you story after story after story where the ambassador, the affinity group, the CEO, the influencer, actually laughed at our client. And then we started playing the game. We started loving on them. Not manipulatively, you know, no logos, like a logo. People were like, sean, we did giftology. I'm like, you put a logo on it. What do you think you just did? You just defaced. I don't care if it. Like, would you ever go to a wedding, your best friend's wedding, and on the Tiffany's vase, put compliments of Mike Koenig's? That'd be the cheesiest thing in the world. We do that in business, and we think we're branding and marketing, and really we're doing neither. Because even if you give a Lululemon jacket out to somebody and think you're doing amazing things and you put a logo on it, they're gonna wash the car with it, maybe, or put it in the bottom of their dog bin.

Or whatever, you're not Paying me to advertise your company. Yeah. No, it's gross.

You can get away with it if you're like the Cubs. But even our Cubs, even our pro sports clients will like, the logo goes as small as possible. If we're working with a financial advisor or a Realtor or a small business owner, I'm like, do you really think that they want your accounting firm on the. Whatever you're giving out? An affluent person maybe will say thank you because of gift guilt, but internally, they're thinking, ew. Or their spouses. Or they're thinking, you sent me. I did. A million dollars. I gave you a million dollars. Assets under management, and you sent me a bar of chocolate with your logo on it for $17. That's how you show you spent money to piss me off and annoy me and make me feel bad about throwing that away because I'm actually on a diet right now. Or I'm keto. Or I'm. Or I don't drink alcohol right now. Or go down the list of offenses.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Especially in Today's World, in 2020 World of Outrage and misinterpretation.

Yeah. We won't allow people to do consumables at scale. Especially because when you send out that to 20 people, 200 people, 2,000 people, the amount of people that are like, I don't want my kid to have dyes, or my wife is gluten intolerant, or I'm keto, or I'm Paleo, or I'm fasting, or I'm like, all of these different things. And so, like, people don't realize. They think they're doing things or they. They'll do their. The worst is, well, they'll do their event at the Ritz Carlton or their dinner, and then they, like, want to do their gifting at the Motel 6 level. And they wonder why people are leaving the crappy stuff in their room or are throwing it in the trash or aren't saying thank you. It's because they're not. They're not. It's not congruent.

Yeah.

And so they really. They forget that there's. That these. Anything. Anytime you put your name on something or put your name behind something, it needs to be representative of every other way that you play in the world. It can't be a. Check the box. Oh, it's crap. It's Christmas. Like, that's the worst time to send a gift. By the way, anybody that's thinking about doing gifts on anniversaries, birthdays, and Christmas I call it no ABC gifting like that. If you would just avoid the obligatory give a gift after referral, give a gift after deals done, give a gift because it's Christmas. Like that is if you say you're in the relationship business and you only give things during transactional times. You just turned that relationship into a transactional relationship and you devalued the relationship. And people don't realize that's like the logo, the timing, all of these different things. They think they're doing the right things because they read it in a book somewhere or they see other people doing it and they don't realize everybody's following the same stupid playbook and damaging relationships with these ambassadors, these key people that really could send them over the next 10 years, 20 referrals that would change their business forever. And nobody's ever going to write a letter and say, I thought less of you as a human when I got your trinket with your logo on it or the cheap bottle of wine that we re gifted. But that's what's going through people's heads and they're not being honest because it feels mean and it feels horrible to actually be honest with what people feel when they get something.

Very strong. So I had one other thing that.

I was thinking about and this is again my strategy in the past. So when I'd go to an event and I wanted to meet a celebrity or a CEO or you know, whoever the king in the room was, of course you walk into the room and what's everyone doing? Everyone's surrounding the king and looking for an angle to get their attention so they can pitch them at the most inappropriate time ever. You never want to get someone when they're busy and surrounded because all you are is noise and overwhelm. And the reason why celebs and CEOs hate going to these big events is because there's always someone picking at their energetic field.

So what I always do ahead of time as I find out who's the spouse. And this could be man or woman. So if it's a woman at the event, find out who the spouse is, research them and I find out what kind of philanthropic organization they're connected with, where's their charity, where do they invest with their hearts. And nine times out of 10, the spouse, the significant other, is sitting in a corner somewhere observing. And that person is usually the fact finder, protector of that other individual as well. And they're the real gatekeeper. They're the one whispering in the ears. So I invest all My time with the spouse. So if you ever see me at an event and it's like, why isn't Mike talking to the king? It's because he's talking to the queen. Or if it's the queen that's in charge, I'm talking to the king or whoever the heart driven protector is. And one follow up to there and guess what they're going to be. Yeah, I was talking, you know, what did you do all night, honey? I talked to this young man and we had the most amazing conversation and we talked about the things that matter most to us. Yeah, who is it? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And he already followed up. So I always have a follow up mechanism to just stay in their ear if and, and I'm not gonna, and you know, I'm not gonna. I'll be very transparent if there's some intent behind it, but I invest my heart first and that leaves the most lasting impression. And the reason why the, the king says the reason I took this meeting is because you're the only one who invested time with my spouse that night. And, and that tells me who you are.

And so I just want to reflect that back and say so from a heart driven perspective. Can we talk about some of the gifts that become artifacts that you've seen leave a lasting impact and create heart focused memories?

Yeah. Well, I like things that I can use in all industries, in all sizes of companies. When we spoke at Google, they're like, hey, does this work in technology? And I laughed. I'm like, there's, you know, are there human beings here?

Yeah.

Yeah, well, yeah. And I'm like, well then it works.

Yeah.

So the, the knives work really well. I like things that are tied to the hub of the house, which is the kitchen. That's where everybody when, if you know somebody well, you spend time with them, you break bread with them at a restaurant. If you know them really well or want to get to know them well, you invite them to your house.

Right.

You know, like that's the inner circle, that's the tight knit. And so one of the things I used to make fun of you mentioned the mugs. I, you know, water bottles, mugs, Those things are the cheesiest things in the world. You order them for 5 bucks, 10 bucks, 20 bucks, put a logo on them like you can only drink out of one mug. And so this artist blew my mind and made a thousand dollar artifact mug. They're literally called artifact mugs for me and for my wife. And drove nine hours to deliver it to Me. Now you say, like, why thousand bucks? Like, that seems ridiculous. Well, he takes your whole life story, your core values, your family, your faith, who believed in you and mentored you first, you're basically everything that matters to you, and carves it into this piece over the course of four weeks and then makes a video talking about it. When he delivered it to me and my wife, we both cried. And I was like, this is insane. We've since sent them to billionaires and seen billionaires cry. And the reason is because. I mean, the clay itself is probably worth 13 bucks, but what's carved into it. Most people drink coffee or tea. It's a universal thing to drink something. You only really need one mug, but the one that is this practical luxury. It's a usable. It's almost like a usable Emmy or Oscar.

Mm.

It's like a lifetime achievement award in your hand, reminding you of what matters. And here's the cool thing. It never has a logo on it, but when you get something like that, somebody sends you a Rolex. Mike, do you have to. I have to put giftology on it for you to remember where the Rolex came from? No, like, you'll remember. You'll tell the story a thousand times. The same thing with the stupid mug with the knives. It's not about the item. It's about the work that goes into making that custom to that person to hit the. The deep, emotional heartstrings. So I love these mugs. They know they also make these jars of awesome. That or a vase. And carved into it, in my case, it was my wife and I's life story together. So it's our story together. Are we ever going to get rid of that piece? Never in a million years. And in the. And they. He did another one that was all the Old Testament and New Testament Bible verses. 50 lines handwritten about generosity, gifting, or giving. And those things are like 2,500 bucks a piece. So I've had mentors that say, john, I would. In a fire, I would grab the mug over my $50,000 watch because the watch is replaceable with insurance. This is an irreplaceable thing. And I had one of my favorite stories. One of my greatest ambassadors advocates is a guy named Joey Coleman. He wrote a book called Never Lose a Customer. He's one of the best speakers I've ever heard on the planet. And he's like, john, I used to be an attorney, and the reason I like the knives and the artifacts and the mugs and stuff that you talk about is I had a client that passed away. The patriarch passed away, and the three kids fought over one item, and they blew through $5 million of inheritance fighting over one thing. And I'm like, was it artwork? Nope. And I'm like, come on, what was it? He said it was a $20 item. Every day for 40 years, the father played the harmonica after dinner. And when they thought about their dad, I get chills every time I tell a story. When. When they. When the. When the girls thought about their dad, they thought this was what represented them. They would. They would run into a fire that was on. Or a house on fire to grab this thing. Not because of how much it cost. It was the meaning, the story behind it was a part of every fabric, every memory they had of their dad. He's like, your knives become a part of the fabric. Your mugs become a part of the fact. The things you're talking about, it's not about the item. It's about the memories and the story attached to it. And he's like, the reason I love what you do is that you're really. You're helping people think about meaning and thoughtfulness. It's not the thought that counts. It's the thoughtful thought that counts. And whether that's with your spouse or your best client or your center of influence or your employee, you're helping people, you know, scale things thoughtfully.

And I was like, holy crap. And that's where I got the word artifact was from Joey, because he talked about the harmonica as being an artifact of the relationship that.

So I got to tell you. And I'll choke up just telling my story. So my dad's in hospice right now, and he played knots. It's like the Journey. Right. But thank you. And so he's played guitar all his life, and he has this incredible Martin guitar. So when my parents went to retirement community that they're now, they don't even live together because Dad's not dad any longer. His brain's gone. But there was only one thing I asked for, and as the oldest, it's the Martin guitar.

Yeah, that's. I mean, that's like. That's. I mean, if you think about it, your house is on fire. That'd be. You grab pictures.

It's the only thing. No, I, Yeah, I, I. That's the only thing I'd grab because it's irreplaceable. Yeah. And it's like I always said, the day he loses his ability to play the guitar is when he's gone. And that's exactly what happened, I mean, until the very end. So.

Wow, man.

So what that gets me thinking about is, I think, a thoughtful question to ask an individual that you're getting to know. A business owner. I'm actually going to put it on my application form is going. If you think about one of your parents or someone you love more than anything, what's one thing that makes you think of them? An item, an artifact. And think about the depth of that question. And if you'd gift around that.

I. I would have never thought of that until right now. But I'm actually going to make that a routine conversation point.

And yeah, it gets to the heart of who we are. It gets to the heart of, you know, like, there we strip everything away. Like, we don't need more stuff. We don't need more trinkets and more, you know, bottles of wine. Like, all those things are fine. They're table stakes if you wanted to continue to do them for clients and employees and whatever else. But if you really want to move somebody and inspire them at a deep, emotional way and be in your. Like, everybody talks about, like, oh, you know, who's in your corner, who has your back. I'm like, when you show up for people in meaningful ways, especially in the Valley, like, we're in challenging times. Some people are really, really challenged. But in the Valley, my mentor Paul, would talk about his cheesy way of saying it was like, on a bad day, you need the extra scoop of ice cream. And that was his way of saying, when people are challenged or whatever else. But really, anytime when you can just show up for people just because and connect it to that. Their why, their who they are, their. The fabric of their being. And oftentimes, like, you know, we all have parents, we all have. Most people have a significant other or kids or pets. Like, as human beings, there are certain things that are universally tied to it. And so, so many times we forget the humanity of things as we're going about our Facebook campaigns and our big conferences and our marketing budgets in this, you know, five, six, seven, eight, nine figures. And we forget, like, oftentimes businesses rise and fall on a few dozen relationships. Sometimes it's one or two relationships.

And most of the time those people are under. Oftentimes, we take the people that are closest, most important to us for granted. We don't show up for people on random Tuesdays with things for our wife or a husband because they're there. They already said yes. And we do the same thing with our clients. Oh, we don't have to do it for the client. I'm like, don't do it because you have to. Do it because you want to, because you chose to. That's when it's powerful. Not because it's your 50th anniversary. Show up on random Tuesdays leading up to 50 and you'll get to 50.

And the same thing with clients. You want retention. Show up for people because you want to, not because you're obligated to, not because of the contract, not because it's Christmas. Start doing things intentionally because you want to. And when you do that, guess what? It'll come back around. We all know whether you believe in a God or not, the world is wired. You do good things. Good things come back oftentimes ten and a hundredfold. But we forget about it and we mail it in and we do these generic crappy things and we think we're gifting, but no, we're just doing stuff. And stuff doesn't feel good.

So here's something.

I'm going to wrap up my side and I want you to think about your big takeaway and a wrap up item in addition to just sending people over so they can learn more about you. And that's just by going to johnrulin.com and it's r u h l I n so j o h n r u h l I n.com you'll learn more about John, his giftology group, his team, and some of the things he does. There's great stories on the website, so I want to pop that in now. And you can, you can do that again. But the next thing, John is. I've told people this for probably 15 years. I truly believe in it, which is we are all one relationship, one connection away from someone who can get to know us on a deep level, care about us, build a transformational, not a transactional relationship. And that individual could supply you with all of the clients and customers you could ever use for the rest of your professional career. I've often said, you know, it's like one appearance on Johnny Carson could make a comedian for the rest of their life. You know, it was, you go back Robin Williams and Richard Pryor, for example, they were two of the greats who showed up there and it made them, you know, or David Letterman at the time. And nowadays it could be a Fallon or a Kimmel or whomever, you know, nowadays I guess it's Joe Rogan. But it doesn't have to be a celebrity connection. It can simply be that ambassador, that one connection, that one relationship that you leave a one of a kind relationship on or with or someone they care about deeply. So that is the power, an art of something that comes from the heart and is meaningful like this. So I'd like you to.

Put this ship in the harbor. And what would you like to leave people with as they walk away from this interview today? John?

Yeah, well, I mean I have four little girls and I asked my four year old, she's now nine, almost 10, what do you think that does? Because I would leave the house and all my employees work remotely in different places, I don't have some big office or whatever else. And she thought for a second, she's like dad, you help people love on people. And I was like, man, four year old can sum up your business really, really well. What I'd say is that make this, this can be a math equation, make this a part of your overarching plan. Most people have an operations plan, maybe a finance plan, business plan, what's your relationship plan. And if you don't have a plan for your relationships, your clients, your employees, your centers of influence, or even your vendors and your suppliers, I treat them like gold because I don't have a business without my suppliers and my vendors. And I would say take a day or an hour and write down all the people that over the last one year, five years, 10 years, 20 years that have allowed you to have a company or a business or be employed at this company. And oftentimes we start realizing, oh my gosh, there's been a lot of people that have contributed to getting me to where I'm at and I haven't properly said thank you. And it doesn't have to be a gift, it could be a video, it could be taking an hour a week writing handwritten notes to those people. But have a plan for your relationships of how you're going to show up for those people. If you want a blueprint and a structure, you know, we charge thousands of dollars to put all of our clients through our agency side to lay out the plan before we pick out gifts or any of the stupid stuff. They have to have a plan of who they're taking care of and what's the budget. Do they want to reinvest 5% of profits? 10%? 15. Like make it like our best clients that get the best Results are doing 5 to 15% of net profits back into all of their relationships to keep them, grow them and turn them into salespeople for them, for the brand as an ambassador. So you can go to giftology system.com, you can steal our entire blueprint and you can go do it on your own. At the end of the day, I want a million people, a million leaders, specifically to be radically generous with all of their relationships. Because if we get a million leaders to be more radically generous, there's a trickle down effect and it'll impact tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people. Because if the leader does it, then the VP of sales starts thinking differently about how they treat their spouse, how they treat their clients. The director of marketing starts, there's a trickle down effect. So if I can get a leader to do it and do it on their own and think about this and own this and realize this is about relationships, then good things start to happen in the world. And so that's my bhag. That's my, like what I want on my tombstone at least. One of the things is he inspired a million people to go love on their relationships. Well, and that to me is a. Is a legacy worth working towards.

I love that. Thank you, John. So. Well, again, so the domains to head on over to is johnrulin.com and also you just pass this along, which is Giftology system. Giftology system. Okay. And I'll make sure that's in the liner notes as well. And the way I'm gonna wrap this up, besides just thanking you for this, I had a great time. Is letting people know. It's my opinion that entrepreneurship is an international language of peace. The fastest way to create peace is by creating massive wealth and wealth on multiple levels. I'm not talking just a financial one. And I think thematically that's really what the Capability Amplifier podcast is also about, in addition to just expanding and increasing your capabilities. And this is one of them. And so my ask for everyone, besides just checking out John's site, is if you've enjoyed this episode, make sure you share it with someone who you know could make an impact on another one by creating deeper, more meaningful connections and relationships. And the second one is, if you've enjoyed this, make sure you head on over to itunes and rate it and leave a review. And that really does make a big, big difference. It allows us to spread the. The faith and it inspires Dan Sullivan and myself to continue to do these episodes because we're not packing, we're not using advertisements. We're doing it because we love to do it. We love, we love creating for you and with you and giving you inspiration and motivation, certainty, clarity and connection. So with that, this is Capability Amplifier. My name is Mike Koenigs. I was here today with John Rulin and thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. We'll see you in the next episode.

Sam.