The Power of Gift Giving with John Ruhlin

Foreign.

I like giving you a gift. Like when I give a gift, something great happens in my heart. Like I feel like I am giving you something that's a value that can make you a better version of yourself. Not the 2.0 version you've been for far too long, but like the 5.0 version, the one that's like pedal to the metal, that's going to impact the most lives and get the most results. And I want to introduce you to my friend, John Rulin. John is the master of giving gifts. Like he's mastered the art of. Of giving a gift to a client and realizes that when businesses give gifts to their clients, their clients reward them with more love, more projects, and renewed, deeper relationships. And, you know, he's a. He's a friend of mine. I admire him tremendously. And when he was in Scottsdale recently.

We went and had Scott.

We went and had lunch in Scottsdale Quarter, if any of you know where that is. And we sat down at Culinary Dropout. And it was one of those days where I just cleared a couple of hours, which is almost unheard of in my life. But what I love about this guy is how he's.

He pays his gifts forward.

And I want you to be thinking about unique ways that you can shower the people you love with love and.

Show them the way that you feel, right?

And just know that things are gonna work out fine. If you only will, right? Sit back, listen to an extraordinary conversation with my bro, John Rulin. But first, a word from our sponsors. This podcast is brought to you by the Wirebuzz team. Now, if that name sounds familiar, it's because I've spent the past decade growing Wirebuzz into a digital marketing powerhouse designed to maximize clarity in complex sales processes so we can help accelerate revenue. And we do this in three phases. Phase one, we transform your website to function like your best salesperson and then also incorporate persuasive on demand sales videos. Now, your entire team is aligned on messaging and they're injecting massive clarity into your prospect's head. So your site looks great, but it also has engaging content that helps your team sell on demand. 24. 7. The next phase phase two. We train your sales and marketing teams to sell remotely or in person to expand the impact of your sales team. And the third phase is we develop and run targeted ads to your prospects. Scale those ads to help you achieve more business results. Sign up for the Wirebuzz Company newsletter to learn more about effective and simple ways to improve your company messaging. Attract more digital attention and ultimately make more sales.

John Rulin, welcome to the Toddcast.

Hey, thanks for having me, Todd. This is going to be a blast.

Yeah, we're gonna have a lot of fun. Look, before I even get into your backstory, which I think is remarkable in inspiration, can you just bring people up to speed, like, what do you do? And. And then I'm gonna want to unpack the John Rulin story and see what we can learn from you.

Cool.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. So. So, I mean, at a core level, if you ask my daughter when she was 4, what does her dad do for a living, she would tell you. She actually told me. It made me cry. She's like, dad, you help people love on people. And I was like, when your 4 year old can understand what you do and can, you know, just encapsulate a simple level. Like at a core level, every business rises and falls on relationships. And how you show up for those relationships in uncommon ways is determines revenue results, referrals. So people look at the book giftology, they're like, I don't care about gifts. And I'm like, I don't care about gifts either. But you probably care about your employees, your clients, your dealers, your investors, your mentors, somebody you care about, a human being. And so at a core level, we have an agency that helps people scale their thoughtfulness and send love bombs to whether it's one relationships that matters that's worth a million dollars or whether it's a thousand relationships that are worth 10 grand or 100 grand. So that's. We started it 21 years ago when I was milking goats on the farm trying to pay for med school. And it's morphed a lot. But at a core level that we help people love on people.

Speaking on milking goats one to ten, you might be rusty now, but like, how is your goat milking technique? You still got that?

You know, I checked it out a couple years ago. See, there's this muscle. I don't know if you can see it very well or not.

I can see it. It's impressive.

So when you. I could literally shoot 40ft away. I would shoot cats. They'd have cats in the barn and you could shoot the milk across the room. And when you're at 6am by yourself, it's cold as heck in the Midwest. You know, grew up, it's like 20 degrees out. You're trying to do anything just to keep your mind occupied. And so I'm like wiping the sand out of my eyes, but I could shoot so I checked it out at a farm. I was like, okay, like milk and goats. Like, do I still got it? I can still shoot 20, 30ft. So I would say like, you know, I'm probably not as accurate or that muscles atrophied a little bit, but I still got some, some milk game that.

You know, that's, that's hopefully a talent that never leaves you. Now let's get back to Cutco for a second.

Yeah.

For people who don't know Cut, go explain who they are. I mean, they're in like every drawer in our home. But how did you get involved in Cutco? And then more importantly, how did you make this amazing transition from selling something and needing to get the deal to getting into the whole philosophy and vibe and mode of gifting and that superpower? Like, how did that happen?

Yeah, well, Cutco started out of desperation. I was looking to pay for med school. I didn't realize at the time Cutco is a quarter billion dollar company, privately owned. They're like the Rolex of cutlery. But like, what they're really, really amazing at, on top of being a great manufacturer, is they're really like the Tony Robbins of, of college student development. Like when you look at like the founder of Uber, what was his first job? Slinging blades at 17, Travis Callanitch. You may not like him, how he runs a company, but the dude can handle objections and raise money and grow a $60 billion company. That level of personal development of, of how to overcome obstacles, how to sell yourself, how to build relationships, like, you know. Justin Donald, mutual friend, now running lifestyle investor, Hal Elrod. Miracle morning. You look at like it's a entrepreneurial incubator. And so the top performers in almost every industry, a lot of them, their first job at 18, 19, 20 was the internship with Cutco. And Cutco works with 60,000 college kids a year. Multiply that out over 40 years, that's two and a half million people that have come through the doors. And if you can handle selling knives to somebody you've never met before, and this isn't like a hundred dollar knife set, like a full cutcoat kitchen is 12 grand. If you can do that at 18, what can you do at 40 or even 30? There's nothing. So. So I fell into it out of desperation to pay for med school. But a lot of the way I transitioned into doing what we do now was I wanted to sell a lot of it. I wasn't a salesperson naturally. I actually, ironically, I used to wear glasses. I was very uncomfortable on Stage like I was the natural introvert.

Well, yeah. Wait, pump the brakes. Don't go any further.

Okay.

What was that swipe all about for people who wear glasses?

If you saw the glasses I wore, they were not cool like designer glasses. They were like the Coke bottle glasses with the Mickey Mouse tie was, was the only tie I had on. I literally wore my glasses to look smarter in the interview to get hired from Cutco. Like I was so insecure about like, I mean I grew up one of six kids. My mom like shopped at garage sales. Like I was this country bumpkin, awkward, uncomfortable, like punk kid. And so glasses to me made me feel insecure because I didn't have nice glasses. I didn't have, you know, like I had this comb over hair. Like I wish I had a picture I could flash up on the screen of me at 18 years old. It's, I mean it's a doozy.

So you start selling. And one of the things I love about like going through high repetition sales is the repetition being the mother of skill process or the polishing yourself as you're going through and getting in and getting no's and doors closed and how much stronger that makes you as a salesperson and as a relationship developing person. What were those early days at Cutco like for you as you started to pick up skills, did you start to see that there was a whole nother john ruling inside of this big nerd country bumpkin body?

Yeah, there was. I mean, I didn't like the awkward, uncomfortable conversation. So I got very good at prospecting and filtering through my referral list because we didn't cold call, it was always referral. So I got very good at coaching the person. I got very good at like figuring out of the 20. Like I averaged 20, 25 leads per deal. And I learned that if you'd bring cake and other things over to cut and make dinner for somebody, they loved you and they give you a lot of referrals and it made it not uncomfortable because you're breaking bread with them. So I learned the things that got my close rate up to 90, 95%. My average order was, you know, over $800. And it was because I became really good at qualifying and setting that stage so that like people that had no I no desire to buy knives, nobody's like, I need two grand or five grand in knives. Nobody does. Like everybody already has knives. But if you showed them the quality, this is how many times you're going to use this per day over the next 30 years. Like you can make a great case of like, you bought two grand, you spent 12 grand on your refrigerator. Why would you not spend two grand on your knife set that you're going to use every day? And so like, you like a lot of the coaching and the whole like, realm of development within Cutco is like you get so many no's. Like, yeah, you can keep beating your head against the wall and it's not that you're not ever going to get a no, but like, let's put the odds in your favor. Let's see the people who have disposable income. Let's see the people who have a business who I can sell five grand a nice for themselves and then 50 grand a nice for their employees and clients. So we started to make the connections of how to put the odds in our favor to, to close more and get less no's.

Okay, now this is what I'm particularly nerdy about. Like, at some point you went off of the original cut go sales process and mission to be able to tap in and serve larger numbers of people. I want to go back into that psychology. Like, what was the breakthrough moment when you were like, and every time I've heard you talk or you know, we've sat down and shared lunch, I, I've always been interested in that breakthrough that happened to the point where you started to realize that the original customer base, you're just scratching the surface, but there's a larger number, multiple. How did you discover that?

I mean, really, it happened early on, kind of on accident. I'd like to say it was this huge process. My original mentor, Paul was this law firm owner. He was my girlfriend's dad. He was a rainmaker. Referrals came as well, deals like he owned oil wells and banks and. But he was this radically generous person who was like, not at Christmas, like year round. He was giving things away. We call him love bombs. And it wasn't the tactical, like, hey, I give you this gift after referral. It was like he would just shower hundreds of thousands of dollars across the community, no strings attached. And guess what? He was the most liked, trusted and top of mind person. And I saw how relationships flocked to him. Deals, opportunities. And I'm 20. I looked at Paul, he was 60. And I'm like, I want to be Paul someday. So what am I going to do? I'm going to start mimicking in my own little way what Paul's doing. So I would start giving things. And I remember I pitched him the idea of giving away because he Bought a set for his three unmarried daughters. So he dropped like five grand on knives, but you know, like crazily. And then he came back to me with this question.

It's a security device. He's not dumb.

No, I know, exactly. So he's like, john, I want to help you hit your goals. What else can I. But I don't know what else I can buy. This stuff lasts forever. And so in my head I'm like thinking, well, maybe he'll buy Cutco pocket knives or 100, 200 a piece for all those clients. They're all dudes that own companies. And I pitched him the idea and he's like, John, I want to order 100 of something, but not pocket knives. I'm like, what do you want to order? He's like, paring knives. You want to buy these hundred, two hundred pairing knives. Like these are all CEOs of million and billion dollar companies. Why you want to give them a kitchen tool? And he's like, john, the reason I have more referrals, deal flow, access. I found out a simple truth, and that's if you take care of the family, everything else takes care of itself in business. So that was the light bulb moment. I was like, oh my gosh. It wasn't about the stupid knife. Although to this day we still do millions of dollars in the knives. It was a delivery vehicle to communicate connection and emotion and buy in and understanding families and getting spouses to talk about you and assistance. Like, he treated the receptionist at the same level as a CEO. And so I started to mimic that and realize I could go sell a million dollars in knives to one company because they all struggle with. How do you connect with your employees or your dealers or your clients? They give Amazon gift cards or you give stupid swag that nobody wants with your logo on it, which nobody wants that either. So I started to realize that there's this billion dollar industry of swag, promo, gifts, cards, whatever else that was being done horribly wrong. And Paul, I started to take his ideas and kind of massage them. He was doing it just as who he was, as his heart. I was like, what if we could put a system and a strategy to this? And by the time I was a senior in college, out of two and a half million sales reps, we became the number one distributor in the history of Cutco. By building the system and coaching companies and then helping them outsource. They want to send a love bomb to a thousand people. We would do that for them. We'd hand write the notes, we Drop ship the gifts, we pick the gifts. And a lot of it to the, you know, even to this day is still the silly knives. But it's not about the knife, it's about the system. It's about the, the understanding, reciprocity and psychology and Robert Cialdini's. All of his research for 20 years was proving out stuff that we learned 20 years ago by mimicking this very successful, this amazing relationship builder in My.

Girlfriend's Dad, James Taylor comes to mind. Shower the people you love with love. Show them the way that you feel. Things are going to work out fine.

If you only will.

And John Rulin is proof of that. Does showering people with gifts and leading altruistically impact your referability factor?

Oh my God. I think it's. If you want to be referred, you need to be liked or loved. And when you give something to somebody, whether you believe in a God or not, the way God's wired the world is when you love on relationships. That's why property Proverbs 18:16 says a gift ushers you before kings. We don't want to be before kings. Whether that's the Tony Robbins or financial advisors or the Joe Polishes or the Ed Mylett's or whoever those people are, there's all this noise you want to cut through that. You have to be liked or loved. You have to be top of mind with thousands of messages. That's why your video methodology, like everybody gets a text message or an email or whatever. You send a personalized video to somebody, all of a sudden you're top of mind in a different way. You connect with people in a different way. The gift is just that video, it's a, it's a representation of the value. It's a top of mind engagement tool. And so you want to get more referrals. You have to be like trusted and top of mind. Most people are like, well, I'm liked. And I'm like, but are you top of mind? Are people telling the story about you when you're not in the room at the boardroom or on the golf course? The reason the stupid knives work so well is where do most people break bread with the people that they love? Their inner circle, the other CEOs, the other clients in their home. Whether you're a billionaire or whether you're a janitor, everybody has a kitchen in their home. And so we did it for Tony. We actually had a client, Pete wanted to love on Tony from a partnership. And I said, we're gonna do knives. Pete's like, Come on, we're doing knives with Tony Robbins. I said, sure. I said, but it's not gonna be about the knives. We're gonna take the $10,000 gift of knives. We're gonna engrave all of the tools with 80 of his quotes, and then we're gonna put it in a video box, a strong box made of walnut. And you're gonna pour out your heart to Tony and Sage and talk about the legacy that this partnership has helped create and that their future grandkids are gonna fight over these tools based upon what they represent. They're an heirloom. They're an artifact that started years ago. And Pete's like, come on, I trust you. We're gonna do it. So we sent it off. Four months later, guess who called Sage in tears, calling client, saying, we get a lot of things now on the countertop of their home where they have heads of state. Guess who's top of mind liked and trusted our client? Because even if they don't use the tool, they see it subconsciously. They're reminded of the person who love bombed them with that level of thoughtfulness and engagement. And Pete didn't ask anything in return. It was a true, like, thank you. But the ripple effect from a referability. People talk about getting, like, a 3x return on Facebook ads. I'm like, take your 3x. We have clients that are getting 100x return on relationship. Show me where you can get a better return than people. You can't. It all comes down even in 2021. 2022 comes down to relationships and human beings, and people forget that.

And John Rulin, you touch on something that my friend Jay Baer discusses often, which is a talk trigger. So let's say.

Right?

So let's say you are in your kitchen, and you open up a drawer, and you're about to serve dinner with some friends, and then you pull out the knife. Then the talk trigger kicks in your head, and before you know it, you're talking about Pete or John Rulin. And that is the transfer from going from check out this cool knife to you won't believe this gift that I was given. And then they start referring and selling you, which is the art of the greatest marketing of all time. You'd agree with all that, right?

All of it. Dude, you're so. I mean, it's so people think the knives, the gifts, whatever. They're like, oh, that's cute. That's silly. But we don't understand that we all are looking for unique, fun stories to tell when we're with family, with clients, with partners, with other people. And so you can't help but. And Gittermer's talked about it. He's like, it's not about the thing. It's a story that people tell about the thing. Like, if you just send somebody a Rolex, cool. But if you send somebody a Rolex in a cool way and engrave their name on it, now every time they're telling the story, not because there's a logo on it, but because of the relationship and the story that's attached. People love to talk about cool things that they've received and think in people that they. And so they can't. Nobody's gonna bring out like, hey, this is what this person did for my 401k. All these financial advisors love all these professional service firms, accounting firms, like, why am I not getting more referrals? I'm like, you're not referable. You're not creating a story. Nobody's gonna brag about their tax return. They're gonna brag about the human being that did that, did the thing. You know, like, people commoditize the thing that you do. Nobody brags that. Like, if you're building a house that the windows are put in straight, they assume that your taxes are gonna be done well or that you're gonna get a good return. They'll brag, though, about the story. And that's where people are like, I don't care about gifts. I'm like, I don't care about gifts either. That's not even my love language. You look at Gary Chapman, who's a mentor and friend of mine, I'm a words of affirmation guy. When I was an introvert, I would send gifts and I wouldn't have to be the life of the party because people would take me around the party because of the love bombs I'd sent them. And as this country bumpkin introvert, I would go to these parties and the other people would go sell me based upon what I was doing. And I would get that words of affirmation which would fill my heart and soul. And so I learned it as a hack to handle being an introvert. But absolutely, referability talk triggers. It's a thousand percent. It's a physical anchor. It's a physical talk trigger and pillar in that person's home and life that if they use it, think about it, you know, once a day for the next 10 years. That's 3600 impressions. Show me something else where you're getting for one purchase 3600 impressions. There's very few. There's very, very few.

Okay, so I love the John Rulin brand. Like, I'm a fan, and I'm a fan that you're able to wrap yourself, your name, your business, your likeness around altruistic giving. Talk to me about giftology, and I'm particularly interested in the wrong gifts, because I think, instinctually, we all think about gifts that we've seen given before. But there are right gifts and wrong gifts, right?

Oh, 1,000% the amount of people that will say, john, I took your book, I took your course, I took whatever I went and did. It didn't work. And I'm like, did you follow the recipe? And they're like, well, I did giftology. Ish. And I'm like, imagine baking bread or whatever else. Like, even, like, lobster bisque. Imagine you, like, make it from scratch. You cook lobsters. You spend 12 hours on this bowl of soup, and you're getting ready to serve it, and all of a sudden a fly flies into it, and you serve it. Like, does anybody think about the 12 hours you put into the soup? No, they think about the fly. You know, if you're baking bread and you forget to put yeast in, guess you do it a hundred thousand times. Guess what you don't get? You don't get bread. So, so many times people think they're doing giftology. They're like, oh, I'm super generous. I. I sent out, you know, a million dollars worth of jackets last year. And I'm like, did you put your logo on it? They're like, well, yeah, I want to get branding from it. And I'm like, can you imagine going to your best friend's wedding and on the beautiful Tiffany's vods, compliments of Ernst and Young. Would you ever do that? Like, well, hell, no, I wouldn't do that. I'm like, you do things in business you would never do in your personal relationships. And if you want to deepen a relationship with a human, there's certain things. If you put a logo on it, it's not a gift anymore. It's a promotional item. Really. It's a manipulation. You're hoping that that person goes and advertises for you. Does that feel genuine, authentic, real? That feels manipulative. It feels icky. Now, they may say thank you to be polite, because that's the polite thing to do. But that jacket, that even a Lululemon jacket. I don't even wear my own logo. You think I want to wear your logo? Hell, no. And neither do your clients. You give them out to your thousand employees. That's fine as a uniform, but that's not a gift. And so the wrong things, anything with a logo don't deter, it's not a gift anymore. Cause the logo 99.9% of the time doesn't add value. It takes value away. Now if you're a pro sports team, you can get away with putting a logo on it adds value. But even like the Cubs or the spurs, when we do a gift campaign or a love bomb campaign for them, if they're taking care of six figure earners or above, we tell them put the logo as small as possible and put it on the back. Because if you can buy anything you want, which most of the time you're gifting to people that can already afford what you're going to give them. Like I could give my mentor a Rolex. He can buy his own Rolex nicer than what I can buy. It's the delivery vehicle, the personalization, that all that. So if you put your logo on it, you ruin things. If you people are like, oh, John, I want to give a gift card to everybody, then they can pick their own gift. I'm like, do you think giving somebody a piece of plastic and saying you weren't worth my time, you weren't worth my energy, I don't know you well enough, go buy your own gift. Would you ever do that to your wife or your husband? And hell no, you'd never do that. That communicates you don't matter and you want it. That's your way of appreciating your 10,000 relationships. Are you kidding me? Go buy your own gift. No. Now that's better than a sucky, you know, like koozie with a logo on it. But it still communicates like you're spending. If you add up, you know, a hundred dollar or a thousand dollar gift card times 10,000. People, like companies are literally spending millions or tens of millions of dollars to communicate to their most valuable resource, their human relationships. You don't matter. You aren't worth the time. I don't know you well enough. So we have this whole checklist. Your tribe can go download the entire top 10 worst gifts to avoid giving. Thegiversedge.com they can download gift cards are on there. I talk about why food is one of the worst gifts. Now there are situations for each of these. There are anomalies where you can break the rule, but you need to break it intentionally. Most people break it on accident because they're lazy, or they're cheap, or they don't know any better. They're just ignorant. They don't realize, like, I wasn't trying to piss people off by giving a ham to all my clients and half of them are Jewish. But people do it all the time. Or they give alcohol to people, then their mom or dad or sister is an alcoholic, or they give a bottle of wine that's $50 and their daily drinkers a $500 bottle of wine. So it's not that I don't think that people have bad intentions. I just think people don't understand what they're communicating. They're literally spending money, and if they spend it the right way, they could put a dollar into this. They could spend 100 grand and get $10 million back out if they understood the impact of what they could have with these relationships. Because the bar is really low. People think they're a seven out of 10 on generosity and gifting. And really they're negative three because they've never gotten honest feedback. To say, I thought less of you as a human when I got your typed note versus a handwritten note. I thought less of you as a person when you gave me that sweatshirt with a logo on it. They never get the honest feedback.

You know, my wife does something really interesting. We. I asked her about where the origin of this is, and we were able to unravel it. But my wife goes and creates gift baskets for all of her girlfriends on their birthdays. And they're super thoughtful and she picks out, like, some of her favorite things that she knows her friends may not have experienced, but they should have their horizons broadened. And when it comes, that gift basket touches these ladies hearts so deeply because somebody put that much effort and interest into making them feel amazing, right? So, like, and. And Wendy's girlfriends will pull me aside and they're like, she's really special. Like, she gives a lot of love from a very deep place. Talk to me about a business that wants and deserves to be very special in the eyes of their clients and prospects. Is there like a formula? Like, tithing? There's a simple formula. Is there a simple formula for gift giving? And if so, walk me through that.

Yeah. So there is a. Like, people hear gifting or love bombs, and I'm like, oh, this is a woo boo thing. Or this is like soft. Like, who cares? This is limp. And I'm like, you don't understand, like, the people that are the best in the world. It's like the book give and Take. Adam Grant. The top performers as a doctor, teacher, pastor, sales rep, business owner are givers. I think people have latched onto that. Like, I want to be giver, I want to be generous. But they don't have a structure or framework of how to what, how much is too much or what's not enough. And so it should be a math equation. My business partner is very much a numbers guy. Like, he grew up, he was at a top 100 accounting firm. And the math equation is 5 to 15% of net profits should be reinvested back into relationships. That includes internal. If you're employees, it's your labor, your labor cost, 5 to 15%. If it's external, it's 5 to 15% net profit. I don't care if somebody's doing a billion in revenue, what's their net? Because this should be like you're reinvesting back into relationships to do three things. Keep them, grow with them, cross sell, upsell, you know, work with them in different departments, divisions. And the secret sauce is, is to get them to be a sales rep for your brand. Yeah. Not a referral partner. Not somebody that says, oh yeah, if, if I'm asked, I'll tell you who I use. A sales rep is somebody that goes out and is actively advocating as an army of ambassadors. That's way different. It's like Tim Ferriss concept of true fans and Cameron Herold, who I talk about in the book. We invested 25 grand in that relationship. People like John, you did the Brooks Brothers and then you kept going, why? And I'm like, if I hired Cameron for one year, it cost me $2 million and he wouldn't even want to be my sales rep. He would never take it. He'd be like, I'm too busy. But because I loved on him with 25 grand, he went and advocated and became my sales rep for a decade. And he produced 50x on that 25 grand unpaid sales reps. So that, that reinvestment amount of 5 to 15% of net profit. So if you profited 100 grand last year, that's 5 to 15 grand. People like, that's a lot of money. I'm like, you get to keep 85 grand. What if those clients went away? What if those partners went away? You'd have no grant. So they're buying their own gift. And so if you made a million dollars last year, that's, you know, 50 grand to 150 grand. Is that a lot of money? Not if you get to keep 100 or 850,000 and next year, instead of making a million, you make 1.5. So understanding that this isn't a woo woo or this isn't to make you feel good, this is a strategy to grow your revenue and your referrals and your profitability in a way that nobody else is doing. Most people want to spend more money on advertising or they'll hire an extra three employees, add 200 grand in fixed cost overhead to their. You know, they're their company. And Cameron pointed this out to one of our clients. He's like, he's like, Jason, you'll hire two people, add 150 grand in overhead, and you'll make that decision in five minutes to hire two extra people. When's the last time you invested 150 grand in the people that allowed you to have that company to begin with? And you'll take 12 months to make that decision makes no sense. Spend the money, reinvest the money. It's the same 150 grand. So if you start there and you actually have a real number or metric of what to work with and then you go, start writing, you know, you call your gratitude list, whatever else, start writing down the names of like, who has gotten you to the dance, who's allowed you to have this company? Is it employees? Is it partners, mentors, advisors have the list. And then you can start to onboard into our system, which your tribe can go download entirely for free. It's what we charge tens of thousands of dollars to walk through. And@iphthologysystem.com they can download the whole playbook. Most people want to start with step number seven, which is what's the cool, sexy gift? Like, guys are the worst. They're like, hey, we're what's cool? I can send out. I'm like, that's step number seven. The what is only 50% of the impact. Who are you sending it to? Do you know if they're married or not? Do you know if they have pets? Do they have kids? We call that the inner circle. How frequently should you be sending something to somebody? What? You know, like, how much should you be reinvesting back in the relationship? So there's all of these steps leading up to it. If you follow the system and the recipe, you will bat. Nobody's going to bat a thousand because you're dealing with human beings. You might send Ferraris to 100 people and at least three douchebags will say they wanted a red one instead of a yellow one. Like, you're never going to bat. But if you can bat, you know, 8 out of 10 with these love bombs at scale. Now all of a sudden, people are like, this Todd guy. Like, he just showed, like, you've done it with Tony Robbins. You're loving on not just Tony. In fact, you're not even. Tony's like, yeah, Todd's cool. You're taking care of the crew, the camera people. You're loving on the people behind the people. We call that the inner circle. And people are like, I don't have time for that. I'm like, you don't have time to take care of the camera operators and the event planners and the assistants and all the people that are doing all the hard work that allow you to even engage on a stage? Are you stupid? Even if you're a selfish douchebag, you should be like, loving on these people because they're the ones that are going to go out of their way to advocate and actively be engaged. Go ahead, bro.

Sorry.

No, I just like, people push back all the time. They're like, john, I don't have time for this. I'm like, you don't? This is the only thing you should have time for. And, and, and it's fun, and it's just being a good human. Like, I get excited about preaching to people like you because you're doing it, and then you're going to take it and you're going to amplify it even more and inspire more people to be more generous and more people to be radically over the top with their people and taking care of the people behind the people. And so anyway, I'm on my soapbox. I'll jump off.

No, dude, I love it. I'm like, I'm fired up by it. Because, you know, what John is referencing is I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could add my appreciation into the lives of the Tony Robbins crew. And every time I speak, that's an opportunity for me to develop a deeper relationship. And by the way, these people that serve Tony that are behind the stage, my wife said to me, and my wife and I are both trained in five star diamond resorts. As Wendy, who's worked in the greatest spas in the world, and me, who used to be a fine dining waiter at some of the greatest restaurants in America, we have training on how to go above and beyond to love on people. And so I was telling John that every time I go to the Tony events, I always think about what can I bring for the crew that will make their life nicer, easier, more special, and. And also develop A relationship with them at scale. So what I do is there's a sweet shop that's walking distance to my house. It is the. The founder is the former bartender of the restaurant closest to our house. So if Wendy and I go to happy hour, and by the way, our mutual friend John Kaiser will come in and join us for a cocktail because he knows we're probably going to be there. Jk it's near his house.

So.

So the bartender told us right before the pandemic that he's going to take his life savings and open up a sweet shop. And honestly, as an entrepreneur, I was like, bad idea. That's a bad idea. And I really. And he's like. And I was like, yeah. He's like, how long have you been baking? And he said, I actually just learned how to make a cake, but they're really good. I'm like, bad idea again. Bad idea. So then he leaves his bartender job, opens up a sweet shop. January 2020, and within two months, when he opens up his door, full bloom pandemic. And the entire neighborhood jumped in and started supporting him. And he made the greatest butter cakes in the entire world. So our whole neighborhood has adopted his sweet shop. He's now opening up his third, and he's in negotiations to open up 300 of them around the US and because I'm speaking at a business event and the guy is a Tony lifetime follower, his story is going to resonate with the crew. So here are some of the suites, and we bring like 100 and something. I'm going to show you on this camera on the crafts table. But if I zoomed in on each one of these, there's like, let's see if I can get that. Like a fortune on them hanging off the side. And on the fortunes, what I did is I lifted my favorite 25 Tony quotes of all time. Like, repetition is the mother of skill, or you are or. Or where your thoughts go, your energy flows. And I stole the quotes, claim them as mine, put them on the fortunes and screw with them and say stuff like, like, But a cake eaten repetition is the mother of skill. Todd Hartley. And you know, and there's another one, like, can I. Constant and never ending improvement. Like a Tony core philosophy. And I changed it to Todd Hartley. Quote, constant and never ending. But a cake can be. It can be. And. And I walk around that place and the crew, like, laughs because I'm part of the joke. And they hug me. And then this time when I was on the stage just a couple days ago, while I'm talking the camera guy.

That I'm like looking into his camera.

He steps off camera and he's eating butter cake while I'm up there on the stage. I give him one of these, you know, and he's like, this is amazing. You know, so it's like, I want to play deep. And then the person that is the one that runs the entire event, she actually was working from home that day. And I filled the freezer full of butter cakes for her and showed her which freezer they were in with a note with her name on it. So she knew that I was loving on her. So when she gets back to the.

Office, even from afar.

Even from afar, right? And it's like, like that's the game is like. And nobody does it better than you. And it inspires me to no end. John, tell me how people can learn more, study from you, gain some of your gurudom and bring it into their business so they can take the people that know, love and trust them and turn them in to their referral network.

Yeah, well, I would say, I mean, when we covered if somebody would apply what we just talked about, they would already be in the top 1% of gift givers. Because I talked about, like most people, they check a box at Christmas, the worst time on plan to send a gift. It's obligatory, it's expected. So if you would just follow the playbook that we just talked about right now, you'd already be far. You don't have to go buy the book. If you want to buy the book. It's a quick 90 minute read on audible or Kindle or Amazon or whatever else. But really the two resources we talked about. You can also follow me on Instagram, John Rulin. And we talk about whether we're gifting to one person or whether we're gifting to a Gary Vaynerchuk or whoever. We share our secret sauce. It's not that somebody needs to hire our agency to do it for them or with them. Like the playbook's there. It's just difficult to do at scale. So I want people to take and steal our ideas and go run with it because I can't work with a million leaders, but I can inspire and give them the playbook to go be generous. And that can impact a billion people. That's really, at the end of the day, what I get excited about. So you want to email me personally? John at giftologygroup is my personal email. I will. You don't want me handling your gifts. I get to talk the Big ideas. You'll get passed off to a giftologist that would help you execute. But at a core level, don't talk about being generous. Gratitude isn't a feeling, it's a fricking doing. Go do gratitude. Don't just write in a journal. Go start doing send people videos, send people handwritten notes, send people love bombs. Start taking action on it versus just feeling it. Because that's selfish. And so that's my main message.

Yeah. And it's allowed you to impact the lives of people that also grow your business, like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, like the Kobe Bryant family, and to hear your stories. And by the way, if you're not following John Rulin on social media and hearing about these stories throughout the week, you're missing an opportunity to recognize and to visualize what your business and your your loving marketing could do for your company. Follow him on social media. It'll lift you up, give you great John Rulin. Remind me and the audience where people can go to download that list of the worst tactics.

Yes. So the Giver's edge with an S. TheGiversEdge.com is the 10 worst gifts in Giftology System. All one word. Giftology System.com is the playbook, the blueprint, the recipe.

Beautiful. He's the giftology guru. His name, of course, John Rulin. John, thank you for joining me on the Todcast.

Thanks, brother.

Yo, that was a powerful episode. And from what we just learned, it should be obvious how you can now implement these lessons in your life to get to the next level. Now, before you bounce, I just have three quick thoughts. First, thank you for taking me on your incredible life journey. Second, if you receive some value from me and you want to pay it forward, it would mean the world to me if you left an honest rating and review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, I'd be incredibly grateful. And lastly, if you share this episode, whether it be a screenshot or a photo from where you're listening, anything via Instagram stories or LinkedIn, Facebook, or any of the social media sites, just tag me and the guest. I'll repost your content and I'll reply back in the comments because I love mixing it up. In fact, I'd love to share your shout outs in my feed too. Not only are these shout outs really good for you and for me, but they also help us book more amazing guests because they'll be able to see the reach that you're helping to cultivate. This is a way for you to help contribute to the show. So thank you again for listening, and I look forward to earning a regular spot inside that ear of yours. Let's grow.