John Ruhlin 0:00
Whether somebody’s a solopreneur or whether somebody’s Google, almost every business rises and falls on the quality of the relationships that they have. I’m going

Brad Weimert 0:07
to deliver some Wow. So you’re buying an opportunity to get their attention. Guys like

John Ruhlin 0:11
Cameron Harold, I invested 25 grand over a decade. Well that turned into a 50x return on relationship in a few years. People like, well, you bribed him. I’m like, No, I earned the right to ask for his attention. What

Brad Weimert 0:23
are the qualities in your gift giving strategy? What are the boxes you’re trying to check? That’s

John Ruhlin 0:27
the seventh step in the process. Client, the patriarch, passed away in the three kids blew through $5 million in inheritance fighting over one thing. What was it? He’s like it was a harmonica that the dad played every day after dinner for 40 years. You help do artifacts for people. You help create meaning and thoughtfulness.

Brad Weimert 0:51
Congrats on getting beyond a million. What got you here won’t always get you there. This is a podcast for entrepreneurs who want to reach beyond their seven figure business and scale to eight, nine and even 10 figures. I’m Brad weimert, and as the founder of easy pay direct I have had the privilege to work with more than 30,000 businesses, allowing me to see the data behind what some of the most successful companies on the planet are doing differently. Join me each week as I dig in with experts in sales, marketing, operations, technology and wealth building, and you’ll learn some of the specific tools, tactics and strategies that are working today in those multi million, eight, nine and 10 figure businesses, life can get exciting beyond 1,000,003 weeks ago, a very good friend of mine died unexpectedly. The impact that John Ruland had on myself and anybody that knew him was profound. And I believe the impact that he will have on people moving forward will be the same and very widespread, giving first and giving consistently was a life philosophy for John, but it was also his business. When asked what her father did for a living, he helped people love on other people. Is what his 14 year old daughter said at his funeral. I recorded this interview almost three years ago and never released it. The audio quality isn’t as high as I’d like it to be. The interview isn’t as long as I’d like it to be. I wish that I could do it again, but I can’t.

I hope you get just a fraction

of the value from John Rulon that I have from listening to this.

Mr. John Rulon, how are you, sir, I’m

John Ruhlin 2:41
good. Brad, thanks for having me, bro,

Brad Weimert 2:42
dude, I’m always excited to get time with you. I do wish that it was in Austin instead of remote.

John Ruhlin 2:48
Me too. I wish, I wish, I wish we, I wish we could, somebody needs to come up with a studio that’s in Asana, like, like to me, you know, being able to, you know, hang out with somebody I want to hang out with, learn from somebody want to learn from, and sweat or do something at the same time like that. To me, would be like, somebody’s gonna come up with that Asana studio that should be like, you know, by that domain right now

Brad Weimert 3:14
I think, I think cold plunge hot tub studio is more likely. My Devices are always locking up in the sauna. My phone is perpetually turning off. My iPads dying. It’s terrible.

John Ruhlin 3:24
Yeah, no, I know it’s, I mean, they came up with plasmas or LCDs that can be outside, right in crazy weather, like somebody’s gonna come up with a case that can handle the sauna or, you know, that’s extreme stuff, but, yeah,

Brad Weimert 3:38
well, that’s a that’s, our challenge for the next round. Is we’ll do this in an adventurous environment. You know, if anybody’s up for it, it’s me 1,000% Yeah,

John Ruhlin 3:48
no doubt.

Brad Weimert 3:48
So ruling I have. We have known each other for 22 years, something like that. Crazy. I love it. It’s actually one of my favorite things about life, is the depth that comes with time with people and how you’re able to shortcut and trust, I think parts of the relationship just based on how well you know somebody or the character traits that you’ve seen over a long period of time, it’s very cool to be able to watch you grow as a business person, as a human and adapt, and see what you’ve done. So I’m always excited to talk to you. It’s great to talk to you about shop here and get you in front of a bunch of great people. So I appreciate you taking the time. Man,

John Ruhlin 4:40
yeah. Man, well, it’s the feeling’s mutual, and the fun part is, is we didn’t like each other for the first couple years of knowing each other. We respected each other, but we’re in very different parts of our life, so it’s fun to see the people that I met early on in my career, that either I was short sighted or we were both had some maturing to do now. Are some of my closest friends. So this is one of those relationships where it’s like, holy crap, man. A lot. What a cool evolution of a relationship.

Brad Weimert 5:09
100% Yeah, I love that. So you have, I think, super interesting. I remember when you were writing giftology, and we were talking, you were polling your friends about working titles. What was the other possible title? Do you remember? Yeah,

John Ruhlin 5:25
radical generosity.

Brad Weimert 5:26
Yes. Did you say radical generosity? Yes, it seems like giftology worked out for you.

John Ruhlin 5:34
Yeah. I mean, your mutual friend, Tucker, like told me I had a list of 40 names, and I, you know, I wanted to be something that was heartfelt and meaningful and deep, and all these things, and giftology was one of them, radical generosity was the lead horse. And he’s like, Shut up. Don’t talk about any of the other 39 don’t it’s, it’s giftology. And he’s like, I’m like, Are you sure? He’s like, we’re using giftology as a vernacular in our office, what’s your giftology plan? He’s like, it’s the only one that’s on the list. It hands down. It’s it. And I’m and I fought it for months and asked you and other people I respected, what do you think? And it was 5050, some people were like, No, it’s giftology. Some people denial, it’s radical generosity. But no question, radical generosity sound. Now, in hindsight, I still use the vernacular. I still use those words, but it would have came across as like a charity book, or about giving to charity or a cause, which could be that is radically generous. But the whole focus of our book was business gift like, how do you build relationships in within business, using love bombs or gifts or whatever else? And so it’s, it’s funny, looking back like, dang, I’m so glad I didn’t call it what I really wanted to call it, and fought against tooth and nail. But Tucker was right. Well,

Brad Weimert 6:52
Tucker is often right. He is wicked smart, very sharp, also very hard to argue with when he’s convicted,

John Ruhlin 7:02
oh, he’s Yeah, he’s got his 12 points, like he’s Yeah, he’s already thought 12 steps ahead. He’s so well, yeah. I mean, it’s the law background. It’s just how he thinks. I think he’s developed it also as a human first time I met him, I didn’t like him. I was like, that douchebag on stage I would never work with. And then I end up hiring scribe to write the damn book like, with me, like, I, there’s a, there’s like, this, I guess, track record of me being judgmental of people or whatever else. And I apologize to him. I was talking to him six months ago, and I was like, Dude, you evolved as a human. I think so. So have I, like, I, I’m sorry for for being overly judgmental. And think, you know, like, was, like, almost ready to, like, tear up as I was talking to him, because I was just like, man, he’s just cool to see what he’s up to now and how he’s pouring into people and showing up differently and still Tucker. But man, he’s, I think he’s polished some edges too, for sure,

Brad Weimert 7:58
well so known you a long time, seen you go through a lot of stuff. For those that don’t know your you know, giftology is the vernacular that I like that you have said before, and I think you said this to me really when we were mid 20s, was strategic gifting, and it’s a it’s an explanation that I give when I’m trying to help people understand the point, right, and why gifting is important, or what giftology is. Can you give both kind of a brief summary of that, and then also who you work with, and how that plays into who you work with and who you want to be working with?

John Ruhlin 8:37
Yeah, so I think most people don’t care about gifts. Most leaders aren’t waking up doing their you know, Miracle Morning at 4am saying, Man, if I just had my gifting strategy together, my business would flourish. But whether somebody’s a solopreneur or whether somebody’s Google, almost every business rises and falls on the quality of the relationships that they have. Could be with their employees, their programmers, their dealers, their employees, their clients, like their suppliers, mentors, investors. If you have quality relationships, you’re going to get referrals, you’re going to grow your revenue, you’re going to have retention, all of these results. And so the core of what giftology is is if you show up in uncommon ways for your relationships, you all of those things happen exponentially. And most people like, don’t realize that when you give something to somebody like, it’s a representation of the value you place on the relationship. Like, you would never take your best clients out to McDonald’s. Why that would be they you like, basically say, I don’t care about you. I’m taking you to the cheapest restaurant on the planet. You take somebody to the four seasons where you take somebody to the Super Bowl, you don’t take them to nosebleed seats. You do things in a way, people do experiences at this level 10, and they’ll drop 10 grand on a relationship because they’re important, and then they’ll send that same relationship $100 jacket, which they’re not equal. They’re not congruent. You’re basically saying, like, over here, you matter, but over here, I’m just gonna check the box. You basically say I didn’t, I didn’t, you weren’t worth my time to do something to. Physically thoughtful. And so the core of our business is if relationships matter, then you need to have a process to scale your thoughtfulness. And we had clients when they’re doing this process with us, where they’re loving on, sending love bombs to their clients and centers of influence and people, and they might get a 3x on their Facebook ads, but if they do what we’re talking about the right way, over time, they could get 100x return on relationship RLR. And so that our agency is really a relationship agency that happens to use the gift as the delivery vehicle to can make that connection and make somebody say, Damn, that person cares about me, and they’re still telling the story five or 10 years later, which is where the referrals and the opportunities when you’re not in the room. And so that’s the core of our of giftology, is that system and process?

Brad Weimert 10:47
Yeah, I love that. And so who’s, who’s your market? Who are you working with?

John Ruhlin 10:52
I mean, I mean, I can name drop like the Cubs and the Spurs and like the the the fun, you know, 910, figure businesses. But the core of who we serve best are the David’s going against Goliath. It’s the $5 million company going up against a $500 million company, or the $500 million company going up against a 500 billion or a five $50 billion company. Really, it’s not, I mean, we, I would say the YPO kind of company. So that five 10 million company to 500 million is our sweet spot, but it’s all industries. Like, when we spoke at Google, they’re like, John, does this work? You know, one of the guys was an engineer, is like, raise his hand. He’s like, does this work in technology? Kind of challenging me. And I said, Are there human beings here? And he’s like, Well, yeah. And I said, well, then it works. It works with you have 80,000 employees, or whether you have eight. So I like working with founders, specifically because they understand relationships matter. It’s their money and reputation on the line. And typically, they holistically, if they have 20 employees, they know that each of those employees is worth X to the company now and over the next 10 years. And they know their top 50 clients by name, or they they know like this person or this company is worth a million dollars in net profit over the next 10 years, or $50,000 in net profit. So I like working with the strategic founders, CEOs, leadership team. They spent this much on marketing. They spend this much on biz dev and hospitality and all these other things they’re like. If we can redirect 20% towards this new way of building relationships and driving revenue like of course, that makes sense, because all of our competitors are having a pissing match over here with Facebook ads. Let’s, let’s go at these people and do something way different and and so I love those kind of companies that are willing to, you know, put their money where their mouth is, and they have the ability to make that decision like that.

Brad Weimert 12:39
Me, personally, gifting is a huge part of my world, and it’s a huge part of my world, not because I think that there’s value in the gift itself, but so for me, one of my love Love Languages is acts of service, and to me, a gift. I don’t I think there are very few people where the gift is actually the love language. I think most people, when they say that gifts their love language, it’s really acts of service. It’s really the act of service that went into the gift. It being thoughtful. If you get a shitty gift, it doesn’t even if it’s expensive, it doesn’t make most people feel good. It’s like, okay, well, that was it was interesting. That was nice. Yeah, that was nice, yeah. So that’s been a through line for me for a very long time, and I think it’s part of the reason that I value the approach so much. I also know that you can do it at basically any level, right? So you can have a very thoughtful gift that comes off as such, that’s not breaking the bank, and you can do it as a solopreneur, not that doesn’t have much money. I also know that how you have operated over the years, there have been, there’s been an era where you’re helping people do one off gifts, and certainly I send you annoying text periodically, saying, hey, what do you think I should get as a gift for this person? But I also know that that’s morphed over time. So you know, who are you focused on right now? Like, if somebody’s listening and they want to say, is John the likely person to help me?

John Ruhlin 14:08
Who is that? Yeah, so I would say somebody that has, like, we charge basically, to have a giftologist kind of strategize and develop the program and then do the heavy lifting of picking the gift and drop, shipping the gift and handwritten notes, all that kind of stuff that make it land the details you’re talking about. We charge 20 grand a year for that service. So if you want to go hire your own giftologist or, you know, generosity manager, and pay 40 to 50 grand and in house it great. Like, you know, like our process, you can go download our entire playbook, our blueprint, our recipe, right now and get it for free. Giftology system.com and go get everything we take a client through. It’s not hard. The strategy is not hard. The recipe is not hard. It’s when you have to, like, do something for 20 people or 50 people or 100 people. I would say, if somebody doesn’t have at least 20 relationships that are important, that could be employees, clients, partners, suppliers, dealers, mentors. Whatever investors, then they’re probably not going to drop 20 grand just to for our fee. And we don’t have minimums like some. Sometimes people do have 12 relationships that produce their $3 million in revenue, and they’re very profitable and but in general, somebody’s going to have at least 20 relationships that they want to take care of. They’re going to invest 20 grand a year with us, plus whatever the cost of the gifts are, we call that at least another 20 to 100 grand, and people will push back and be like, John, my gifting budget last year was three grand. Yeah, I bought brownies at Christmas. And I’m like, that’s true. But you know, one of my mentors, Cameron Harold, challenged a CEO who’s a mutual client of ours. And he’s like, Jason, you’ll hire an extra two employees your company. You add an extra 150 grand and overhead, and you’ll make that decision in five minutes. No problem. You got to hire two more people, and then you’ll want to think through for 12 months before you invest 150 grand into the 50 relationships that allow you to even have a company. It’s the same 150,000 an entrepreneur feels really comfortable dropping 150 grand on Facebook ads or 150 grand on two extra employees. Why would you not invest the same 150 grand in the relationships that allow you to even have a company that got you to the dance? And so when we start to shift people’s mindsets of like, oh crap, I do spend that much on dinners and travel or masterminds or coaching or whatever, the numbers are, all of a sudden, like 20 grand here, and 50 grand there. Like 70 grand to invest in your top people, like, not a big number relative to the their overall business. So I would say in general that 20 relationships, they have to be willing to invest, you know, call it 30 to 100 grand to go pour into those relationships. There’s anomalies there, but that’s usually a starting point.

Brad Weimert 16:40
Got it cool? So two things. One, if, if people don’t, can’t identify 20 relationships that are important to them, I think they’re delusional. They should probably think a little bit harder. Now, there is a question of putting a number on that, right? That’s a different thing. But that leads me to point number two, which is the entrepreneurs that you’re talking about that are, you know, whether, quite honestly, at any stage. But let’s, let’s say our audience, right, people that are multi million or multi eight figure, you know, eight figure plus plus plus nine figure, whatever, either way, they look at that number. And as you said, even if the cash is in the bank account. They look at that number, and they look at it probably as, at a minimum, more subjective of a return than a Facebook ad or, you know, your SEO play, which is still, you know, a long tail play. So it opens the door, for me, the question around, what’s the difference between sort of an acute gifting strategy, where you’re like, Hey, I’m pursuing somebody, and I think that this is part of the pursuit, versus a systemic gifting strategy. Yeah,

John Ruhlin 17:52
I would say early on, because I was, you know, goat milking farm kid from Ohio, you know, where I started, like, I didn’t have any good country, I didn’t have any good connections. I wasn’t in, couldn’t afford a mastermind. I couldn’t like I was trying to sell knives to go to med school. So, you know, like I had no relationship. So I went after a Jeffrey Gitomer and sent him 18 gifts in a row. And you know, to this day, we still do millions of dollars in the stupid knives. But for him, I sent, you know, the seven, like, $4,000 worth of knives over 18 months. Every month he got a different package because I wanted that relationship, and all that did was people like, well, you bribed him. I’m like, No, I earned the right to ask for his attention. I bought his attention. Didn’t guarantee me the deal or the opportunity or the friendship or anything. I just earned the right to be able to say, like, I want some time with you. And I got the time after 18 gifts, he was like, John, you’re the most pleasantly persistent sob that I’ve ever you know. Like, he swears like a sail. He’s like, and he’s like, if you fly this Charlotte, I’ll hang out with you for half a day, and we’ll see where it goes. But I’m not guaranteeing anything. So I flew down, built a relationship, and now he’s a client and advocate Arabian fan. So there is that, like, more like dream 100 prospecting. That’s where most people want to reach out to us. And I’m like, 90% of what we do now for ourselves and for clients, is warm market. Most people want to go after the cold market and go after the that, and that’s fine, but they don’t have the grit, the tenacity in the budget they need to add a zero to they’re like, hey, what can you do for 1000 bucks? I’m like, this is a million dollar relationship for you. And you and you think $1,000 is gonna blow this a Gary Vaynerchuk away or a Tim Ferriss Are you out of your mind, like you need to be playing this over years and add a few zeros to that. Most people don’t have that tenacity and that commitment to play the long game, but what they should be doing is taking that same $1,000 and investing in a relationship that already likes them and make them love them. Because that person really, if they’re a client already, they’re buying their own damn gift. Like we tell people to reinvest five to 15% of net profit. So if you made a million dollars, that’s 50 to 150 grand to keep the relationship, to grow the relationship. And the secret sauce is, you know, guys like Cameron Harold, I invested 25 grand over a decade. And. And the reason I did that, after I did the $7,000 in Brooks Brothers, I kept sending them gifts, even though I already had the relationship, because I wanted to inspire him to go advocate on my behalf. Well, that turned into a 50x return on relationship in a few years. Show me in your business where you get a 50x nobody other than relationships. So most people should take the people that are already in the boat and should pour gasoline on the fire that’s small and make it big and get those people to go sell on their behalf. Because one referral, like, if you could get all your clients to just send one referral per year, where every three years, like they most people would have more business than they could handle. And we’ve gotten to that point now where I won’t have any one on one calls. I’m having group sales calls where people have to come in and engage because we have, I don’t say too many referrals, but we have more than I can have one on one calls with, which is a great freaking problem to have. But that only happens, not just because you have your paid salespeople. It’s because you take your all of your markets and all the people that like you, and now they’re inspired to go open doors on your behalf because of how they feel about the relationship, not because you’re given a commission or you’re paying them. It’s because they want to see you win. If all your relationships want to see you win, and they view you as a giver. Like the opportunities start to get pretty exciting. You

Brad Weimert 21:15
wanted to encourage Cameron to continue to promote you over time to be a raving fan of yours over time. And so we have a we have a partner program at easy pay direct, and we pay people a percentage of what we make forever on the referrals that they send us. It’s awesome, right? And there are two, two things. One, the obvious reason for that is what you just said, which is that if we’re paying them forever, you think that they consider sending us more business again, right? For sure, yes, of course. Is we have, I routinely have these situations where it’s unclear if somebody actually referred the business in or not. And so one of one of our salespeople, or somebody on the team will be like, Oh, well, you know, they’re loosely connected to John Rulon. Should we pay John as the referral partner on it? And I’m like, absolutely we should pay John as the referral partner. And they’re like, but you really want to pay him that? It’s 20% currently of the revenue that we make. Do we really want to pay him that? If we don’t have to? And I’m like, absolutely we want to pay him, because if we do that, it’s that show of good faith, and it’s that reminder that, oh, man, this is a great relationship, and as long as all parties in a relationship are truly winning, it accelerates the flywheel, right? And if somebody doesn’t feel like they’re truly winning, then they just get out of the relationship. Forget about it. Prioritize something else.

John Ruhlin 22:41
Yeah, yeah, the relationship accelerator is for sure. I mean, and you’re people, like, that’s 20% a lot, and it’s like, what would you know? What’s marketing costs, what’s sales Commission’s cost? Like, you add up all of your fixed costs, the person’s really not even on your payroll, and they’re out there in five words from a Cameron Harold or five words from you got it Roland Frasier or Tim Ferriss or an Aubrey Marcus, or whoever the person is, is more powerful than 5000 words from the best salesperson, and they’re running in circles. It’s what’s beautiful about it is when you’re not in the room at the mastermind, and somebody out there is like, you got to work with this guy. And I’ve seen it happen in different forums where, you know, like somebody, somebody’s gonna say, Who do I hate my I hate stripe, or I hate PayPal, right? Whatever? Like, I’m getting screwed who I need to work with, and your name starts popping up. Like, people are going out of their way. It’s in forums where you’re not at advocating for you, and you can’t buy that kind of advertising. Like, that’s what people don’t understand. Like, all things being equal. Like, am I going to pay the commission? Hell yeah, I’m going to pay the commission. Like, even if it’s fuzzy, like, because people with the back of their head, they’ll, they’ll remember that. Like, Brad could have taken care of me and he didn’t, or Brad really didn’t have to, and he did. Like, this just speaks volumes about who you are and how you show up, and even if you screw up, people give you the benefit of the doubt because they’re like, Brad’s a good guy. He’s a generous guy. He takes care of people we all mess up, and we want people to give us the benefit of the doubt when things hit the fan. That’s

Brad Weimert 24:11
a perfect example, it is. And, you know, I think that. I mean, I think that that’s true. And I had a conversation with a friend of mine the other day, Jason fladland, who is just a killer person, wicked smart, super good marketer or super sharp. And he said, how you show up is more important than what you say. And I thought, Man, that is such a powerful sentiment, and I think it ties into what you’re talking about because it’s not about buying your way in, and it’s not about the money. It’s about the effort in how you show up that communicates that you care. And you kick this off by saying that people don’t think about giving gifts. They don’t want gifts. What they want are the relationships, right? What they want is the value. You in the relationship. So I love that, and you know, so you talked about kind of the acute gift giving, right? You said, Hey, I grew up as I love how you talk about yourself as a farm boy from Ohio. And these were acute approaches, largely to try to get in the door, right? So the Jeffrey Gitomer was probably an attempt at an acute approach that ended up being a very long term approach, because you just kept doing it. Cameron Harold was very distinctly an acute approach. And you do? You have that story posted somewhere? Because I think it’s a good one, and people should check it

John Ruhlin 25:37
out. The one, yeah, if you, if you, if you Google Brooks Brothers, Cameron Harold, I think it’s, I think it shows up on multiple blog, multiple stories, and there’s videos, there’s all that. I mean, Cameron talks about it all the time. I talk about all the time. It’s like, it’s, it’s, it’s like, to the point where somebody came up to Cameron like, oh my gosh, you’re, you’re in giftology, and Cameron text me. He’s like, dude. He’s like, is like, people think I’m famous because I’m in the in the book. He’s like, it’s come like, full circle, because when I did it for him, like I was gonna have dinner with him, and, you know, whatever else, I already had. The relationship, semi Savage, because I’d met him a lot of times. People were like, well, once you meet the person that all you know, like, who? Why would I do? The gift that I’m like, you want to accelerate things. You want to deepen the relationship. You want people to take your phone call the second time the third time. You want people to refer that’s very different, like being able to meet somebody cool, but it’s like, are they willing to go out on a limb and open a door for you? Probably not. And so, yeah, the Brooks Brothers won at the time the $7,000 my might as well have been $7 million because I didn’t have the money. The money really to do it. I was scared as hell, and Rod, who just bought half the business of giftology, thought I was insane, like, he’s like, if it doesn’t work, it’s coming out of your personal draw, which, which would have hurt really, really, really, really bad. Yeah.

Brad Weimert 26:57
So okay, so I mean, I can’t leave the loop open, so the long and the short of this story is that you met Cameron at an event. You pinned him down at the event and said, Hey, I’m gonna be in your city. Yeah, you just tell it. I’m gonna fuck it up.

John Ruhlin 27:12
Yeah. So I was at an EO event. I just joined EO, heard him speak, found out he was speaking to our chapter, and wanted to get time with him, so I invited him to dinner in a ball game, thinking he’d be like, Oh, this is cool. And it was the most underwhelming response ever. He’s like, I don’t really care about basketball. I don’t know who you are, but sure, I’ll grab dinner with you. You tell like he didn’t want to do it. He was just doing because he was in the city at the same time. And so I found out they loved Brooks Brothers and had his whole Ritz Carlton room outfitted in his size in the new fall collection, which was all the jackets, Pan pant suits, belt shoes. It was like $7,000 of clothes all in his room. So when he got in, he didn’t because he was going to go shopping there. He didn’t have to go shopping. He could pick out what he wanted. And he freaked out. I mean, you’d tell like, when he arrived at the Brooks or at the Ritz, he didn’t want to go dinner in a ballgame, when he came back down, he was like, whatever you want to talk whatever you want to talk about for a zone you want to talk about. He’s like, I’ve never had anybody treat me this way. And I didn’t ask for anything. We just had. We went to dinner and had had a great night, but he started texting other authors to change the best customer experience stories. He just started to go crazy. And I continued, and I built them like the full $10,000 Cutco set. I sent him the crazy $700 wine tool, like I continued to drip on him and his family for the next 10 years once a quarter. So it ended up being about $25,000 worth of stuff that I sent him that were all personalized him. But it started with that 7k and that was, you know, that was kind of the mini explosion that started the relationship.

Brad Weimert 28:41
That opens a really good question, which is, at what point do you make the ask? Right? So you’ve got this idea of, hey, you need to open the door with somebody. You want to open the door. And so this acute gift giving strategy is, I’m going to deliver some Wow, also known as a love bomb, to this person, and try to open the door and open conversation, so you’re buying an opportunity to get their attention. How much of that do you do before you make an ask? And how does that? Where’s the authenticity with it being a gift versus it being a bride? Well,

John Ruhlin 29:19
I think if you don’t have the relationship, it’s you are kind of, like I said, buying their attention, like Vaynerchuk talks about, he’s an attention broker. Like you’re brokering their attention by showing everybody says they have a good idea, or they want to pick, you know, like, hey, I want to, you know, I’m going to save you money, or all these different things when you’re trying to get your foot in the door. But when you showed with your with your time and with your time and with your money, and you hit them with something that’s significant, not a, hey, here’s some sleeve of golf balls, but you’re hitting them with a $500 or $5,000 love bomb. It shows that you’re different, because nobody does that right. Very few people are willing to step up and put their money where their mouth is. But I would say that similar to Gary’s book, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, it’s not jab. Hook. It’s show up, show up, show up, give, give, give. Then you earn the right not to expect to get the deal. You earn the right to ask. And so most of the time, if you give three four things internally, whether you’re a person of faith or not, the way the world’s wired is like, reciprocity kicks in, right? Like you start to say, like, damn, this person is I like them or I like her? They’re They’re cool. I enjoy their company. They’re adding value. They keep hitting me with these things eventually, like, it comes out, like, What the hell do you want? Like or like there? There becomes a dialog. But I do think that, you know, if you’re on a limited budget, you hit somebody with a love bomb. You can say like, Hey, I’d like to show you, you know, five minutes. I want to show you this, this and this. But to me, over time, I’ve learned to play, you know, everybody wants to say they’re playing the long game like, but you most people’s long game is days, not decades, and so anymore, if I do something acute, which is rare, I’m going to hit them, hit them, hit them and make them feel uncomfortable. They have to ask me, like, I want to do something back, versus me going in for the kill too early. I think it’s a position of strength to be able to do it and not no strings attached, just let it lay. And then oftentimes people come back and like, that was like, I was wondering when you’re going to ask, and then you hit them again. Like, no ask, no ask. So I but I think at least three times, if you want to, you know, have an ask. I hit three before you do. It’s kind of like with, with, you know, positive feedback and negative feedback. Like, give somebody, you know, so many pieces of positive feedback before you hit them with the negative. I think that that is my typical strategy. But anymore, if I want to get to you, I’m going to go find somebody like HAL that knows you and have them engage you, versus going in directly, because it’s always more powerful for somebody else to make the introduction and open the door. And so I do a lot of chess playing where I’m like, I want to get to get to this person, and here’s the four steps I needed to get to that person. Might take me a year or two, but to me, that’s a that’s a stronger play than constantly going in cold.

Brad Weimert 32:10
I love that one of my one of my favorite moves in in life, relative to relationships, is I’m with somebody and they’re like, oh yeah. Do you know John Rulon and, well, you’re a bad example, because I know you very, very well. But do you know you know Bob? And I’m like, and they’re trying to be helpful, right? They’re like, Oh, I could introduce you to Bob for XYZ thing. Or do you know Bob? And I’m like, I would love an introduction. And I do know Bob, I just don’t know him that well. In another introduction from a third party that does know him well, further endorses me, right? So I already know Bob, but this extra thing, this extra introduction, goes a long way. And so I think that third party validation, credibility, as you said with Cameron Harold, the words from, you know, a powerful brand, make a lot more impact than you would possibly imagine. Yeah,

John Ruhlin 33:03
I’ve had that happen accidentally, and now we’re starting to more planned serendipity. We had the giftology book go out. We had, like, the $300 version of the book. We have $100 version, but we had to go to Robin Robbins, who has a mastermind. She got it over the course of a year from three different people that she respected. We, I didn’t realize, but I comped it all three times. So she gets the book over the course of a year from three different people. She went from not knowing who John ruling was to we got to book him on the stage. You know, we landed a $30,000 speaking gig immediately because of it was like an echo chamber. It went from like, don’t know who John Ruan is, to all of a sudden, like, John ruan’s everywhere, and so it’s your point of, like, being able to figure out how to get you know somebody hears your name from three different people that they love and respect, and conversations all of a sudden, like, their your perception of them raises significantly, and people don’t Yeah. People don’t understand the impact of that, and most people aren’t sly enough to say, yeah. I’d love an introduction from that, from that person not knowing psychologically what is likely to happen when that happens.

Brad Weimert 34:13
No question about it.

Look, referrals are the single best lead source in business period. It’s third party validation. It’s a warm intro. It makes the sale easy. The problem is getting referrals could be a bitch, and that’s because most people are terrible at asking for them, and I think most people are just really uncomfortable asking for them, so they come off as aggressive or needy or just completely desperate, which just feels gross. But what if you didn’t have to ask, and what if you just got referrals before he died, John Ruhlman built a giftology course called referrals without asking, and it’s basically what they have been doing for years to help other businesses generate referrals on demand. But more important than on demand systematically, it breaks down their four pillars of what. They’ve been doing to make this whole system work. Myself and a handful of John’s other really close friends are giving away the course for free. We want to see his work continue, and we want other people to be exposed to it. So whether you are a solopreneur, you have an eight or nine figure company, or you’re a fortune 100 exec, I highly recommend that you go grab the giftology course, referrals without asking. Right now, we’re doing it for free. You will get a ton out of it, beyond a million.com. Forward slash r w a is where you can find the course, referrals without asking. Again, that’s beyond a million.com. Forward slash R W A, it will make a huge impact in your life. Okay, so

I would be remiss to not ask you, the gifts that you give, what are the what are the best things? Or, I think even a better approach is, what are the qualities of in your gift giving strategy, what are the boxes you’re trying to check.

John Ruhlin 36:01
In our process, people think about the what more than they like. That’s the seventh step in the process. Is picking that most people, especially guys, are the worst. Like, we’re visual, like we want to pick the cool, sexy gifts, or like, I like that. Get me 10 of that, or 100 of that, and it would they don’t realize it’s not that. It’s like that you’re it’s the story, it’s the thoughtfulness, it’s the meaning, it’s the note that goes with it. It’s all that. But you still do need, like, you can’t give, like, something from Things Remembered for 25 bucks and think that, like, somebody’s gonna be like, Wow, this is the nicest bracelet I’ve ever gotten. Like, it like, quality does matter. And so to me, like, we call them practical luxuries. Like, if you’re gonna give something in a category, it needs to be best in class and whatever that category is. So if you’re gonna give a watch and you give somebody like that’s wearing a Rolex or a bright lean, and you give them like your really nice Seiko for 500 bucks, are they gonna take your $5,000 watch off and put your $500 watch on? There’s no way, like there’s not going to. So make finding things that are best in class in the category, if you can’t afford a Rolex, when people are learning Rolexes, go to a different category. Go to, you know, give $100 luggage tag versus a $500 watch. $100 luggage tags probably 100 times nicer than the one they currently have. And if it’s brass and their names engraved, their family name, their spouse, whatever else like now, of a sudden, you have what we would deem an artifact, best in class artifact. So finding that practical, the other thing is, most people don’t need more stuff in general, like, we’re like, during the pandemic, the line going to Goodwill was like, off the charts. It was a mile long. Why? Because most people have too much crap. And so finding things that are practical, like, you don’t need another thing to, you know, paperweight or something that’s going to be on a desk or whatever else, like find something that’s useful. That’s why the knives work so well. Most people have the knife set that they got when they got married or whatever they inherited. It. It’s like something from Bed Bath and Beyond. And you give somebody that has a $200 knife set, the entire 12 piece set, and you give them one knife that costs 250 bucks. Now it’s like, holy crap. This, I would use this like, whether it’s once a day or once a week. And so finding the things that are actually like useful to that person versus like something, that’s just a another thing. The other thing that I would say almost 80% of the things that we do are including the inner circle. So like for you, like you buy anything you want. Like you like something, you go buy it. But I’m gonna look and say, like, does Brad have an assistant that he cares about? Does Brad have it? You know, like, Brad’s not married, but maybe he has a significant other that’s important to him, like the people around the people most of the time we when we’re doing things at scale, we’re like, Are they married? They have kids? Do they have pets? And do they have an A do they have employees, like a chief of staff or somebody that they care about? Because if I want to get to Brad, and I know he likes, you know, tequila, and I think I’m going to send him a terramano bottle for 30 bucks, and he’s drinking class azul, like, it’s hard to get something that he doesn’t already have the best of, but taking care of his dog or the professor that he loves, or taking care of his assistant. Now, all of a sudden, instead of spending $10,000 I can spend 1000 and it’s as if I spent 10,000 and so taking care of that inner circle is one of the things that’s that we’re always trying to tap into, and that’s how you can spend less money than your competitors and actually have 100 times more impact, because you’re coming in at from a completely different angle.

Brad Weimert 39:21
I love that. That’s great. One of the things that you said years ago is, when you are gifting somebody, specifically, when you’re at an event with those people, you make sure to gift their spouse who’s still at home, right? And I think that that’s brilliant. I think that’s a super wise my my concern with this is that, and the other two things you said that I heard were best in class, and I love that, and used every day, or used frequently, right? Something that’s going to be in front of them, be around, and it’s going to be useful. And you said inner circle. The question with the inner circle, for me is, how do you know what they want? How do you know what they’re going to use? How do you know what’s good for them? Or do you just go back to the best in class and frequently used?

John Ruhlin 40:13
Well, I think the reason that we do so many things that are like, we try to tie to humanity. So whether somebody lives in Idaho or Iowa or LA, like, there’s certain things that are common amongst humans. I mean, frankly, I mean, both of our history comes back from Cutco. I was looking for great ways to sell lots of Cutco. In hindsight, tying something to somebody’s kitchen, whether somebody makes 50 grand a year or $5 million a year, they all have a kitchen. Their most valuable relationships you break bread with in your home, every celebration has food and drink as a part of it. And so the reason we still do the crazy wine tools. If somebody likes to entertain and they drink wine of any sort, you give them a $700 wine tool, it’s probably the nicest wine tool they’ve ever had. And that’s pretty universal as long as somebody drinks knives, pretty universal, like as long as somebody eats or entertains at their home, which whether they do that once a week or three times a day, like it’s pretty common amongst humanity and most people, they might have their Sub Zero fridge for 10 grand or 20 grand, or their biking stove. Most people have not said, You know what, I really need to go drop five grand on us on a really high end set of cutlery. And even if they have, when they look at that thing that’s useful, and then they, like we did, the knives for Tony Robbins for a client. Every knife, it was a $10,000 Knife Set. Every knife had a quote. All 40 pieces had a different quote on both sides. So it was 80 of Tony’s quotes. So even though he may have had a nicer knife set, the fact that it was his legacy tied to these pieces. Now it’s an heirloom. Now his future grandkids are gonna fight over it. You know, Roland Frasier, perfect example. Pete and I sent the gift to Roland. It was the knife set. And roland’s wife’s never on any of the videos she was on there, like in tears. Why not? Because they can, they drive a Rolls Royce or a Bentley like they could buy their own 100 knife sets. It was the fact that all of like, rowland’s quotes over like 30 years were carved into the blades that made it so, yes, it was a cool, functional gift that I could send to 1000 different people. But it was the attention to detail to say, this is what matters to Roland. It’s his. It’s like what he’s spoken into existence is how he’s helped 10s of 1000s of people. That’s what gave it gravitas to make it say, out of all, like Gary had $10,000 of knives, all of those got pushed aside because there was no story. There was no sense of sentimental meaning to them. Now, of a sudden, these are the tools, and every time they use those tools like everybody wants to be top of mind to get more referrals when you can anchor yourself into the most used room in the home. You know, for most people, it’s the kitchen. That’s the hub of the house. You want to get more referrals. You got to be top of mind. You want to be top of mind, you got to get be like, have a talk trigger that becomes the talk trigger. So it’s, it’s the thing, it’s the personalization, it’s the meaning, it’s including the spouse, and so many people say John, I did giftology. It didn’t work. They’re not following the full recipe. They’re cutting corners. They’re sending the knife set without the sentimental meaning, or they’re sending it at Christmas, when everybody else is getting 50 other gifts. They haven’t dialed in all of the parts of the recipe to make it land with this like explosion that then ripples into the future. So it’s not just the thing, it’s all of the details around it

Brad Weimert 43:25
that makes sense. And I love the talk trigger consideration, and that’s sort of a combination. That’s the product of a combination of things, right? Of it being front and center, ie being it’s something, something that gets used every day or on a routine basis, and also it being best in class, probably, and or you tying in some sentimental component that’s relevant to their life in some way. And I don’t know that you use the word just now, but one that you often use is artifact, and it being something that, well, tell tell me what that means to you.

John Ruhlin 44:03
Yeah, I think, you know, we if your house is on fire, like, we just gave a gift to a client or to a client’s client, and it was one of the crazy it’s called an artifact mug. It’s like a two, $3,000 mug. People like, why is it two or three grand? Like, you know, it’s a mug. I’m like, yeah, it’s the clay is 20 bucks. But the reason it’s two or three grand is the artist carves into this mug core values, faith, family, legacy. Why tragedy overcome all these different things. And this went to a celebrity, and we just got the video about an hour ago, and this guy’s like, he literally said. He’s like, if my house was on fire outside of my kids, this is the thing I would grab. He was in tears. He’s like, I’ve never been I’ve never had anybody see me. And the way that this, like, signified being seen and and that, to me, is an artifact. It’s like, what are the things you grab in your house that are on if your house is on fire? It’s not the most expensive things, it’s the things that have the most meaning. There’s a tie. To your history, your legacy or and so I hate the word gift, because it feels like a fruit basket from Harry and David. An artifact is like, No, this is a part of who I am. This reminds me of what I care about, my legacy and my, you know, generations and whatever else. And so, like a lot of people would be pitchers. It might be a flag if your dad served in the military your mom or it’s something that has a lot of meaning. And so I love the word artifact of appreciation. I learned it really from Joey Coleman, who talked about, like, when he was a lawyer, he had a client, the patriarch passed away in the three kids blew through $5 million in inheritance fighting over one thing. And I was like, was it art? And he’s like, No, it’s a $20 item. And he’s like, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t saw it myself. I said, What was it? He’s like, it was a harmonica that the dad played every day after dinner for 40 years. And when their kids, when the kids thought of their dad that art, if that was the artifact, that was the thing that they thought of, that reminded them of their dad, and they fought over that $20 piece because of the meaning, the story behind it. And he’s like, I love your knives and I love your stuff. He’s like, the reason I love giftology, and what you’re talking about is like, you help do artifacts for people, you help create meaning and thoughtfulness. And he’s like, whether it’s the knife or the mug or the wine tool or the whatever, he’s like, it’s not just the thing. It’s that meaning behind it. And so I learned the word artifact from him and started using it in replace of the word gift, because gift is like stuff. Artifact has meaning.

Brad Weimert 46:25
I love that. Okay, one more question, which is, how have things changed for you? How does your approach to running this business so functionally, you have a very unique marketing agency, right? You help people market themselves, their brand relationships very differently than other people. How do you operate it differently today than you did when you were starting it?

John Ruhlin 46:53
Well, I mean, when I started, it was me just slinging blades trying to, like, survive, and I have one assistant now, like, you know, I don’t get involved in day to day operations or those sorts of things. I sold half the business. I think early on, I was insecure and felt like I had to look up here bigger than I really was. Like, now I love the fact that we’re the small boutique business, you know. We have 12 employees, you know, but I make way more money off of working less than I ever did when I was the sole owner, and, you know, like, trying to, like, I call it ruling group, because it was just me, and I insisted, like, I wanted to appear bigger. Now I’m, like, we’re small. Like, I don’t not trying to be but I think now, like, I’m realizing the power of building out this personal brand and platform, and it’s allowed us to, because I have free time. We’re starting to invest in other companies and do other things, and we’re starting to get people that are attracted, and I have the bandwidth now to speak into other companies where we’re getting ownership and advisory shares and companies based upon this platform that we built. And they know we’re small, but they want to do the same thing that we did with the book or doors or stages or just getting advice on relationships and key strategies. And so I think early on, the first 10 years of business, like, Hey, I had no idea what I was doing, like I was just throwing stuff at the wall, and I was really just trying to survive. And I think now, like, I’ve gotten to a point now where I’m able to take a step back and let my team knew their thing, and like, we have giftologists, I’m not doing the strategy meetings or any of those sorts of things. I’m able to operate in my sweet spot and be really the ambassador for the brand and speak to it and but stay out of the things that, like, a, I suck at, and B, I don’t really want to do. And so, you know, after 22 years, you know, like, I’m in a fortunate position to be able to do, to operate very differently than I started. Yeah,

Brad Weimert 48:46
I heard two things that stuck out. One was when you started, you were focused on selling a product, and today you’re focused on building relationships. And the other was when you started in order to sell the product, you were doing lots of things, some of which you wanted to be doing, and some of which you did not. And today you want to stay in your lane, and you want to work on strategy and the things that are in your quote, unquote, zone of genius, and try not to worry about the rest and trust other people will do the rest. Is that fair? It’s

John Ruhlin 49:22
very fair. Yeah, it’s a lot of trusting.

Brad Weimert 49:26
Well, that’s a whole nother conversation. Awesome, man. Well, I’m looking forward to the next time getting some probably coffee or bourbon in the studio here, or trying out our sauna podcast episode. But until then, where? Where can people find you if they want to check you out or check out your services or whatever?

John Ruhlin 49:51
Yeah, so they can email me directly. I’ll forward it onto the team, but they can reach out directly. [email protected] that’s my direct. Mount. You know, at John Rulon on Instagram is kind of like where we share, kind of the behind the scenes and some of the crazy 50k artwork that we’re doing for Vaynerchuk and some of these guys. But giftology group.com is the is the main website. If somebody wants to see if they’re they want to apply and see if they’re a fit for, kind of the done for you agency side of things.

Brad Weimert 50:18
It’s awesome, man, I love it. Well, I appreciate you carving out time today. Always good to see you. Thanks, brother.

I hope you enjoyed the episode as much as I enjoyed doing it. I need your help. There are three places you can find beyond a million. The podcast itself beyond a million.com. Which has some cool free resources, including a free course, and we finally launched the beyond a million YouTube channel. I would love it if you would go there and subscribe. And if you don’t want to, you still will probably enjoy seeing the visual content. Check it out, youtube.com, forward slash at beyond a million.