Episode 27 features John Ruhlin the author of a fantastic book
called Giftology, the art of gifting in business
and how it can win new relationships and maintain your existing
relationships.
John Ruhlin is the world’s leading authority
in maximising customer loyalty through radical generosity. He is
the founder and author of Giftology and has been
featured in Fox News, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc and New York Times
and appeared on podcasts such as Pat Flynn, Lewis Howes and The Art
of Charm. While becoming the #1 performer out of 1.5 million sales
reps for one of the world’s most recognisable brands, John
developed a system of using generosity to gain access to elite
clients and generate thousands of referrals. He and his firm now
help automate this process for individuals and organisations like
UBS, Raymond James, DR Horton, Keller Williams, the Chicago Cubs,
and Caesar’s Palace. John and the Giftology team can help any
individual turn their clients into their own personal sales force
to drive exponential growth.
Some of the topics discussed in this episode:
- How John won business with The Chicago Cubs by sending them
gifts for 6 1/2 years. They eventually reached out to him and led
to an amazing story and results for the team, their business and
fans
- Why gifting is the long game
- The book changed his current relationships as people were
really wowed by the contents
- He is best friends with Hal Elrond, author of "The Miracle Morning", who was one of the
people who helped motivate John to get the book done
- The 5 year launch for the book that involved doing something
book related every week for those 5 years
- Good gifting leads to active loyalty, which is far better than
passive loyalty, but most people don’t even realise they have a
loyalty problem
- Giftology leads to reciprocity. Helps you show your
appreciation for business and personal relationships
- He grew up a farm boy one of 6 kids in Ohio and originally
wanted to be a doctor. Got a job selling knives for Cutco pocket
knives which changed his life.
- How a girlfriends dad taught him the power of taking care of
the inner circle
-
Many gifts lead to the wrong results, bad ROI and low costs
per impression:
John explains what costs per impression means and the
importance of it to you getting future business
John has gifts he gave 15 years ago that are still giving
active loyalty to him and gaining him new business all these years
later because of high costs per impression
-
“In business most people do gifting because they’re having an
event or its Xmas and they want to check the box and to me thats a
waste of money. You’re not gonna get any ROI out of that and it’s a
waste of money.”
-
Great advice for speakers and Thought Leaders
-
80% of budget to take care of 20% of relationships - for
most people 80% of revenue comes from 20% of clients
-
Its not about how much you spend, its about how much value
will it give to the people that receive it
-
What gifts should you giveaway at trade shows? Listen to Johns
insightful and maybe surprising answer
-
Why women are so much better at giving gifts than men
“In 40 years of business the reason I have more referrals and
access and engagement with my relationships is I found out one
simple truth; If your take care of the family, in business
everything else seems to take care of itself” - this was John’s
lightning bolt moment
He still sells millions of dollars worth of knives
The giftology recipe, which is about taking care of the inner
circle, people that aren’t able to see the reasons for that aren’t
a client John wants to work with, because John knows they won’t get
the results that john gets for his customers
Targeted Jeffrey Gitomer - John met him and started sending
him monthly gifts for 18 months -all personalised knives with
personalised messages until Jeffrey eventually said to him:
“John you’re the most pleasantly persistent mofo. I’m not
gonna guarantee anything but if you fly out here I’ll hang out with
you for a couple of hours and we’ll see where that leads “ he
became a raving fan , interviewed John on his podcast, did videos
for him, referred him to his clients and generally endorse him and
sends John messages occasionally such as
“It’s 6am and I didn’t even wanna think about you, but I’m
using one of your stupid knives to cut up an apple and my
girlfriend thinks you’re amazing and keeps talking about you all
the time and I feel like I’m sleeping with your sales rep!”
By sending gifts with the clients wife’s initials on them, he
got their wives to become a raving fan and won him business.
Referrals went up 110% for the clients business and the only that
changed was by targeting the inner circles of his clients with
personalised gifts.
“Very often the people that win in business are the people
that are liked, trusted and top of mind”
Top 10 list of the things to avoid if you want active
loyalty:
More information at: