BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 475: 50x Your Revenue By Focusing on ROR (Return on Relationships) with John Ruhlin

Episode Date: June 6, 2021

You wouldn’t think that a farm boy from Ohio would be spending hundreds of thousands if not millions on expensive clothing, high-priced whiskey, and expensive knife sets, would you? Only, he’s not buying these things for himself, he’s buying them for his clients, many of whom are some of the biggest names in business and entertainment. What does John Ruhlin from Giftology see in gift-giving that we don’t? First, John realized that giving regular corporate gifts, like a stress ball or a free pen, wouldn’t cut it when trying to build long-term relationships. He even went as far as to get courtside NBA tickets paired with a $500 steakhouse dinner to get Cameron Herold (a past guest of ours) on his team, only to find that Cameron was severely disappointed. So he started turning up the personalization of his gifts. Now, John sends out personally engraved knife sets, world-class food and wine pairings hosted by the best sommelier in the country, and video messages sent in physical boxes (seriously). He’s discovered the art and the science behind gift-giving and wants everyone to know what is, and isn’t an appropriate gift. As he puts it, you need to focus on your ROR (return on relationships) more than your ROI. In This Episode We Cover: The gifts you SHOULD NOT give to those you want to impress Focusing on ROR (return on relationships) as opposed to ROI Have a “relationship plan” in place for clients, employees, and partners Using personalized gifts to stick out from the competition Taking a warm lead and turning it into a burning fire  The best gifts to give based on the occasion, timing, and relationship And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Pro Membership BiggerPockets Youtube Channel Brandon's BiggerPockets Profile Brandon's Instagram David's BiggerPockets Profile David's Instagram BiggerPockets Podcast 467: #1 NYT Bestselling Author Adam Grant on the Need to “Think Again” BiggerPockets Podcast 451: Stop Chasing the “False Summit”: Have Better Relationships and Results with Michael Hyatt GoBundance Open Door Capital Giftology Website Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/show475 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 475. And that's where people, like, they'll spend money on employees. They'll add overhead on employees. They'll hire a couple employees at a half a million dollars in overhead. They'll invest in Facebook ads, a quarter million bucks. And they're like, John, two grand for a gift or $200 for gift. I'm like, you'll pick up a bar tab in Vegas for $2,000. Nobody cares.

They don't remember a week from now, but you won't spend $2,000 on one of your most valuable relationships. Are you insane? Like, it's a math equation. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online.

What's going on, everyone is Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. David, the surfboard giver, Green. What's up, man? How you doing? It's funny that you mentioned that. I thought about bringing it up in the podcast, but I didn't want to be self-congratulating, so I didn't say anything about it. I thought I'd bring it up right now in the beginning of this show and say, actually, I own three surfboards, one that I bought myself, one that David Green here bought me and another

that I got from another gift from a guy named Adam from my body tutor. And I ride all three of them, but I mostly ride the two that I got his gifts because they were like, I don't know, they were way better than the one that I bought for myself, which leads us to today's conversation about gift giving. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, well, why do I care about gift giving? Go give me some real estate education knowledge. Trust me, this show could change your life. I really believe so it'll help you land more deals. It'll help you land more private investors. It'll help you land, like have a smoother transactions, work with your contractors better, everything. So really important show with an amazing

guest named John Rulin. And I've saw him speak years ago. He was amazing. And I've been begging to do them on the show since. So anyway, yeah. Looking forward to letting you all hear the interview we did with him. But first, let's get to today's quick tip. Quick tip is send me a surfboard. I'm just kidding. I got enough. But the quick tip is send, like, not even send a gift.

You're going to hear about gift given today. What I want you to do, I want you to think right now about who they are like the top five, like people that you believe you need to build a deeper relationship with. Don't just think like David Green, right? Because David Green doesn't like you. David Green likes everybody. What I'm talking about is like, is there a contractor in your area that you would love to work with that he's always too busy? Or is there a real estate investor in your area who's like a wholesaler who's getting a lot of good deals, but you can't seem to connect with him.

They're not giving you the deals. Like who is that person in your life? Think five people, write it down that you want to build a deeper relationship with. Have those people in mind as we're listening to today's show. And that's today's quick tip. Here's why savvy real estate investors are obsessed with bonus depreciation. It lets you take that rental property or commercial building you own and depreciate most of the cost against your income.

Legally, 100% IRS compliant. That's instant cash flow improvement. Cost segregation guys is the number one firm nationwide, specializing in identifying these faster depreciating assets in your property. They've completed tens of thousands of studies across all 50 states from remote cabins to apartment complexes. So if you own investment property, this is a no-brainer. So visit Costsegregationguise.com slash BP for your free proposal and find out how much you could save this tax season. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus. You're juggling vendors,

tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties, and maybe a few HOAs, all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off and suddenly you're day is all cleanup, no progress. That's why hundreds of property managers rely on bill to streamline their finances. Bill for property management lets you add all your properties, assign permissions, pay bills, and receive payments quickly and efficiently without the usual bottlenecks. It syncs with platforms like QuickBooks, Zero, NetSuite, and Sage intact, so your accounting stays aligned. You can automate bulk payments across properties and HOAs. Choose flexible payment methods like same-day ACH, international wires, card, or check, and set custom

roles in approval policies. There's even a dedicated bill inbox for each property to keep everything organized. Ready to simplify your workflow, book your free demo at bill.com slash bigger pockets, and get a $100 Amazon gift card. That's bill.com slash bigger pockets. A lot of property managers think their job is answering tenant emails and coordinating repairs. That's not the job. The job of a property manager is protecting and growing your operating income and earning your trust while they do it.

And that comes down to three numbers, occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score. If those numbers slip, your income slips and your trust slips too. And most PMs don't hold themselves to performance standards. They focus on activity, not outcomes. Mind is different. They obsess over the metrics that actually grow your cash flow. to mine.co slash show me to see how mine performs and get a month of management for free. Because if you're going to hire a property manager, hire one that manages your investment like

an investment. All right. Well, with that said, I think it was much time to get into the show. Anything you want to say before we jump in, David, besides how awesome you are for sending me a surfboard. My two Hawaii rentals are pretty much up and running and just about ready to go. So I'm going to be in your market doing the short-term rental thing. Look at you.

I'm looking to buy more of them. So if anybody out there has experienced managing short-term rentals and they would like a job, please reach out to me because I'm looking to hire somebody to help. Actually, a couple of somebody's to help grow my portfolio. And we're going to be using some of the strategies that you will hear about in today's episode in my business personally. So this would be a great one to listen to if people are thinking about how they can expand their reach. There we go.

I love it, man. Well, I'm excited for your vacation rentals and we'll have to compare some notes. Let's get into today's show with John Rulin. All right, John, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. How you doing, man? I'm doing great, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so you're one of those guys that I heard you speak like, I don't know,

four years ago, maybe five years ago, a long time ago. And I was like, dang, this guy's awesome. I got to get him on the Bigger Pockets podcast. And then like we finally just made it happen now after four or five years. So I'm pumped. So today, hopefully our guests can kind of hear, I mean, our listeners can kind of hear why I was excited to get you on. So why do we start with, who are you?

Where'd you come from? What's your background? Yeah. Well, I think a lot of times when people hear giftology, they're like, really? Like, how did he end up on bigger pockets? And why is Brandon? Like, why would he give two rips about this giftology guy? And so the honest truth is I grew up, you know, not around nice gifts, not around nice things,

not around country clubs. I grew up in Ohio. I'm a farm kid at heart. I grew up on 47 acres in Ohio. Ohio, milk and goats every morning. So not one of this most sexy things on the planet. But I learned work ethic and grit and what I didn't want to do the rest of my life. And so like a lot of things that comes out of desperation, I wanted to get out of Dodge.

And my case was Delroy, town of 417 people. And he was going to go make my mom proud, be a doctor, Dio chiropractor. And my life shifted because of a mentor. And that mentor was radically generous. He was a rainmaker. He was a deal maker. And he was always giving things away. And so a lot of my, what I teach now, started from modeling what I saw in Paul.

Like he would find a deal on noodles and everybody at church the next Sunday would walk away with like 200 cases of noodles. And I'd be like, Paul, dude, that was 40 Gs. Are you nuts? And he was like, John, this is who I am. It's how I show up for people. Yeah. So that's a lot of my history goes back to being a farm kid in Ohio. Where did the inspiration for giving gifts?

Like, where did that come from? Yeah, well, I think I grew up, I'm introverted by nature and I grew up kind of insecure. I was the fat kid, the chubby kid, the husk, you know, back when J.C. Pennies had husky, you know, pants. Like I was that kid. I play basketball, but I, you know, I was the hustle kid. I was the guy that was like covered in sweat within like two seconds of working out. And so I was insecure. And when I saw Paul, who had these amazing relationships, I looked at him and I wanted to be him when I was 60. And I was 20 at the time. And so I pitched him the idea. He had all these clients that were like CEOs, you know, million dollar and billion dollar companies. They're all dudes. They all like the outdoors.

So I interned with Cutco had a desperation to pay for med school. So the cutlery company, I had no idea what Cutco was. And I thought maybe you'd have mercy on me and order pocket knives or $100 dollar pocket knives. So it's not like ones from China for 50 cents. And he got this twinkle in his eye. And he's like, John, can I order 100 of the pairing knives?

I'm like, you want to give a bunch, you want to give 100 dudes that are CEOs of like million and billion dollar like real estate companies and law firms and whatever else like a kitchen tool. I'm like why? And he said, John, the reason I have more deal flow, the reason I have more access, the reason I have more referrals than I can handle is I found out 35 years ago when I opened up a law firm that if you show up for people and show up for their family and take care of their family, everything else in business seems to take care of itself. So for me, I realized in that moment that it wasn't about the stupid nod. Although to this day, our gifting agency still does millions of dollars in the crazy knives. The knife was the delivery vehicle for an emotion. And it was how Paul remained top of mind. It was how Paul built a relationship with somebody's wife, where their assistant.

Like he understood the psychology, like Robert Chaldeini's concept of influence or persuasion. Like all of these psychological things, it wasn't tactical for Paul, but he got it. And so I was like, I want to have the relationships, the success, the access, that Paul has. And I, you know, I didn't grow up around country clubs. I didn't grow up around affluence. So I started to mimic Paul just to see if it worked. So I would find like a $200 million company I'd want to get a meeting with. I'd engrave like a three, four dollar cutco set, a couple knives with the CEO's name, his family name. And I'd put a little handwritten notice. I'd said carve out five minutes for me. I promise it'll be worth your time.

And two weeks later, I get the meeting. I'm 21. We're the one suit I have on, walk into these boardrooms and the CEO's jaws hit the ground. They're like, I thought you'd be like 55 years old, like some season sales executive like, what the hell are you doing here? And I said, they're like, are you the John Ruin that sent me the knives? I'm like, yes, sir. They're like, are you here to sell me knives? And I said, no, I'm here to help you and your thousand sales route to do exactly what I did to you to your top 10,000 investors or relationships or clients. And I started to land the largest deals cut code ever seen. They actually thought the orders were fraud because they would they called the CFO of cutco is the 300 million dollar company they're calling

me saying John what the hell are you doing with all these knives they thought I was selling them on eBay or overseas and I said no we're we're using the knives as a delivery vehicle to to use gratitude generosity not as this like woo woo check the box at Christmas thing but to actually like 1,000 x somebody's business or 100 x their referrals or get access to investors and they're like John we're a knife company what the what are you talking about and I'm like I'm using your product I'm plugging it into this strategy. And so by the time I was a senior in college, Cutco's worked with about 2 million sales reps in 70 years worldwide.

We became their number one rep and distributor in the history of the company. And that was when I decided to do the agency. I was like, screw med school and go and a half a million dollars in debt and going to school for another 10 years. I'm like, I don't know what an entrepreneur is, but I think I'm going to be one. And I'm at least giving it a shot. So that was 20 years ago. I've been doing it now. We call it Githology now, but a lot of it started back.

and these like grassroots levels of like working with these smaller companies and financial firms back 20 years ago in Ohio. So how do you define, I mean, giftology is the name of the company, right? But how do you define that word giftology? What does that mean? Giftology is a fancy way of saying love on people. Like I think that every business, whether you're a solopreneur, whether you're in real estate, whether you're in investments, whether you're a widget manufacturer, like most people's

businesses and lives rise and fall in relationships. And most people say they're about, it's like a cool buzzword. Say, oh, I'm all about culture and building people and pouring into people. But there's a huge disconnect. You know, it's like saying you're all about building a relationship with your wife. And then you only show up on anniversary's birthday's Christmas. Like you don't earn brownie points showing up your wife on like those are table stakes times. And so if you say you love somebody, if you say you care about them, then you have to,

your words and your actions, you know, show me your calendar and show me your dollar, your bank account, your checking account, and I'll tell you what your priorities are. And so really giftology is saying if you have a marketing plan, you have a financial plan, you have a workout plan, what the hell is your relationship plan? And most people, if they're honest with themselves, they don't have one. Even when I spoke at Google, they have like a deer in headlights look like, what are you talking about? I'm like, how are you going to show up for your relationships? Not at Christmas, not because they gave you a referral, not because those are transactions. That's a transactional thing. You show up for people because you want to.

to you show up for people because you chose to. You don't give them some crappy trinket with your logo on it. That's not a gift. That's not love. That's a manipulation. You're trying to get them to advertise for you. That's not gifting. That's not giftology.

Love is showing up for people and putting them first, not yourself. And when you do that, guess what? People send your referrals. People like Cameron Harold go out and sell you onto stages you don't deserve to be on. So giftology is really just a fancy way of saying love. but love in action and love like with intention and love like, you know, it's like giving, like you mean it, not as like a, oh crap, we made money. We should probably do something this year.

That's so good. All right. So I want to unpack everything and kind of do it in reverse order of what you just said because, I mean, I want to touch on Cameron Herald. I want to talk about the transactional and like the logos on trinkets, which I can't stand. But when I read your book, I was like, this is like this is it. Like this is what everybody does wrong because they're always just throwing their own company logo or they're giving me a t-shirt with their company on it. I'm like, I'm not going to wear

your company t-shirt. I'm going to wear my company t-shirt, right? But anyway, before we get- Yeah, before we get all there, let's go like, somebody's listening to this show right now going, wait a second, this is generally a real estate investor show. Like a lot of real estate investors listen to the podcast. Why should we care? Why should business people care about gift giving? What is this about giving your wife a gift? Like, maybe we go there. Why is this important for business owners, for entrepreneurs, for real estate investors, for real estate agents? Why is it important for that? Yeah, well, I think that, you know, I alluded to it, but like, you know, we all have people, clients, investors, mentors, employees, suppliers, vendors. Like, we all have people that we need them to act on our behalf, whether it's, you know, you know, showing up on time to finish a project or projects up against the wall.

We want our, we want our key investor that invested 50 grand to invest 100 grand the next time or to bring their family and friends along and bring, you know, one investor turns into five investors. We all want the real estate agent to like talk to somebody else about us. We all need, but right now in 2021, there's so much digital noise. Like we get TikToks and videos and texts and Facebook ads. Like most people are overloaded. So the noise is crazy. And if you try to have a pissing match and compete with other people in your industry and do the same things as everybody else does, which is dinners, rounds of golf,

ball, ball game tickets, Facebook ads, like we all follow the same playbook to try to stand out and build relationships. And so if you do the same things as everybody else does and try to compete there, it's just noise. Most people, gifting is just showing up for people. It's just it's saying, hey, I say you matter. I say I value. Like most people are like, oh, I appreciate your time. How did you show me that you appreciated your time?

Did you handwrite a note? Did you actually send me a check for the consulting that I just did for free? Like when people say, I want to pick your brain, I'm like, it's basically I want your time for free, which is the worst thing you could ask for somebody. So to me, the gift is a tangible representation of do I say and what I do, am I congruent? Am I consistent? And so whether it's your investor, whether it's your spouse, like as business owners, we all want people to go do something for us or to work for us or to advocate for us. And most people think there are seven out of ten on gratitude and appreciation.

And really, they're a negative three. Really, they suck at it. But nobody's telling them that the trinket with the logo, The polo shirt with a logo on it actually annoyed, frustrated, pissed off the person. Like, seriously, I did 100 grand with you and you sent me some piece of crap from China with a logo on it. That's how you show gratitude and appreciation that you value me as a human being. Like, to me, like, go back 5,000 years ago to like the Old Testament scrolls, kings would give other kings. Like 10,000 head of cattle.

Why? Because they understood the value of the relationship shows, like, what you place with that person. And if you want to get treated like a king, guess what? You should give like a king. And so gifting, nobody cares about gifts. Nobody's waking up at 4 a.m. to do their miracle morning saying, if I had a gifting strategy, my business would 10x. But we all would say, like, here's the dream 100 of relationships I'd like to have.

Here's the dream clients. Here's the dream vendors. Here's the centers of influence. Well, those are just people. And if you show up for those people in a unique, classy way, guess what? they want to go reciprocate. They want to show up for you. But if you do it the wrong way,

I was just with Vaynerchuk talking about this. And it's most people give to ask to get. That's not how you show up for people. That's a manipulation. It wasn't a gift. You gave and then said, you better refer me. His book was called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, because it was give, give, give,

and then you earn the right to ask. You don't earn the right to expect. So so many people are like, John, I did giftology? It doesn't work. And I'm like, did you really do it? And they're like, well, we did giftology-ish. I'm like, that's not the same.

If you bake bread 100,000 times, but every time you don't put yeast in, guess what you don't get? You don't freaking get bread. The little things in relationships determine whether or not you get the extra deal, whether you get somebody from 50,000 to 500,000. It's the little things that determine whether or not somebody trusts you or likes you or really wants to have your back. So that's why it matters. It's not about the gift. It's about what it communicates to the relationship. When I read your book Giftology, I remember what went through my head was Proverbs 1816 in the Bible,

where it says a gift opens the way for the giver and ushers them before great people. And there is absolutely something about it changes someone's heart when they receive a gift. That's why Kings would do it before other kings is it was valuable things that cost the person who is giving it something. That's really what makes it effective is that I know if you did something for me that cost you something, that involved a form of sacrifice. Now I feel sort of obligated or compelled to listen to what you have to say. My heart opens up because I saw, man, that stung what that person did, whether it was money or time or creativity, whatever it was they did as opposed to a trinket with a logo.

There's no sacrifice to that. It doesn't have the same effect. And I remember, John, you told us a story about what you did in Cameron Herald's hotel room that blew me away and has stood with me to this day. I think about that story frequently. Would you mind sharing how you expressed giftology with Cameron that opened the door for you to get into that relationship with him? Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think we all have the Camerons in our world. You know, whether it doesn't matter the industry. We have the pillar of the community, whether it's media, whether it's some wise sage, whether it's some major investor like that. We want to just not have as a client. We want them to be a mentor, an advisor, a referral source, somebody that's in our corner. And so Cameron was that for me. He's written five books. He coaches the shake of guitar in the free hundred companies. And I knew when I met him 15 years ago, I couldn't afford as like 20 or $30,000 a month coaching. And so like a lot of us, I did the dumb thing. I said, oh, he's coming to town. Let's take him to dinner and a ball game. That was the initial volley. So I invited him to. LeBron seats, you know, lower level at the calves. I'm like, we'll go to Mortons have this $500 steak dinner. We'll go to the Cavs game and we'll be brothers. But when I asked him to go, his response was the most underwhelming response every. He's like, I

I guess I'll go. Nothing else is going on. And I'm like, John, like, he's going to go on a hundred of these dinners. They all blend together. Nobody cares. They're fine. But nobody's like, oh, my gosh, you took me to a steak dinner and a ballgame. Like, if you're dealing with a person of affluence, they do that all the time. So I found out his favorite store was Brooks Brothers. And he was going to come into town and not have type of shop there. And so long story short is, I end up going to Brooks Brothers. Most people would say, oh, John, do you give him a gift card? I'm like, no. You don't tell somebody to go buy their own gift. I went and bought everything in the New Fall Collection in his size, jacket, suits, belts, pants, everything that Brooks Brothers made.

And then I went to the Ritz Carlton and had it outfitted in his hotel room to look like the Brooks Brothers store. And you can tell when I'm downstairs drinking like a triple on the rocks because my business partner was like, if this doesn't work, it's coming in, the seven grand comes out of your draw. And because he thought it was nuts. He's chiming in my ears. He's going to think you're a stalker. This is the dumbest idea.

He did this. This is like what we would spend on like, you know, 10 people. not one person. And so when Cameron got in, you could tell he didn't want to go to dinner or ballgame. He wants to go take a bathroom or shower and go to bed. And so when he came back down from the hotel room 20 minutes later, his eyes were the size of silver dollars. Like, John, whatever you want to talk about for as long as you want to talk about it, I'm all years.

I've never had anybody that's treated me in this way. Now, the kicker is most people would stop there. But the rest of the story is, I ended up for the next decade, continued. I invested about $25,000 into that relationship. full 10, 12 grand knife set, wine tools, whatever else. People are like, John, why would you keep going? You already had them at Brooks Brothers. And I said, well, two things.

One is when you show up for people, a long after you have to is when it means the most. Most people do the crazy thing. And then once they get the wife, the client, they stop trying. They're like, oh, we got them. I wanted Cameron to go and run through walls for me. I wanted him to be there when I needed him to pick up the phone. And so before I was begging to speak for free, Cameron started to say, when he get double book for a speaking day. You'd like, you got to book John. And so, you know,

Facebook ads, maybe we hire a couple sales reps. We're hoping to get like maybe a three X on our money, a five X on our money, return on investment. We're looking at things and saying, hey, the return on relationship dominates ROI. ROR dominates R.O. Because Cameron went and opened these doors. The ROR of that relationship over the last 10 years is 50X. Show me a place in your business where you can invest a dollar and get $50 back out. And I'll wait. There's no other place other than human beings. Not a software, not a whatever.

It's humans that allow us to open doors to get other investors. It's a human-to-human connection. I don't care if you're in real estate or if you're in widget or insurance or pro sports. It's human beings. And so Cameron, like literally today, he's like, hey, here's another speaking gig. I can't do it. You should do it. I mean, it's been 15 years.

But that relationship, I have, I want to turn every single client I have into a Cameron. I want them to go not just be loyal. I want them to go be actively loyal, which means they can go sell with five words, better than a sales rep that I pay 200 grand to go sell, could ever do with 5,000 words. And so that's the power of loving our relationships and playing the true long game. I want to make a quick, like, example in the real estate space, how we're applying this. Because again, I read your book, I loved it. And I've tried to find little ways to put this in.

But just recently we've done a lot more of this. And I almost don't want to say this because I hate to give away, like, what's working so good for us. But like what we're doing is like, so I have a company called Open Door Capital. We mostly buy mobile home parks, but we're getting into some other big things like apartments. And that world is closely guarded by like a number of brokers, like these like guys who are like residential real estate. There's a million real estate agents. But brokers who sell mobile home parks. There's like a handful of good ones, like a couple dozen, right?

So we just wrote these guys down, like there are guys. So now we just, we send them stuff. And again, like I hate to say it, but I'll say it. We send them like painted coconuts. And it's a stupid thing. But you know, the U.S. Postal Service will send a coconut. I live in Hawaii, right? So it's a, it's a funny, stupid thing where they get a coconut.

They open their mailbox and there's just a coconut sitting there with a sticker on the outside from the postal service. And it's, it's ridiculous. But they always call us. and they laugh and they take pictures and they post it on their social media and they put it on their shelf and they're like, this is a painted coconut with like a sunset on it and a little like,

it's ridiculous, but it works. And now when they, when they got a deal across their plate, they look up and they see the coconut and they call us because it's not a stupid trinket, it's not our logo. It's just a cool, funny, like thing. And it costs us a lot of money to send that.

Like to find the coconuts, to get them dried out and to paint them and do all that work. If I had an intern, that was his only job basically, one of his only jobs was to do the coconut thing. and it works. Yeah, it's a purple cow. It's Seth Godin's concept of being the purple cow. Even if it costs $2,000, even if it costs $2,000, even if it costs $2,000. Yeah, it wouldn't matter. And that's where people, like, they'll spend money on employees. They'll add overhead on employees.

They'll hire a couple employees at a half a million dollars in overhead. They'll invest in Facebook ads, a quarter million bucks. And they're like, John, two grand for a gift or $200 for gift. I'm like, you'll pick up a bar tab in Vegas for $2,000. Nobody cares. They don't remember a week from now, but you won't spend $2,000 on one of your most valuable relationships. Are you insane? Like, it's a math equation. And that's where it's not a woo-woo, like, just hold hands. Like, what you're doing is brilliant because nobody freaking does that kind of stuff. Really does work. Go ahead, David. Can I play devil's advocate here? Fire away, man. I think John has probably more experience than anyone we know dealing with this

study of gifts, giftology, right? What many people will do is they will hear this and they will see the logic and say that makes sense. I can buy a coconut and I can get $10,000 return on it. The problem is the gift opens the door. It does not guarantee that what is behind that door is actually a value to the person you're talking to. And that's sort of what I wanted to ask you, John, is do you have stories of people who've done this the wrong way that tried to substitute a poor product or a poor value and say, well, I'm going to make up for it with a great gift? so they get the meeting and then they freaking crap the bed because they weren't prepared for it. Have you seen that?

Yeah. So 80% of the gifting that we do is more market. 80% of the people that come to us want to do cold market. And here's why. Cameron's a great example. I had the open door with Cameron. He was going to go out of dinner with me. Most people use the gift to get the access.

But the specialness of it is when you already have the access and you pour the, you know, there's already a fire to there. The goal is to make that a bonfire. Most people want to do like the Dream 100, like the ultimate salesman seat, Chet Holmes. I love his book and it's works. But I hate his, the one part of that book that I think is wrong is he says for 18 months, send a trinket every month every two weeks. It's a chachkee. It's a stress ball. It's a coozy. It's a, you know, whatever. And to me, like if you're a world class brand or you say your first class or best in class, which everybody says, nobody says we're mediocre for the masses. No, we're the best of this, whether it's financial advisors or whatever else. And then we send somebody a coozy or a box of peanut brittle or a gift

card or something stupid that's not like, it's not congruent with what you say that you are on the prospecting side. And then on the client side, it's the same thing. So 80% of the clients that we work with, it's how do we take, even like my employees. Most people are like, they'll treat their clients or their prospects like the Ritz Carlton. And then, their clients or their employees get like the motel six level treatment. I'm like, that's the dumbest thing in the world. Why would you not treat your employees? Like, you can't expect them to give Ritz-Carlton service if they never stayed at the Ritz Carlton. So our employees, we send them to the Four Seasons or the Ritz. So they can experience what that's like. We do crazy things for

them. Like every employee that works for us, every other week, they get their house clean. They can't take the cash. It's just how we show up for them. Cost us $2,500 an employee. It gives us $25,000 with a value because they would never do it for themselves. So to me, yeah, I see people all the time that will like try to use gifting to your point. Like they have a, you know, they're not that great of a financial advisor or whatever else. I'm like, how about you answer your phone when the client calls before, like, gifting is just going to piss people off and say, why are you doing this? Like, have a good product, have a good service. The gift should be the cherry on top of the Sunday. It should be the thing that's like, I already liked you. Now I love you. And whether that's

an investor or whether that's a supplier. I buy Cutco tens of thousands of dollars with the gifts every year. And people are like, but you buy millions of dollars from them. I'm like, I learned from one of our clients, O.C. Tanner, they're like 800 million dollar company out of Utah. When Rolex comes to town, they buy tens of millions of dollars of Rolex. They buy dinner. And I said, why? And they said, we don't have a business without Rolex. We don't have a business without Bose. We don't have a business without. And so they treat the, even the people that they're spending money with like gold because they want their best. They want to treat them and flip the script. And so I've done the same thing. Anybody that we spend money with,

we buy them gifts. I want their best ideas. When I'm in a pinch or, you know, backs against the wall, I want them to advocate for me. Some of our best referral sources are our suppliers because they're going out of their way to make sure that we win because we show up for them in a way. We don't treat them like crap because they're our supplier. We treat them like gold because we want them to be our supplier and we want them to run through all. So I think most people use this as a external prospecting campaign and they leave billions of dollars on the table by not taking care of the people that are already in their camp and pouring gasoline on that fire. So what about someone like me that's a little more introverted, a little more focused on our goals? I get gifts from people. They'll send me a book.

They think that they'd like me to read a coffee mug. It's very nice things. I'm not trying to sound rude at all. But when it comes in, it's sort of a blip on my radar and I almost get a feeling like, oh, man, now I got to talk to this person because they sent me something. I don't want to feel bad. But it had nothing to do with what my goals were. What I would really love is, hey, I know an agent who'd be great to work on your team or, hey, I know someone who wants to sell their house or whatever it is that I'm currently focused on in the moment. Do you have any advice for those people who are trying to get in the door and they're sending cut co knives to a person who like never is even home? They Airbnb their way through life and they're never at someplace so that they can make wise

decisions with their money. Yeah. So, I mean, the knives work in most situations if somebody's married and has kids or has like spent time at home. The reason I, it's not like we work in a lot of dudes markets, finance, real estate, investing, oil and gas, pro sports teams. It's a, you know, it's a married white dude club. But most of those people have spouses.

I don't care about the guy. Like the guy likes bourbon. I don't care. Everybody sends him bourbon. I don't care if he likes golf. Everybody sends him golf stuff. I want to know, like, is he married? Or is she married?

Like, I want to take care of what I call the inner circle. So, David, if I was trying to get to you, I would say, who's on David's team that I can love on that's way underappreciated? Is he married? Is he this? Because I could invest $1,000 in those people and have it translate to $100,000 people on the $100,000 on the back end because the bar is really low for the inner circle. There's four buckets.

spouse is one of them, kids, pets, and team. So the reason we've landed almost six-figure speaking gigs isn't because the CEO, it's because I treated the event planner or the assistant or the chief of staff at the same level as the CEO. And they're like, we've never been treated this way before. What do they do? They become a sales rep for giftology. They become a sales rep for our client because they're being treated like a peer,

not a pawn, not a gatekeeper. So, yeah, I mean, if you're sending knives to somebody that's never home, that's a dumb move. But if you send something to somebody's assistant who is always home, and you don't use it as a manipulation, you're saying, hey, I realize that you're probably wearing the hat of three different people. And I know you're busy. I want to acknowledge the fact that, like, I love five minutes of so-and-so's time. And, you know, if there's ever a gap in his calendar, I'd love to get on that. But in the meantime, thank you for the time that you're even considering opening this package and reading this. And when I, I want to, basically you're, it's like Vaynerchuk,

you're pre-buying their attention. You're saying what I'm saying and what I'm doing actually shows that I'm probably different than everybody else that's trying to get around you and bribe you. I'm trying to say, hey, your time's valuable. I respect that. I want to treat you like a person. And so even the way you communicate with your note that comes to somebody shows you that you either have like the emotional intelligence to put yourself in that person's shoes or to are you just really trying to be a douchebag and trying to like bribe and buy your way into things. People can feel and tell the intent, even based upon when you're sending it, what's in the note, all that kind of stuff. And that's where people completely crapped the bed and say,

I did giftology. It didn't work. I'm like, no, you didn't. You're manipulating. And you can't be an asshole and like give great gifts and think that that's going to cover things up. It's just not how life works. That was brilliant. Yes. That was really good. Because I think Brandon and I, our businesses are really built on these pillars of team members that support us. So we, we stand up and we deliver this message, but the higher we are, the more people we can reach. So we're always looking for pillars to stand on to get higher. And our fear is that that pillar is going to give out. They're going to get overworked. They're going to get burned out. They're going to feel and appreciated and we didn't realize it. It's hard to know. So if you go and you strengthen one of

my pillars, oh man, that is exactly right. John, you're good at this. I'm glad we have you on the show because that was a perfect answer to that question. Yeah, man, you want to be, you want to make them the hero. You want to be the hero. You want to help them be the hero to the people that they've value most. It's why the knives work. It's why the crazy $1,000 mugs work. You're trying to tap into the people around them and strengthen them because we all have our inner circles. And most people do the opposite. They treat them like crap versus edified and build them up and love on them. One of my team members, Mike Williams, he's like my investor relations guy. He always says, yeah, you can send me, I always say, he said to me, you can buy me a gift and I'll be like,

oh, that's great. But if you get my, like, if you bless my kids, like, if you change my kids life somehow like I'm gonna remember you forever and I remember like it's such a true thing like when you do something when somebody does something for my wife or my kids or something now I'm not saying I mean please get this everyone listening to show please don't go and send my kids a bunch of gifts they don't need anything right now but like the idea being yeah when you honor someone else's family that's really powerful but on the other hand I have a question on related how do you send a good gift and then what's the next step how do you make sure because you're not putting your logo all over it's just a knife how do I make sure that that person uh that that relationship would have

worked, the gift would have worked. So most people think they, you know, they did the giftology thing by sending one knife. And what I would say is that most of our clients are looking to show up for people repetitive because you can show up for somebody once. It's like the jab. But you got a jab again, you got a jab again. So our biggest clients are the guys that are hiring us to do things for all their employees or all their investors are saying, hey, we want to show up more than once a year because check the box is once a year. Our best relationships are doing things once a quarter. So in that instance, like, I'm never sending one knife. I'm taking the full $5,000, $10,000 cutco set for a client.

And there's one knife and then three months later, another knife. We might build them the whole cutco collection, but it might be like Jeffrey Gidimer is a great example. I sent him 18 gifts over 18 months. I built them the whole $5,000 knife set, but I dripped over. You get 18 gifts from somebody and you have the whole set sitting on your countertop. That's different than one thing. And also, like, if it's engraved a certain way. So like Tony Robbins, we did a gift for it.

The client wanted to honor him. Like, how do you take care of Tony Robbins? He's got everything in the world, right? It didn't use. So we took a knife set. It was a $7,500 knife set. What made it special and unforgettable was on all 40 knives. We engraved 80 of his quotes of wisdom that he had spoken over 40 years.

And so now it's an artifact. Now it's an heirloom. And Sage, Tony's wife, reached out to the client of ours and said, this will be fought over someday by our kids and grandkids based upon not the knives, although they're awesome. It's the meaning and the story that's put into every single blade that made it irreplaceable. And then we put it inside a crazy box with a video screen and all this other stuff to make it really like a production value over the top. But to me, like you don't do something once if a relationship's important. It's like with your wife or your kids, like you're showing up

for them over and over again. And so to me, like, you have to have a continuity plan. You have to have a true plan where you're saying, I'm going to drip on these people three times a year. And if you do that, you don't have to put your logo on it because they'll, you're basically making deposits in that bank account to where every time they see the knife without a logo or the mug or whatever, they're subconsciously remembering who the relationship was that gave it to them. Let's just say, you know, we're in the real estate space. Let's say we close a big deal. and a real estate agent helped me close this deal. So I send the agent something really nice,

a cut code knife set. That's what you call transactional, right? That's not what you're talking about. Is that correct or is that part of what you're talking about? How does like the thank you for doing something nice for me, here's a gift. What's the difference? Yeah.

So to me, like the timing matters. So what I would do is, you know, send the handwritten notes, send the thank you. If you want to do something small, then great. But when you show up for people at a time that they're not expected, it. So for me, like, I'm trying to love on the relationships before they send me a deal, before they would refer me. Or, like, if I was building a home or if I was doing something for a realtor, I would do something small then, but six months later, I'd do something else.

Or I would continue to add on to the set, or 12 months or 18 months. So we have a home builder that builds a few hundred homes a year. They do the typical closing transactional gift, which is like a basket of some stuff. And then we hit every single person for them at month six. And nobody is expecting something. from their builder at month six. They're like the transaction happened. We moved in, you know, paid a million dollars or half a million dollars or whatever for the house. And so I would time it out with the realtor. Do something thoughtful, you know, handwritten note, whatever else. But then say, you know what? I'm going to budget five or 10 percent of this deal.

And I'm going to love on them for the next five years. Because if you can show up for people way after the deal is done, they realized this wasn't a transactional relationship. This was I wanted to show up for this person because I chose to, not because I had to. And so that's where people mess up is they do something right after the deal, right after the referral. And then it feels like a tit for tat, which completely ruins the impact of what you're trying to get accomplished. That's cool.

If you own a large or complex rental property, congrats. And I'm also sorry. One day you're building a portfolio. The next, you're reconciling six accounts, five states, four LLCs, three partners, two property managers, and running your portfolio. starts to feel like running a median-sized accounting firm. And if you got into this to get your time back, that's not ideal. That's when you need Stessa Pro.

Stessa Pro is built for investors who've outgrown other tools. One dashboard, every property, every entity, real-time performance, clean reporting, tax-ready documents in a click. If your portfolio has grown up, it's time your tools did so too. Go to stessa.com slash mkTG slash bigger pockets to try Stessa Pro and get six months free. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast?

Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites. Indeed, sponsored job posts help you stand out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed, get 45% more applications.

the non-sponsored post. The best part, no monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash rookie. Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now and support. our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply.

Hiring Indeed is all you need. Wouldn't it be great if your houseplants paid rent while you were out of town? I mean, they've got the whole place to themselves, lots of sunlight, zero responsibilities. But no, they just sit there waiting for someone to spray them with some cool mist like a bunch of leafy loafers. But guess what? Your home actually could be earning you money while you're not there. Airbnb has a great feature called the co-host network, which makes hosting your home so easy. If you live far from your property or are away for extended periods, you can hire a local co-host to take care of the hosting for you.

These co-hosts are vetted locals who already have experience hosting on Airbnb. A co-host can handle all the details like messaging guests, creating your host space, and managing reservations. So everything runs smoothly. It's a practical way to earn a little extra money, maybe even some cash toward your next trip. Plus, you get to share your place with someone traveling to your area while you're off making memories somewhere else. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. What type of gifts make the best gifts have you found?

I know we've kind of talked about cutco knives and like some things are not trinkets, but are there some examples that you're like, yeah, this is a type of gift as we're thinking about gifts. So, I mean, the reason that knives work is because almost everybody, whether they make 50 grand a year or $5 million a year, like if you think about what's common amongst humanity in 2021 is when you, if somebody's close to you, a family, a friend, a client, whatever else, where do you invite them? bite them over to your home and you break bread with them. You have food, wine. Like, it's still very central to us as human. So anytime I can tie something to somebody's kitchen into the hub of the house, it's a win. But most people, when they do, like, the knives, they mail it in.

They don't do the handwritten note. They don't do the engraving. They don't package it well. They're like, oh, cut code is fine, but it's too expensive. I'm just going to get the knockoff set from Target. They don't go best in class with the item. Like, if you were going to go to somebody's house, you would not expect a million dollar a house to have like some generic stove. It's going to have a wolf or a Viking or whatever else. So like whatever you're giving, like it needs to be best in class in that category. So if I'm going to do a wine tool, I'm not going to do a $25 wine tool from bed bath and beyond. I'm going to take this beautiful bottle of wine that might cost maybe it's an opus one bottle for 500 bucks. But I'm going to pair that with a code 38 wine tool,

which is like $5 to $700. And then I'm going to $1.00. And then I'm, I'm going to take the extra step to make sure that the person's autograph, their signature is carved into the titanium. And I'm going to make sure there's a handwritten note with it. So so many people focus on the what and the what is step number seven. Like guys are the worst at this. It's like, hey, what's cool and sexy and hot to give us a gift? And I'm like, that's number, that's step seven, the who you're giving it to. Who's their inner circle. When would it mean the most. Like that whole, there's a, there's a, there's a, a methodology. There's a step by step process to get to the what, the what's the delivery vehicle. And, and so if your tribe wants to go

steal our entire methodology, I don't even know if you guys know this, but like we created this whole like blueprint. It's, if you go to giftology system.com, they can download the entire blueprint of what we walk the cubs through, what we walk realtors through. It doesn't matter. But all the little things leading up to the what matter more than the what itself. And what I would say is, you know, I would rather, like, people are like, oh, I'm going to give a watch. I want to be on somebody's wrist. And I'm like, that's cool. What kind of watch you're going to give?

They're like, oh, we're going to give this really nice $200 fossil. And I'm like, what, tell me about your clients. Tell me about your employees. They're like, oh, they're, you know, they're ballers. And I'm like, so they wearing like Rolex or Brightling? They're like, yeah. Like, you think you're $200, you know, fossil? Do you think they're going to take their Rolex off?

Even if you, it's the nicest fossil in the world, I'm like, I would rather take instead of a $500 watch to an affluent client or a hundred of them, I'd rather give somebody a $100 luggage tag. And they're like, why would you do that? I'm like, most people have a $2 luggage tag at best. If you go and give them a $100 luggage tag that was handmade from this leather, it has this story, it's horroly leather, and it's brass and their name and their family name and one for their spouse, a $100 luggage tag is going to be more valuable to an affluent client

than a $500 watch because it's way above what they could. currently have and they'll actually use it. I want a practical luxury. I want scalable thoughtfulness. Like, it's both and, like, you know, it's not hard to give one gift really well. It's difficult if you want to try to scale this and have impact when you're giving it to 100 people or 500 people in the same, the way that, you know, most people don't need more crap in the U.S. or even globally, like most people are going, like during the pandemic, they're cleaning out their house and they're going to goodwill with all this crap. They just have. stuff. But we all have room for an artifact. You know, if somebody sends, you know, even Tony

Robbins, like you send them a set of knives with all of his quotes on it, and that's an artifact. That's not going, that's not getting regifted. You send somebody a $100 luggage tag that's personal to them and their family, not getting regifted. And so it's being, it's going all in on things in making it the best possible that you can make it and making sure that you're not forgetting the ingredients of the handwritten note, which provides meaning and thoughtfulness and context. so it doesn't feel like it was just automated on Amazon. Nobody wants things that are automated. We all want to be treated like an individual, even if we are scaling it.

So I don't know if that answers your question or not, but that, like, if you can go all in on the little things and make it actually useful versus a paperwork, people like, I want something in their office. I'm like, people have all kinds of crap in their office. Maybe it, you know, like the coconut, maybe that sticks around. But I would much rather get into the family's hands where they're talking about it, day at home. Now the client's talking about you with their family and their friends and you're getting woven into like their bar mitzvah or their first communion or Christmas. Like, you want to talk about like destroying the competition. It's like if you can get the family buzzing about you and they've never even met you before, guess what? You're probably going to get

invited to, you know, holidays. You're going to vacation together. Like that's how you get really, really deep with this and destroy people. Be like, how the hell did they get in with that broker? Well, they connected at an emotional level, not just at an intellectual level. What about things like, I'll give you a few examples. I'm curious of what you think of these gifts ideas. Like a book, like, send me just a book, like, hey, I think you'd like this book. Is that a good idea? And then secondly, it would be like, what about like an expensive gift card?

Like, hey, a thousand dollar gift card on a Delta Airlines, let's say. Or what about like, hey, I'm going to take you golfing? Like, what are those like three types of things? Like an experience, an expensive gift card or like a book? I have a top 10 list of the worst gifts to give. and gift cards are one of them, promotional products are one of them, food is one of them. And for different reasons. Food, you know, you spend 200 bucks or 50 bucks and it's consumed.

You get one impression from it. That's not a good investment. I want somebody to get a thousand impressions. That's why I also don't like experiences by themselves because they go out to dinner, they go on the trip, whatever. What's the trigger that reminds them of that? They need something, most people are visual and they need something tangible to be reminded of.

So I like an amazing once in a lifetime experience combined. with a couple artifacts that remind them of the story and remind them to tell the story and whatever else. Because at the end of the day, it's the story that spreads and plants into their head. So a book for some people is great, but most people, here's what I found. And maybe you guys have this. Almost every executive person you want to influence has the should read list either in their office or on their nightstand of like 37 books. And there's guilt. On my nightstand, yeah. Yep. There's guilt of like, I should be getting through all these books, but I can't get through all of them.

So you're basically giving them gift guilt or obligation of like, oh, I got to say thank you for this book. But now I got homework. You just gave me homework. Now, so the way that I've superseded this, and this is before we met or this was after we met. But I realized that everybody has the should read list. And there's 30,000 books published on Amazon every week. 30,000 new titles. And I'm like, I want my book to jump the list.

I want somebody to be so intrigued to want to read the book. This is like my Bible. It's not a vanity play. Giftology was made to be like my playbook for the next 50 years. And so I'm like, how can I make it something that people want to read? And it was self-published, by the way. And so my first 50 copies were $250 each. And they were handmade monogram to the person to their spouse.

They were in a leather bag. They were in a linen box. And they went to Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, John Maxwell, guys that were either clients, friends or people I wanted to be my friends. And I didn't ask them for anything. I wrote on a piece of steel, thanks for what you've done in the world and what you've contributed. I just want to say thank you. Michael Hyatt, who has a huge following, he's got, he's like, John, I get four or five thousand books sent to me every year and I don't read any of them.

They all go to Goodwill or the library. Not only did I read your book, my wife, Gail, has already read it, and I ordered 25 copies from my team. It's the best package book I've ever seen, and it's actually really good. So what I would say is, if you're going to send a book, we now order those, by the way, thousands at a time. anytime my client wants to send books to their relationships, now when they get it, they're like, they look cool because they're sending a book in a way that's never been seen. So we actually have two versions higher than that. One is $300 has a video screen built into it.

One is $2,000 that comes in this crazy chest, wood, mahogany, it's crazy. But so what I'd say about the book is, if you're going to send a book, make sure that it's packaged in such a way with a note or a video or something that makes somebody feel special so that they actually like, it's viewed. differently than the other 20 books they got that year. That'd be number one. That's cool. The gift card, to me, would be better if you're going to do a gift card or are you going to do the Delta, $1,000,000, anybody can afford the $1,000. What I would do is find, if you're going to do that specifically, you know, go and save one of your clients having their 50th birthday party, go fly their kid in from Alaska to the party. That's a better use of $1,000 because you're doing, you're creating an experience and maybe the kid wouldn't show up or whatever else.

Like that to me is a better use of $1,000 versus, hey, here's a piece of plastic. Now you've got to remember to use it. Once again, it's guilt because we all have our Starbucks and our Amazon and our whatever cards that we're like, we forget to use and we lose them. And it's just pain in the butt. It's a hassle. What was the other one that you asked about? Yeah, basically, yeah, book experience and gift card.

Yeah, so the experience, I think is awesome if you do it world class with an artifact. It's not one or the other. It's both in. most people do like, hey, we're going to take all of our clients out for wine. And it's like, how is that different than every other wine experience they've had? If you want to do, like my buddy Eddie Osterlin's the first Master Somme in the U.S. ever, when I do a wine event, I bring him in because anybody that's into wine, like sits at the feet of Eddie. And like, you know, grove, like they're basically like foaming at the mouth that they get to hang out with the Master Somme.

And then he plans the whole food and wine experience. It's like eight courses. and then he speaks on his book called Power Entertainment and teaches people to use food and wine as a competitive advantage. That, combined with an artifact, makes somebody say, I don't ever want to go to another wine event again unless Eddie's there. That, to me, is a way that you take an experience that most people like,

oh, we're going to do a food and wine pairing. Like, who cares? Like, what makes it special? What makes it worth telling a story about? And it's usually like dialing it up and doing it instead of for like 200 people, do it amazing for 30. And don't be a cheap SOB when you do it. do it well or don't do it at all. Oh, my buddy, my buddy Yeshua out here in Hawaii. He has a

company called Kiavi Outdoor and that's what they do. He's like a Psalm as well. And they do these like fine dining on a field out on the on the side of a volcano. It's like 25, 30 people and like the thing's stupid expensive. I mean, just stupid expensive, right? But I think I've hired him now seven or eight times. I'm doing another one tomorrow night just from my real estate team out here because I'm like, I just love doing it. And it's such an amazing experience that everyone walks away going like that was like, because it's yeah, food and wine and. And. A small group of people, it's amazing. So yeah, I think my buddy would get along with your buddy well.

It's a once in a lifetime experience. It's a once in a lifetime experience, yeah. It's not, hey, I'm going golfing to the same place we always go. It's, hey, I'm going to fly you in on a helicopter to Pebble Beach. And we're going to do this thing that you're going to still be talking about 20 years later. Like, to me, that's how you do an experience and make it pay off because now everybody else, there's a waiting list of wanting to come hang with you at that thing. Because you made it such a unique experience that they would normally never spend the money on.

or whatever else, it seemed crazy, expensive. But yeah, I mean, that volcano dinner, like, dude, if I'm in Hawaii, I want to come to that. It's so good. It's so good. Last thing, before we move on, maybe, you mentioned a book with a screen in it. Can you explain that real quick? Is that like an iPad, like play something? Like, what is that?

Yeah, so we did, it's, we ordered 500 of them. So it's the same VIP $250 book, but we built, we ordered a bunch of them. But when they open it, immediately there's a seven-inch screen staring in the face. and it has a light sensor so it automatically starts playing. Well, most people would be like, oh, I'm just going to put some same video, generic video of like sizzle reel on it. What I do is that a client or I myself uploads a custom video. So for you, it would be like, hey, Brandon, super excited to be on the show. We can't wait to cover these things in the book.

This is going to be amazing. You're like, damn, like, this is made. This was made for me. And so that to me makes somebody get excited about what the book is. the book is even about. To me, like how the cover feels. You know, like we do a $5 metal. Now we do like a bookmark that's made out of metal in it.

People like, well, how would you spend that much on a bookmark? And I'm like, well, after they read the book, most people want a bookmark. Now they're taking this something that has my stuff on it and actually using it because it's the nicest bookmark they've ever seen. And so the video screen to me makes it stand out from all the crap that we get. And being able to upload a custom video to it, guarantee. that my message is going to get across to the busy executive or to the client. So I sent a couple of of Vaynerchuk's team, his assistant directors of marketing. And they reached back out

to like, John, we've seen a lot of stuff. We've never seen a book package this way. Magically, guess what happened a week later? John Rulin shows up with the CMOs of Fortune 500 companies on marketing for the now. I'm sure everybody that's watching is like, who the hell is John Rulin? and why is he getting, why is Gary interviewing him? Well, well, like we showed up for six years differently and eventually like people are like, yeah, we want John on the show. And so it's people like, $300 for a book is a lot. And I'm like, no, it's not.

You can't even take somebody out to a nice dinner with wine at an okay restaurant for 300 bucks. $300 to get your ideal relationships to take notice and actually consume your content. It's a rounding error. This is a funny thing about it's human nature, right? is we look at things like that apple is $4. I'm not going to buy the apple for $4 because normally they're only a dollar. But in real, like, because we put like these percentages to things like, I'm not going to pay

four bucks for an apple. When you'll go spend $100 on some on dinner, right? So like the idea of being like, yeah, it might cost $2,000, like you said earlier, might spend $2,000 for a gift for somebody, but you'll spend $50,000 on an employee. And the $50,000 is okay to spend on an employee because of our preconceived. It's all expectations, right? Like all expectations. Yeah, I expect this.

And so, yeah. But that's where the gift thing comes. and so powerful is if you can completely blow past people's expectations of what a gift should be, it just, it makes an impact. You can spend less money on your company as a whole. If you would redirect marketing dollars and HR dollars and advertising dollars and just take a sliver, 20% of it and spend, yeah, I mean, we spent $5 on a cup of coffee, but 50 years ago, you know, that would have been like an impossibility.

That would have been like a million dollars. But we've become used to spending $5 on a cup of coffee. So it's not, it's like, it's not even a. consideration, most people's conceived notion of what a gift should be is 50 bucks. What do you have for $50? I'm like, you just spent a half a million dollars on advertising to reach, hoping to reach people. How about you spend, you know, half that on the people that you actually do want to engage with? And you'll save a quarter million dollars. Yep. So it's, yeah, the math is so silly. It's such a, but, you know, it's to your point, it's, it's perception. It's all it is. I think about contractors, you know,

as a real estate investor, we deal with contractors constantly. And it's the hardest part of our job probably is contractors, right? Because they don't show up on time and they're lazy and they blah, blah, blah. But like if I gave my contractor a $5,000 gift regularly, like, because I'm spending hundreds of thousands of dollars with them all the time. I mean, like mass amounts of money. But like, like that contractor is going to love me. And then when they need something, when it's something done, like who are they going to go

and show up for first, the guy who gives them the stupid good gifts or the guy who give them the $50 gift card to Starbucks. Like they're going to, you say jump, they say how high. And you know, and you can take advantage or you can do it the right way and love on people and do it the right. And invest in them. And they'll want to do it anyway. I mean, that's the like I've seen it happen with a logistics company. They're buying shipping from UPS and FedEx, all these big companies. And so they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars, but their competitors are

spending billions. And they would love, they would hold this event and they would send gifts to these guys at these shipping companies. And guess who got the best pricing in the industry by about 1%. Well, 1% is not a big deal until you multiply at times $200 million. Now of a sudden, what do they have dropping to the bottom line? Two million bucks. So even if they spend a half a million dollars on those relationships, they just put an extra million and a half dollars into their pocket by being a good person, by being thoughtful, by being loving, by being generous. And to your point, the level of service that they got, like, crushed everybody else. Like, it's not rocket science, but we just, we don't ever connect the dots of where we should be

showing up and where we should be redirecting our focus and our dollars because it seems like a weird, cheesy, like, really, I'm going to become a great gift giver? Like, how does that apply to business? but your contractor example in real estate is like a spot on one. What I love about this is when the gift is expensive and it costs you something, it forces you to be intentional about who you're going to give it to, how you're going to follow up, and actually forming the relationship.

If I spend $5,000 on this gift, I'm going to form a relationship. That's what it's opening the door. As opposed to the business card model, which is let me spend a couple hundred bucks on something meaningless and just throw it around to everyone I know. There's something cyclical. logically relevant about forcing yourself to be intentional about what direction you're going to take,

why you want that relationship, how it's going to benefit you, how you're going to benefit them, which is frankly just a better way to run business and live life is with intention. I say all the time, I can't think of one good relationship, friendship, anything that I fell into accidentally, that I did not look at this person and say, I want to be in a relationship with them. That was good. All of my best relationships was I saw something in someone and I said, I like them. I like their character. I like their style. I like what they stand for. And I pursued it. And when the gift costs you something, you get a lot of clarity really quick about who you're going to be given it to. Yeah. I mean, it's like what you get for free. What you pay for, you pay attention, right?

I mean, that's, and that goes for masterminds. That goes for coaching. That goes for consulting. That goes for gifts. So like to your, yeah, 100% when you are investing thousands or tens of thousands or millions of dollars, like you're looking at those and saying, am I, you know, And you can overanalyze it. I do see people do that where they're like, they get paralysis of like, oh, should I give this out? And I'm like, let's just say you do it for 100 people and 10 of them pay off. What would that produce in revenue or income? And they're like, oh, it would be millions of dollars.

And I'm like, then don't over. Like if you give an extra, like we have this all the time where somebody's like, well, this company, we have 30 relationships. I'm like, what's that company worth you? And they're like, ah, $3 million. I'm like, then invest in 30 gifts. Show 30 people that you love them. Like, who cares if you added one person that should be on the list for 500 bucks?

It's like if you were taking them out to dinner, you wouldn't say, oh, we can only take 18 people, but 20's too much. No, you'd say, who else wants to come? We want to, we want to have wide and deep relationships within this company, within this contract, within this provider. And so many people get so cheap and they're like Penny Wise and pound foolish. They're like, oh, I don't want to send too many gifts. And I'm like, I mean, for us, like, I'm like, add another five people on. Like my personal gifting budget, you know,

went from $500 a month when I was in college to now this year would be about $650 grand. And when I can add more people to the list, I get excited because I'm like, if that person has a key contact leaves, I want three other people there to still be buzzing about the relationship. And so it's, but yeah, if you spend, if you spend, if you spend. spend money on people, you're way more intentional, you're way more thoughtful, and, you know, the payoff is way greater. Yeah, especially if you're trying to get Brandon's daughter Rosie to not run away from fear every time she sees you. That's been my one Trojan horse that I've used to get that little girl to like me, and you got to show up with a present. Yep, and she remembers it.

She's like, oh, you're scary, but that toy's not so scary. Maybe I'll give you a second look. There's something to that. Bald man is good. Bald man good. Yes. Yeah. So, John, is this what your company does? It's like, because like, okay, when I think of like, when I first heard you talk about this, I was like, yes, I'm going to start doing this. And then I just kind of didn't. I mean, once in a while I'll bring it up. Like I said, the coconut and I've done some contractor stuff and some title company stuff,

but not much. Is that because like, is this what we hire you for as you take care of that stuff for us? I don't have to think about it. Is that the idea? Yeah. I mean, most people have good intentions and those, you know, never get executed upon. So people are like, oh, yeah, we should do this. But how do I handwrite those notes?

how do I engrave 200 gifts or 20 gifts? Like, it's not hard, you know, anybody can be great at this, really. Like, if a goat-milking farm kid can do this, anybody can do it. But most people focus more on their fantasy football league than they do on their relationships and their love bomb strategy. So the core of our agency is saying, hey, we're going to walk you through the process of developing, making sure that whether you're investing 10 grand or, you know, $100 or a million or more, that it's going to be intentional.

We're going to be focused on these 50 people, these 25 people, these 5,000 people. But then the hard thing is, it's like, how do you actually scale that? Like, even you, we worked with a logistical arm, a trucking arm of UPS. They hired us to send out all their gifts. And they're a logistics company. Well, they're not set up to handwrite 200 notes. They're not set up to wrap beautifully, 200 pieces or, you know, 50 of this. So really the execution on the back end, it's not hard to be thoughtful.

it's hard to be thoughtful at scale. And so the core of our agency is whether somebody's doing $10 million in revenue or whether somebody's doing $10 billion in revenue, they still have the challenge of like, how do we send all these out year round of people and have them not feel like it came from Amazon? Because if something comes from Amazon, guess what? David talked about at the beginning. It didn't take sacrifice. Maybe it sacrificed a little bit of time or a little bit of money.

But if it feels like it just came automated, then it doesn't feel the same as like, wow, this person went out of their way to send me this really. thoughtful thing that included my spouse, that included my kids, that now of a sudden you're like, dang, how do they do that? Like, they're so busy with their relationships and their contractors and their investors, but they thought of me. They thought of me and my family. That burns into somebody's psyche. So the execution in hiring somebody to do the details well at scale is why we exist. That's the core of our business is like scaling the thoughtfulness. It's sending the things on a consistent basis. It's not doing it at Christmas. It's all of those.

little things allow for us to help somebody stay in their sweet spot of getting the face time on the side of a volcano with somebody. Like, I can't do that for you. But I can hit, I can help somebody hit a thousand cities in one day and have every single person that gets it say, wow, I can't believe, you know, Brandon was thinking about me. I can't believe Brandon did something for my family. And that's where you get people reaching out in tears, like billionaires. I've seen billionaires cry from the gifts that we execute. Not because they couldn't have bought it, but because somebody felt like, holy crap, somebody gave a rip about me. And they cared about my family. They care about my legacy. You can't replace that. That's difficult to scale. And that's the core of what we're scamming.

I love it. I love it. Well, with that said, let's go over the last segment of the show. It's called Our Famous Four. The Famous Four is the part of the show where we ask the same four questions every week to every guest. And we're going to throw them at you right now. So question number one of the Famous Four, Is there a habit or trait you're currently trying to work on in your life? You're trying to improve, trying to build, trying to add to your life. Two, I'm continuing the fasting, which I'm doing from 22 hours to 108 hours. Like fasting 100 some hours? Yeah, five day water.

You can't just go past this. I've never heard of anybody doing this. I've heard of intermittent fasting, which is like, you know, eight hours of no eating, but you're talking about days. Yeah, intermittent fasting is like, to me, like, that's like, that's not even preschool. And the reason it's not in preschool, because for me, I did intermittent fasting for a couple years, and the scale didn't move. I would not eat for 16 or 18 hours, but then I would like consume all these calories, you know, or whatever else, grass-fed meats and whatever else.

I just, I didn't gain weight, but I just, I never lost weight. And in the last three years, I've lost 60 pounds, over 60 pounds, and cut my body fat from 38% down to 17%. And it's from fasting. Now, I did other things. I worked out. I'm using an air machine. I'm, you know, like doing other things. But the number one thing for me is fasting.

And then I wanted to take it up another level because I love a sauna. But I started reading Wim Hof and a lot of my friends were getting into like pryotherapy and all this other stuff. And so there's a company out of Arizona that makes these cold plunge tanks called Morosco Forge. And I'm like, I've heard all these health benefits. And I do believe that like how you start your day like carries through and doing the sucky things first.

So cold plunges every morning for four minutes at 40 degrees in the tank. I just literally started two weeks ago, and it's like freaking intense, but it's amazing. So between the fasting and the cold therapy, those are the two that are kind of front and center for me. That's like Buddhist monk level awesome, right? I'm going to survive off a single drop of dew for a full week. I'm like if Jesus can foot fast for 40 days, I can do four. You know, like that's the key to success. Find someone that did something harder and just compare you whatever you're doing to that.

And I have other people that have done 20 days. And I'm like, I don't know if I can do 20 yet, but I'm like, I can do five. What are you going to start off with to be able to go 20 days without food? Like how much weight were they holding when they went into that? Oh, I don't know. I'd imagine if your reserves are high enough, right? If you got a couple million in the bank, you can go 20 days without rent or whatever they're would be.

You have to be like that bear that's hibernating, right? That's exactly right. Yeah. You just roll from the, you just roll from the couch to the bathroom every once in a while and roll right back. Okay. Next question.

What is your favorite business book? Give and safe. Adam Grant. Yeah, we just had it. Yeah. Not to spend any time with them. I respect them, you know, dearly from afar. And that really changed my thinking.

You guys would get along. For sure. He does the same thing as you. We followed up after the podcast. He was very complimentary when we interviewed him. You guys are cut from the same cloth. We had Cameron Harold on the show. And we also had Michael Hyatt a couple of times. So we had a lot of mutual friends here. This is great. All right. Next question. Other than avoiding food, what are some of your hobbies? I actually, what's ironic is I fast and then I feast. So if somebody saw me in the feasting state, they'd be like, wow, that dude loves steak and macadamian nuts. And, you know, And so I enjoy good food. I enjoy good beverages. So bourbon and wine and tequila is a new thing for me. Like I didn't realize that there's all these different types of tequila. And so I've really gotten into to try and, you know, class as well, I had no way to deal with that was. Like, dang, that's just as good as bourbon.

So I enjoy nice things. I would say I also enjoy spending time with my daughters and wife going hiking or walking. I try to stay active with them as much as possible. What do you think separates successful entrepreneurs from those who give up, fail, or never get started? If you could boil down one piece of advice. I think I learned early on being on the farm that there were consequences to not pushing through the suck. Like if you don't milk the goats, they get mastitis and die. If you don't show up for the animals when it's negative 20 degrees out, like and feed them or water them or take care of the ice that you have to crack open and your fingers are like, feel like they're going to like fall off.

So I think for me, like, I learned, you know, people talk about grit, but I learned, you know, that there's consequences and, you know, and at the same time, like there's a reward to push through and push through the pain and the sock. And so I think most people, yeah, having the grit and the perseverance to get through and realize that some things are just going to suck. And even to this day, like, you're like, oh, John, you must have this dream life. I'm like, there's still sucky things every day that we still have to push through. Yeah, I have more means or relationships, but the problems actually get bigger. And so you still have, and that's why like the coal punch tank and the sucky things I'm intentionally doing because I want to, you know, I'm not quite a, you know, a David Goggins level of like embrace the suck. But I think it's powerful to be able to be intentional to put yourself and push yourself to grow and to have those challenges because we all need it. or else we become complacent and somebody's going to, you know, take us out.

You know, I was just thinking about this the other day. There is a person I was observing going through a couple, some suck. It was weather outside that they didn't like. And I noticed that they started moving slower, the hotter that it got and complaining about it more. And I was thinking, yeah, it's hot. Let's get this over with so I can get out of the heat. Like to me, that's common sense. So the more it sucks, the more intense I'm going to respond to get out of it. And I was thinking, And I noticed that there's a lot of people around me that don't do that. And I just was wondering like, what makes people sabotage themselves where, oh, the situation's bad.

Let me make it worse by staying here even longer and just dragging my feet or, you know, like I'm in debt. This is miserable. I hate life. Let me just quit and see if the debt will go away on its own. You know, like, no, that means you should work overtime. So you have less time to spend money and you can make more money and pay it off. But there's something about human nature that either triggers people to go harder when they

don't like where they're at or actually make it worse. And I was just curious before we get out of here if either of you have any insight on why you think that happens. I mean, I think it's a lot of it is your peer group of who you surround yourself with. If you, if you're hanging out with the goggons of the world and you see them leaning into things, it's hard for you not to lean into it. I mean, that's why go abundance is so powerful. It's why, you know, masterminds. Like, we all know that like the people we surround ourselves with and the books that we read, we become like those things. If you're around generous people, you're probably going to become more generous. If you're around people that overeat, you're probably going to overeat. So I think the peer,

at least that's my answer is, you know, when I'm around other people that are pushing the limit, you know, Ben Greenfield, I don't if you guys have had him on your show, but he's a biohacker. And you talk to that dude, and you're like, man, I am like, I'm only scratching like one tenth the surface of what's possible with my body. And so it causes you to lean into those things versus pullback or kind of settle. Yeah, I couldn't add anything to that. That's perfect. Okay, John, last question today.

Where can people find out more about you? I would say that this is my personal email address. It's not like a dummy one that goes to my assistant, Johnny Giftology Group.com is my personal email. Giftology group is our hub for speaking and consulting and the done for you gifting agency. And we're on all the social channels at John Rulin on Instagram, but we share some of our ideas and thoughts and kind of peel back the onion a little bit.

social, but giftology groups the core. Well, appreciate having you here today. This is phenomenal as I knew it would be. So excited to finally pull this thing off and get it going. So good luck to you, man. Hey, thanks for having me, guys. Thank you, John. This is David Green for Brandon, the only gift horse you can kiss on the mouth, Turner. Signing up. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the height. You're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new

episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calicoe Content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included involves risk. So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of

future results. Bigger Pocket's LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.