KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Client Gifting How To Get New Clients Through Gifting (with Ryan Tu)

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

Welcome to the Gold Bar podcast, where we speak with some of the most successful real estate agents, investors, and business professionals in the world. My name is Juan Carlos Baranetti, and I was able to build my real estate business to the point where it makes me more than half a million dollars a year working 100% virtually from home. If your goal is to close more deals and build a real estate business that brings you wealth, happiness, and peace, then this podcast is for you. Welcome back to the Gold Bar podcast. I am your host, Juan Carl's Baranetti. And on today's episode, we have Ryan from Ku Champagne. Ryan, how are you? I'm doing great.

How are you? I'm doing amazing. So we just finished up a 30-minute training session on how to teach people how to use luxury gifting to break into a higher-end market. And we drop so many gems. And then we realize, damn, we still have to get this on the podcast. So we're going to do a 10-minute version of that. Love it.

And then let's just kick things off with giving a little bit of the audience, a background of who you are, what you've done, and a little about Ku-Champaign, this incredible product. Yeah, sure. Yeah, thank you very much. So Coup Champagne, I founded the company about eight years ago, and we really had this aim to look at champagne completely different than it is imagined. So we love this tagline, refuse ordinary. And you can see a lot of that come out in the ethos of our brand. And so today we have a product that can only be opened by champagne sabring. The art of Sabrage, if you haven't heard of it, is a really thrilling experience I learned many years ago. And it really involves breaking this glass in a dangerous way that Napoleon taught us. how to do many hundreds of years ago. So this idea that we can channel history a bit, build it into a phenomenally tasting champagne that comes from the champagne region, 91 point rated, just like some phenomenal producers that make coup champagne, and then wrap it up in a gift that is highly personal. I think is really exciting for us to begin our journey of how do you continue to elevate

gifting to build it into a business strategy that not only opens doors, but builds strong networks and also recognizes all the relationships that you have. And not only that, but you've had a ton of success in the clientele that you service. Who are some of the clients that you have right now with Koo? We work with people like Lamborghini and Netflix. So we're gifting for a lot, a lot of high-end realtors and so on and so forth. Just a lot of different luxury brands who are looking to recognize their clients as well. And how did you find the need in the marketplace for luxury gifting?

I personally use gifting in my business to go out of my way to generate clients to continue nurturing relationships. and for most importantly, to get more referrals. I think in this digital age nowadays, people are just so stepped back from the face-to-face, from the point of contact, from just picking up the phone and calling someone, we're always DMing. And I found my secret strategy was gifting.

But then I met you, and you just took gifting to a whole other level. How did this get started? Weren't you in the club industry? Like, how did this play out? Yeah, I mean, the origins of the brand doesn't look anything like it is today. It was actually in the nightclub world. So we were the first people ever to saber bottles in nightclubs.

And what is sabring just for the audience? So sabring is when you take a, actually a blunt saber, and you take it and you run it along the seam of the bottle up to the lip where it connects with the glass. You're actually severing that glass piece if you hit at the right point. And the entire top flies off along with a bunch of shards of glass as well. And so it's dangerous. If you don't do it right, the bottle actually shatters. If you Google champagne sabring fails, you'll be able to find a lot of different somewhat fun.

You know, episodes of people who are trying to open up a bottle this way. And so I really wanted to really tap into the, you know, the first time you do this, your heart's going to be racing. You're like, oh, my God, what is this going to, is this actually going to happen? Am I going to break this glass? And you're going to be able to remember that moment forever. And so when I did it, I was like, wow, what a great opportunity to bring this into at the time, the nightclub world for a look at me moment.

Yes. Nowadays, it's really emerged into this like, well, it's all about the gift and the recipient, right? it's like let me give that thrilling, exciting, fun, memorable experience to the person that I want to recognize. And so that's what's made it really powerful. And of course, the sleek graphics and the personalization where you can etch somebody's name on, it's really fun too. I love it. And like said, going back to our story, how we met, I saw an ad for this. And I was like, this is the most high-end, aesthetic, like just well-designed gift that I could ever think of giving a client. The actual case itself, it literally looks like a gun holder. Like,

I don't even know how people get this thing to an airport, but it's just so meticulously design, down to the point where you could actually custom engrave the client or the person that you want to gift this to is name. You could put your logo on it. I just love that personalization factor. Why do you find that people just love personal items? You know, I think that there's an element that's part of human nature. I mean, I think we all somewhat self-identify with ourselves. I mean, this is how we look at the world.

And so there's some very special letters in the alphabet. and those happen to be the ones that are, you know, that write our name. And it turns out that we all like to identify not only with the brands that are out there, but also with ourselves. And so in a small way, I think it's just connecting with ourselves, a reminder that we're here and this is a part of us. I love it. And now, like I said, you have enterprise clients.

You're breaking into the luxury real estate space. I know we're working on that side to kind of get you involved in more events and be more hiring clientele. Tell us a bit about the journey to build Q because I think for a lot of people listen to this podcast, They could be real estate agents. They could be aspiring investors. It could be aspiring entrepreneurs. And a lot of people don't realize that like getting rich is a process and it takes time.

And you're in this process where you've been doing this for eight years. And in my opinion, I think you're about to go ahead and pop off for lack of a better term. Right. But what's that process like in terms of building the company and everything you have to go through? Yeah. I think that, you know, the one thing that you have to be comfortable with as an entrepreneur is uncertainty. There is just there is nothing, you know, in front of. you that directs you, that guides you, that gives you sort of like the guided path on a runway.

I mean, it just doesn't exist. And so you have to be comfortable with uncomfort. And in fact, that's what led me to shape the brand as it is. I think that, you know, we have taglines every once in a while that we put onto our bottles. And one of them is that your comfort level will kill you. And this idea that we really have to stretch ourselves or the ideas that, you know, everything that you ever wanted is beyond your comfort level. We all have to. We all have to stretch ourselves and we want to coo to be a manifestation of that. And so, you know, when we take the journey, we are, I mean, the people who fit into our community and our culture are the ones who really truly believe themselves, but also are willing to take their risks

and be able to just be out there, right? For the sake of nothing else other than they enjoy it, there's some sort of intrinsic benefit for that. So I think that, you know, anyways, that's, that's a little bit about the brand side. Perfect. And now, if you could go back in time, knowing what you know now, as a business owner, as marketer, as, as a salesperson's gone out there and built this product, what would you do differently if you could do it all over again? That's an interesting question because I get a little bit mesophistic, a little bit thoughtful in my head as to whether first,

whether that's even possible or not. And if you did it, then that would be the only way to do it. And so that would be the perfect back for it. Right. So, but I would say along the way, and maybe this sounds a little bit corny or whatever. whatever, but, you know, it's sort of like just enjoy every moment along the way, right? Maybe they say that of kids, and I'll just bring it back to a little bit on, you know, a business, which can also

be looked at as a baby. It's sort of like, you only get that moment one time, whether it is a step in, quote, the wrong direction. And I put that in quotes because like, how can something be wrong? Again, I'm sort of like getting in my mind here, like, how can something be wrong? If it leads you to change that eventually gets you to where you are today, or even if you're not where you want to be today, it's a stepping stone for you to be tomorrow, right? So, But at all different points to try to embrace that, it's something that I work on myself. I certainly get frustrated. I was driving the car yesterday.

Something you didn't go on the right way. But, you know, just fortunately having these reminders that this is exactly where you need to be and this is where you are now. It doesn't mean that it's where you will be in the future and to celebrate the moments along the way. And I love that because as someone that's been doing this for like eight years now, I always just forget that like, listen, the entire process is happening right now. the fact we're having this podcast, the fact that we have a relationship. It's just such a fun, interactive, an incredible process to experience,

especially as you're just growing individually alongside with your business. So yeah, living in the moment is huge. That's one of my deepest core values. And it's something that I have to constantly remind myself to get back to. Because listen, we get caught up in the hustle and the bustle. We get caught up in the clientele and servicing the clients and growing the company and all that stuff. But when all of a sudden and done, it comes back down to relationships.

And I think what you're doing with your company and really just adding value to other people's lives, you're really saboring the moment, which is awesome. Perfect. And for those of you listening, as mentioned, we did do an exclusive training with Ryan prior to this podcast, where we broke down how I am personally leveraging this gift to go out there and get luxury clients,

whether they are for sub-buy owners, expire listings, people that I just want to open up a door with when it comes to a relationship. And just gifting in general. The art of gifting is in somewhat shape or form. It's a long lost art. It's kind of been forgotten. it now that we have ads and now that we have all these types of billboards and promotion types.

But I really do think when you give someone a gift from a personal level, there's nothing like that. It is a love language, but it marks a moment. And if you give someone a series of gifts over a long enough period of time, it not only strength is a relationship, it solidifies it. So that's pretty much it for this episode. Thank you for listening to the Gold Bar podcast. And we will catch you on the next show.