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Welcome back to another episode of Build Your Network with your host, Travis Chappell. The guest today is John Ruhlin, author of Giftology, which hit the top 10 business books list of Forbes in 2016. John is also the founder of The Ruhlin Group, a gift strategy and logistics company that helps clients send world class gifts to cut through the noise, increase referrals and strengthen retention with their most important clients, employees and prospects. Today John and his team have created gift packages for some of the largest companies and pro-sport teams in the world. But their mission and heart is to serve and take relationships for mid-sized privately owned businesses to a new level using their proven process.

This is what John and Travis discuss in this episode:

• Why getting good at taking action and showing gratitude to people will give you a competitive advantage in business
• The value of cool gifts, which are are an underused currency
• John’s journey from a poor farm boy to knife salesman to entrepreneur
• The reason taking care of the family helps everything else in business seems to take care of itself.
• The three things and key relationships early on changed the trajectory of John’s career and life
• Who John’s book Giftology is for, and how it’s a different way to drive real bottom line revenue and results, as well as improve your personal relationships
• How a clothing gift made more of an impact than Cavaliers tickets, and helped make John his biggest ally
• Why serendipity matters, but connection matters more
• The reason people who ask ‘what’s the least I can get away with?’ fail and why you should be asking ‘what’s the most I can do in this situation?’ instead
• The importance of persistence and taking the long-term view
• An efficient way to find out what a person wants so that you can go get it for them
• Why you should find something to gift that doesn’t necessarily tie into your business but goes to a different level and angle, and acknowledges the life of the person outside of business.
• Mentorships and masterminds that have been pillars of John’s success
• How John would start over by finding the other givers in the community
• Why he prefers to learn experientially

Links and recommended resources:

• Double, double by Cameron Herold
• Influence by Robert Cialdini
• Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris
• John Corcoran
• John Lee Dumas
• ArchAngel Summit http://www.archangelsummit.com/
• MastermindTalks http://www.mastermindtalks.com/
• Believer by Imagine Dragons
• Any song by Michael Jackson

Where to find John Ruhlin:

You can find John at giftology.com/relationships and get his PDF of the ten worst gifts to avoid