112 John Ruhlin on the Performance of How to Give the Perfect Gift

Steal the Show with Michael Port

“The gift is supposed to represent the value you place on the relationship.” - John Ruhlin

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Why is gift giving such a challenge? We know the people around us; we know their likes, their interests … but when we want to celebrate them, all great gift ideas go out the window. Amazon becomes our search engine. Wine and chocolates are a go-to.

On today’s episode of Steal the Show, we are joined by John Ruhlin to unpack the performance of gift-giving. Yes, gift-giving is a performance--one that has true craft and technique. John is the founder of the Ruhlin Group, a company that develops relationship-building strategies and VIP-gifting programs to increase referrals and strengthen retention with their most important employees, clients, and prospects.

John’s clients include the Chicago Cubs, San Antonio Spurs, DR Horton, Morgan Stanley, St. Louis Blues, and hundreds of other industry leaders and high-end service firms.

His second bestselling book Giftology: The Art and Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through the Noise, Increase Referrals, and Strengthen Client Retention can be found here

Listen to today’s episode to hear John’s insights about gift-giving, and how we can best approach the often difficult task of finding that great gift for the people in our lives.

“In business, we call it marketing. And we don’t realize we’re spending money to damage relationships because we’re making it all about us.” - John Ruhlin

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Steal The Points

• Marketing is typically not gift-giving because we make it about us.
• Don’t give gifts with a transactional mindset.
• Try to give gifts that people can use every day rather than those that are consumed and disappear.
• Treat gift-giving as an opportunity to inspire the recipient, rather than just hand off a possession.
• Understand what the recipient wants, and then align the gift with that.