“Giftology” by John Ruhlin book summary

I recently read this book because I thought it would help my team at work and I get an increase in new leads. To my surprise, the book turned out to help with a lot more than that. Here’s the summary below. I hope it helps!

Impressions/personal thoughts

• ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Who should read it?

• Anyone who is looking to get new leads and customers in their business from referrals & word of mouth
• Anyone who is managing a team at work and wants to encourage company loyalty and good morale
• Anyone who in their personal life just wants to be known for giving good gifts or always giving value
• Anyone who wants to be the type of person that is always getting opportunities thrown their way from friends, family and coworkers
• Any guys with a girlfriend or wife who likes gifts

The book in 3 sentences

• Give as much as you can without hurting yourself, and do it in the most genuine way possible
• When you give without expecting anything in return, eventually people start to show their appreciation by reciprocating somehow
• That reciprocation, whenever it comes(usually in an unexpected way), is your return on investment

My top lessons

note — These lessons apply for sending gifts to friends & family, customers, or coworkers/members of your team

Lesson 1 - What makes up a good gift to give?

• Get gifts that the person can use again and again. Ask myself “would this person use (insert gift. likely an item or service) 5+ times in the next month?
• When you give a gift, try to give one that the person & their whole family, friend group, or work team/staff will benefit from or enjoy too — not just them
• No food or beverages. There’s a lot of ways that could go wrong and get a negative response, so manage risks and just avoid that for the most part
• No gift cards(too basic)
• If you’re giving a gift to someone working on your team or one of your customers, it shouldn’t have your company logo on it. That says “I wanna give you this so you can advertise my company” more than it says “I care about you and I’m giving you this without expecting anything in return”

Lesson 2 - Always make your gifts as personalized as possible.

• If at all possible, don’t get something shipped directly to the person from the store or site you bought it at. For example, try not to just get an Amazon box sent to someone. Instead, get it shipped to yourself first so you can make it personal(maybe wrap the box or add a nice note or something). Then send it to the person
• If you can, opt to get the person’s name or a short message printed onto the item. For example, don’t just get a generic mug. Get them a mug with their name or nickname, or a funny quote that they always say printed on it
• Always send a hand written note with anything physical. If it’s not a physical gift, still send a nice personal note or message over text or something

Lesson 3 - Don’t send gifts on the obvious dates like holidays and birthdays. Gifts are much better received when they’re unexpected

• Avoid November 15th to January 1st. That’s holiday season, and it’s the easiest time for your gift to get lost in the shuffle. Besides that, don’t send a gift within 30 days after a major holiday or their birthday
• A good number of times to gift a person in a year is 2 to 4 times(once a quarter, or once every other quarter). More than that can seem excessive
• If you’re sending a gift to a customer, don’t send it to them right after they made the purchase or bought from you because that seems more like a transaction than just giving out of care for them. It says “you bought from me, so I’m sending you this ‘gift’ in return” more so than it says “I was just thinking about you”. Instead, set a reminder on your calendar to send the gift a month or 2 after the purchase so it’s unexpected
• The same rule applies to gifting a friend in your personal life that helped you or did a favor. Again, if you gift them right after they helped you, it seems transactional(you helped me, so now I’m sending you this “gift” in return). Here’s a video where John Ruhlin(the book’s author) explains the timing thing. Start watching at 7mins 15 seconds if the video doesn’t start there automatically

Lesson 4 - How do you budget for all of this?

• For a business — John Ruhlin(author of the book) suggested taking 15% of your end/net profit and reinvesting it into sending gifts to your customers and the people on your team
• For personal gifts — have a savings account or a savings stash labeled “gifts” and have whatever dollar amount you’re comfortable with go to this savings every month. A cool place to start is $20.
• What you lack in money or a gifts budget, you can make up for with (1)creativity and (2)focusing on fewer people.
• If you have no budget for this at all, just send a personal thank you note to people and make sure it’s hand written. That goes a long way

Top 3 quotes

• “surprise and delight”
• “retention and loyalty”
• “treat your team members and your suppliers like gold”

Thanks for reading! If you found the info here useful and would like more, but in a customized way to help you reach your next business or personal goal, sign up for a free game plan at my site, goaldoctors.com. We’ll be happy to help! — from Nick