 If you show that you are thoughtful, you're going above and beyond, businesses will look past those small mistakes, not fire you immediately, and a lot of times still be willing to refer you out other people, simply because you're more thoughtful, caring, and considerate than the competition. We have been in those tricky situations of like, well, they really care, they're making mistakes. If they care, odds are we're gonna keep them around and give them a second chance, give them a third chance to prove themselves. What's up everybody and welcome to the show today. We drop great content each and every week and we wanna make sure that you guys get notified and in order to do that, you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. The story is everything, like we don't need more crap in America, really globally, like most first world countries, nobody's like, oh my gosh, I just need another water bottle. No, there you have 20 of them. I do. With logos. Yeah, yeah. And you probably have your favorite, that's nice and maybe it's like, it may be it's the logo you care about, but in general, the logo that faces it, it devalues it, unless it's like, you know, your Lugu lemon or like under armor where you spent billions of dollars to make your logo cool. In general, most people's logos devalue the products that they're putting on. But the story, like we had a client that partnered with Tony Robbins and they're like, hey, we wanna do a gift for Tony. What do we get Tony? You can buy a thousand of anything. I'm like, we're gonna do a knife set. And the client said, come on, really nice. That's just not about stupid knives. We're gonna take this 40-piece set and we're gonna take 80 of Tony's quotes over 40 years and we're gonna grade every tool with one of his quotes of wisdom. And then we're gonna put it inside a 3,000 hour wood box. It's called a strong box, it's a video screen and you're gonna pour out your heart and talk about future Robbins generations using this heirloom and being reminded of the legacy that Tony and Sage created. So they got it four months later when they finally opened it, they called the client. They staged it and was gushing almost in tears. It wasn't about the stupid products and knives. It was about the meaning, the story. Now they own in Tony Robbins' home a piece of real estate on the countertop and that story will be told for decades. Every time they walk past it, they were reminded of that subconsciously, the relationship. So people are like, man, 10 grand for a gift is stupid. I'm like, we could have gifted Tony a $50,000 watch and it would have went to a drawer because there was no story. It's the story to your point. The meaning, including the family, the using it and woven into the fabric of that family that now makes it like if their house is on fire, they're gonna grab a handful of things that have the most meaning, not that they're necessarily the most expensive. And so when people say, Tony, you're just talking about spending stupid money on things, I'm like, no, I'm actually talking about spending way less money, but tying that meaning, that story. So instead of just spending 10 grand on a Super Bowl trip for a person, what if you spent $2,000 on being really thoughtful with them? You're getting 80% of your dollars and you're anchoring to them a story that they're telling a decade from now. And they've told every day for the last 10 years that's 3,600 thoughts and impressions. You wanna be like trust in top of mind, the trifecta gives people things that they're telling stories when you're not around in the room, when you're not around in the boardroom on the golf course at the dinner table. That's how you become like this memorable person where things come to you because other people are advocating on your back just by telling the story. Well, let's unpack the math on this too because this is an important point, especially for business owners who are listening. We will gladly spend 15, 20, 30% of our revenue on acquiring new customers, on paid ads and hoping to get people inside of our store. And those people end up churning. They end up not being customers in large part. Most businesses rely heavily on referrals whether or not you're tracking it or know it. And those referral relationships can be incredibly fruitful if you give them a reason to unlock and be an advocate for you. So having that thoughtful gift and that story behind it, becoming someone that's woven into their life, well, naturally they're gonna tell other people about you. That's gonna raise interest and that word of mouth is far more powerful than any Facebook ad, Instagram ad could ever be. So when you actually look at the numbers, five to 10% to keep your customers happy and turn them into referral generating machines is actually not a significant investment to a business's bottom line. It's a smart investment. Yeah, I mean, return on relationship like I, you guys have probably heard the story about what we did for Cameron Harold with the $7,000 in Brooks Brothers. People are like, why would you spend seven grand? I'm like, it was actually 25 grand. I invested in him over the course of 10 years, 25 grand and she was like, man, it's dumb. You already had him after the Brooks Brothers, you know, outfitting it so suddenly, it looks like the Brooks Brothers store. I'm like, when I was nobody, like I had no book, Cameron got double book to speak. My first 10, 20, 30, 40, 50,000 are speaking gigs came because Cameron became my sales rep. If I wanted to hire him for a year, I would could offer them $2 million, he would have turned it down. He was making millions, like he didn't need my commission. He didn't need my sales rep position. But I rubbed on him, no strings attached over a decade and inspired him to become my sales rep. It produced multi seven figures. Like most of the time, if you can turn your clients that are already paying you into sales rep, unpaid sales rep, it's crazy for a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars you could inspire somebody. Like it's amazing how many business owners will hire an extra two employees. They'll add an extra hundred thousand dollars in overhead to their business. They don't think twice about it. They made the decision in five minutes. We need two more people were growing. And then I asked him, when's the last time you invested a hundred grand in the 20 relationships that allow you to even have a company? And they're almost always a deer in headlights. They're like, well, we've never done that. I'm like, it's the same hundred thousand dollars as a small business. I get it. Like you can't, like nobody has unlimited budget. But you'll drop a hundred grand on fixed cost overhead, labor and think nothing of it. And then you want to know what the ROI on investing in your top relationships is. Are you stupid? Like you not understand if you invest, like these are the people paying the bills already. And they're like, you're right. I just never been challenged that way. It's easy. It's normal to spend a hundred grand over here on Facebook ads or on an extra two employees. It feels weird, awkward and uncomfortable to start. I tell my team, I'm going to drop a hundred grand on mugs, two thousand dollar artifact mugs and knives and whatever. I was like, what if it doesn't work? I'm going to look stupid. And so people are just like, they avoid that because they'll go for the safe play, not realizing like what they're really doing. We drop great content each and every week. And we want to make sure that you guys get notified. And in order to do that, you're going to have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. And let's be honest, businesses struggle to satisfy customers and customers are getting more and more discerning every single day. But if you showcase to a client or a customer that you are thoughtful and you care about them, even while you're making mistakes, even while you're underperforming, odds are they're going to keep you on as that customer. And we've seen it time and time again in our own business over 15 years. Of course we hire agencies and we go into every marketing strategy thinking it's going to work. It's going to work like gangbusters. Everything's going to function perfectly. There's not going to be any broken links. But we know that's not the case. Mistakes happen. Humans make mistakes. Businesses let other businesses down. But yeah, people have greats when you're a giver. Your douchebag, if you take advantage of people, like they tend to go like, yeah, they can tell like if you're willing to, yeah, everybody makes mistakes but they'll give you a chance to make it up or to fix it or to do right. But if you're somebody who's a taker, then typically people aren't going to have grace for it. They're like, yeah, I had that feeling. I had that whatever. And so it doesn't mean you can have a sucky business, give great gifts and everything will be okay. But there are dips and hurdles and challenges and nobody's perfect. Nobody has a perfect team. Nobody has a perfect gaming. So you're spot on. People will have a little bit of grace when they know that you're going the extra mile and loving on them and actually treating them as a human. So thinking about it and hearing probably some business owners groan about the Christmas gifts they just sent out, the bottles of wine that are being parked around offices, the swag with their logo stamped all over it that no one's wearing that's going to goodwill. What are some really thoughtful examples of gifts that clients starting out with you have given with great impact on their business? Yeah, so what I would say is which there's kind of the rules and parameters. Like we've done some pretty crazy things. You just did a gift for Vaynerchok that was a $40,000 piece of art from a client from the stage. It doesn't have to be 40 grand, but it's also not like people say, John, what do you have for 47 bucks? And I'm like, I handwritten notes. Like you really think some affluent six or seven figure earner, you give them like a polo shirt or whatever, like, you know, even without a logo they don't need another polo shirt, like trust me. So there's a sweet spot. If you take somebody out to a nice dinner with wine or Balguin tickets or around the golf you're going to spend at least a few hundred dollars, three, four hundred dollars a person. And nobody thinks twice about doing that or picking up a bar tab in Vegas for thousands of dollars. So you have to be willing to invest in dollars. I think in general, like one of the things I used to make fun of as the worst gift on the planet and I mentioned it before is the mug. And like you don't drink out of one mug, people put, you know, 10 bucks into there, 20 bucks. Maybe they put some M&Ms inside, I think they're cute. I'm like, you only drink out of one. So there's a product called an artifact mug that we partnered with and it's two grand. People like $2,000 is a lot of money. And I'm like, if you just picked your top five relationships, that's 10 grand. You waste 10 grand on stupid stuff in the course of a year all day long, but the five mentors or investors or key clients that you have that are doing maybe, you know, 30% of your business, what if you invested two grand and they're like, why is this cost that much? And I said, well, this artist takes and cars into this piece, this functional piece of art. Your core values, your faith, your family, your wife, who mentored you first, whatever else? I gave one in Orange County last year on a stage that for YPO to a billionaire. And the billionaire cried in front of all his peers. Why? Not because of the two grand. He could have bought a thousand of them, no problem. Like he just sold to a public city company. It was the thoughtfulness, the meaning, his family, his dad who just passed away, all carved into this functional piece that now like every day they drink coffee or tea, which is about as universal as a gift, by the way. He was like, how did you know I like coffee? And I'm like, cause you're a human. Like, you know, like most of the world drinks coffee or tea. But now as he or she are drinking that, and I've given now 140 of these, all my employees, all my biggest clients, my mentors, and almost universally they cry because of the depth of meaning. Like when I got mine made for me, the artist made one and drove nine and a half hours and then made one for my wife, made both of us cry. So he tied in like me on the farm, my wife's dad who just passed away, and like all these different things that were like major milestones, it was like a lifetime achievement award. So the more you can take something that's functional, that's practical, that's unsexy, but is useful, and go all in on the details. Like to your example, if I was gonna give a chair, you know, I'd want something that's gonna be like, maybe it's on the bottom of it, it's their mission statement, or like their family crest, or like something that ties into their legacy, and isn't like the cheap version from China, it's like if it's a chair, it's the nicest freaking chair on the planet. If it's a luggage tag, it's not a $2 luggage tag, it's a $100 luggage tag. Like it's something that people would never go buy for themselves, but now that it's personalized to the max in a way that honors them. I used to engrave when we have clients we'd engrave their logo on it, not mine theirs. And then I realized most spouses hated that. Why? Because a lot of times the spouse feels jealous with the brand, the company that CEO's building a company. Like the person who's building it, the guy or gal might've loved it, but the people around them, do they love it? I might know, but they care about their family name universally, they care about their family values. So even our evolution of how to take a functional artifact and how to personalize it, I've started to take logos off of things, even if it's their logo, because I'm like, I want this to be a family legacy, a family heirloom, not a business heirloom. Like when you think about the people you start closest with, you invite them in, not to your office, to your home. You break bread with them in your house. So I want to tap, so we've started to take and go even deeper and deeper and deeper. And so whether we're spending $100 on a logo tag or $2,000 on a mug, the details of how that's personalized into that whole family is what either makes it be just another thing that showed up. Even the handwritten note, by the way. People like, can't we just automate this on Amazon? And I'm like, if you are not willing to put a handwritten note with it, that oftentimes is just as important but not more because it provides the thoughtfulness, the meaning, the context. And so people are like, if you won't allow us to handwrite the notes for you, we won't take you on as a client. I bet people push back, John, I just want to order a thousand of these and ship them out. I'm like, no, we won't do that. You want emotional buy-in and impact? You want to move somebody to gears? The note is one of those pieces of the recipe that makes the thing have meaning. And if you cut that out, don't expect to get this 100X return on investment because you won't. It'll just be another thing that showed up that ends up at goodwill in a year or two.