405. “Invest in people.” | Giftology and Honoring John Ruhlin’s Legacy with Sara Hardwick

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Sara Hardwick:
It really is so beautiful to be able to look at life and always be asking the question, "How can I help? How can I give?" And that's exactly the mindset that John imparted on me and a lot of other people.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Hello, and welcome to The Daily Helping with Dr. Richard Shuster, food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, tools to win at life. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. Whoever you are, wherever you're from, and whatever you do, this is the show that is going to help you become the best version of yourself. Each episode, you will hear from some of the most amazing, talented, and successful people on the planet who followed their passions and strived to help others. Join our movement to get a million people each day to commit acts of kindness for others. Together, we're going to make the world a better place. Are you ready? Because it's time for your Daily Helping. 

Thanks for tuning into this very special episode of the Daily Helping podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. Today our guest is Sara Hardwick. And we're gonna talk about Sara in a minute but what she is here to help us do is honor the work and legacy of John Ruhlin. John was on our show about five years ago, really amazing guy, and he passed away tragically.

And so Sara is part of his team, and she's the community relationship strategy at Giftology, the organization he built. And so she's here to talk about his legacy, how they're carrying on the incredible work that he did, and their newest book, which is called Beyond Giftology. And that is available everywhere later this week. We'll have a link in the show notes where you can pick that up.

But Sara is an exceptional person. And she has a focus on authenticity, generosity. And she guides small business business owners, service professionals and sales leaders in navigating the complexities of modern business relationships, fostering genuine connections that drive fruitful growth and success. And whether you own a business or you don't, there's a lot of things Sara and I are going to talk about that's applicable to you. So ,hang out with us today. And welcome, Sara, to the Daily Helping. It is great to have you with us today.

Sara Hardwick:
Thank you so much, Dr. Richard. I'm so honored to be here, so honored to carry on John's legacy in this way, and so honored to talk about his final book, Beyond Giftology.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
I'm excited as well. And I'd love for you, for those who don't know all about the work that John started and about him, sometimes, when we talk about a book, we lose the humanity of who's behind the book. So, talk to us about John, and what he created, the impact he's had on the world. There's a lot we can talk about there. And I think it's important to set the foundation for what we're going to chat about today.

Sara Hardwick:
Oh, absolutely. We could talk about John and his impact and his mission probably this whole episode. But I mentioned Giftology, Dr. Richard mentioned Giftology. That was not only John's first book, not only the title of John's business, but gifting, giving, that was really who John was. That was his heart. 

Yes, he built a brand and a business around helping businesses give better, give better gifts, give more generously, create strategic relationships, but John gave every single day. He made every relationship feel like they were his best friend. He added so much value, always went out of his way to invest in others, invest in his team, his employees, his family, who just was the light of his life. And he leaves such an incredible legacy behind and a mission that we want to carry forward, which is, like, be more generous. Whether that's in business, in your personal life, put relationships at the forefront of your life, invest in those relationships, and be more generous each and every day. 

Dr. Richard Shuster:
It's so interesting to me as this rolls off your tongue, and it just seems so natural, and this is something we should be doing anyway. But obviously, we weren't doing it or the book wouldn't have taken off and everything that stemmed from it. So, you've been in the Radical Generosity space with John for a long time. So, talk about, at the beginning, how this was received. Why do you think people weren't using this? Let's start there.

Sara Hardwick:
Yeah, I love that. You are so right. Like this is not rocket science. Being generous is not something that people don't know is a good thing to do, especially when it comes to business, right? Relationships have always been the foundation of business. But I think in recent years with social media, and SEO, and traditional marketing and all these things, and then even transitioning that into personal life, like we all have our phones glued to our faces, we connect with people via social media instead of in real life. I think our society just had moved away from really the power of investing in people, the power of investing in relationships. 

And what John brought back to the forefront was how important this is, not only for you and your impact on the world, but also how important this can be as a strategy in your business. And maybe that was kind of the turning point for people to really listen of not only is this maybe something that is nice to do, it really is a need in your business. And we talk about ROI all the time, but John's whole thing was ROR, return on relationships. Let's invest in people, and we will get their loyalty, and that relationship in return.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
One of the things that struck me in the last time he and I were together in person, he was showing his business card, and it was this metal, it was like this square, it was heavy, you could have killed a person with it. And he showed it to me. And I looked at him and I said, "This is crazy. Why do you do this?" And he said to me, he said, "Go big on everything where everybody else goes small." He says, "Nobody puts any money into business cards." But  here we are, years later, and I still remember him handing me this basically could have been a ninja star, this square piece of laser engraved steel or whatever it was, and he just thought outside the box differently. 

So, Sara, let's talk about the new book because the book, he had started working on the book before he passed, and then you guys finished it. So, let's talk about the new book, because I'm going to link into the show notes. So, if you guys want to learn all about Giftology, and you ought to, click on the link below and you can get that. So, let's talk about the new book, Sara.

Sara Hardwick:
Well, Dr. Richard, I wish I had my wallet here with me, because I would have held up his business card. That's something he was definitely known for. And he was just known for always asking, "What's the most I can do?" Like, do everything to the greatest extent, best in class. And that's really where he stood out in gifting.

But his new book, Beyond Giftology, what that really leans into is, don't just do best-in-class gifts, be best in class in relationships and how you build relationships. Yes, gifting has always been and will always be our best way to invest in relationships, but especially for those small business owners, service-based business professionals who maybe don't even have a budget to order some more expensive business cards, there's other ways to demonstrate value in your relationships. And really what it comes down to is, do you have a system to make sure that you're doing that? 

And that's what Beyond Giftology, John's new book really leans into. How can we, on a day-to-day basis, build a system that allows us to strategically invest in our relationships and a great outcome for a lot of service-based business professionals, generate more referrals, generate word-of-mouth business. If you do these things consistently, and a concept we talk about in the book is, if you build up your relationship snowball, you will be introduced to new people, more opportunities, more referrals, and it really is just about having a system to make sure relationships aren't falling through the cracks.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
So, I love this, Sara. And as I'm thinking, there are elements of this that are, of course, applicable to people, whether you own a business or not. What's more important in life than relationships, really, when it comes down to it. So, if somebody is listening to this and they're like, "Yeah, this jives with me, Sara. I know I need a system to build my relationships," let's talk about one on one. How do we do that?

Sara Hardwick:
Yeah. I mean, from a business perspective, one system and maybe this is something that could also be used in families or in friend groups, I haven't necessarily taken John's concept in this book and thought about it in this way but in the context of this podcast, Dr. Richard, for anyone who's listening, one of the systems that John teaches in this book, Beyond Giftology, is the implementation of what he calls TAP meetings, which are meetings, a time on your calendar that all you do is talk about partners. All you do is talk about people. 

So, from a business point of view, this is one of my favorite systems. Purely, the reason why we don't take care of many of our relationships is just because we don't make the time to do so. And what this system does is allows for you and your team the time to truly come together, and not talk about sales, and not talk about operations, but really just talk about, how can I add value to this relationship.

Suzy told me that her son is sick. How can I show up for her in this season, right? And that absolutely, for anyone who's listening that doesn't own a business or isn't part of an organization and wants to just apply this book to their daily life, that's something that we can do better. Just carve out time to talk about people, think about people even, and make sure that those small gestures, those demonstrations of value that you always mean to do but don't always get around to doing, actually get done.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
I like this for a lot of reasons. One - and this is not just true in relationship development but anything - is that if you don't put it on your calendar, you will come up with 5 million excuses why you ought to be doing something else. And so, whether that's time for yourself or whether that's following up with strategic partners, I really like this. 

The other thing I like about this, and this is kind of in reflection of the comment about phones and social media, is it used to mean something when, before social media existed, if you remembered a person's birthday or anniversary. Like that was, "Hey, Sara took time out of her day to call me and wish me Happy Anniversary. I really appreciate that." And now, you know, Facebook, LinkedIn, they all do it, right? It's even you just click and it automatically even makes a message for you. And it's meaningless.  

Yeah, great. So, 75 people liked today because today was my birthday. Meaningless, right? But if you're actually doing something outside of traditional kind of holidays and birthdays, and I think John talked about this as well in Giftology, was don't give people bonuses around the holidays, surprise them when they wouldn't expect it. 

And so, this is kind of a play off as well, is that if I'm thinking about a partner or thinking about people, and I know you mentioned Suzy's sick or I don't know if her daughter was sick but you'd happen to know a vendor that's got a challenge coming up or a partner that's got a challenge coming up, and you actually take the time to reach out. And whether it's an email or a text or call, just say, "Hey, I know you're busy dealing with this. If you want to talk about it, I'm here for you," right? Something like that. Like, that means so much, so much to people.

Sara Hardwick:
So much. And Dr. Richard, the first piece of that system is actually, how well are you actively listening when you're in conversation with people? I mean, our term for this is surveillance, which sounds a little creepy. But whether it is you're scrolling, and you recognize that someone posted about their anniversary, or they told you in conversation, not just liking the button and moving on with your day, but really taking note of those important dates or those important relational golden nuggets, as we call them, and then acting and showing up in a meaningful way. 

Like you brought up John's business cards. What's something different outside of the box that you could do than just like the Facebook post? I'm sure maybe you could send a video text message to them. That's something that John was the king of. Like, he could have easily sent a text message, he could have easily sent an email, liked the LinkedIn, but showing up in those meaningful ways, the system of that, it all starts with making sure you have a way to survey that information, put it somewhere, like in your calendar, or if you're a business owner, in your CRM. And then, make sure you have time to get it out. 

That's usually the problem with CRMs for anyone who's listening and heard the word CRM, and their skin started to crawl. I understand a lot of times, we put so much information into it, and then it is just wasted information. We don't use it again. What some of those systems of time on your calendar to talk about people, talk about partners, allows you to sit down and be like, "Okay, I know this about so-and-so. What can I do to add value to their life and invest in them?"

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Perfect, I love this. Sara, we're painting a beautiful picture here. So, we've talked about TAP, right? We've got this kind of foundational piece of our system to nurture our relationship. So, what's the next piece?

Sara Hardwick:
Oh my gosh, there's so many pieces of the system, Dr. Richard, a whole playbook of them. Specifically for business owners and people who are in service-based businesses, a piece of the system that I love is just strategically communicating with those partners when it comes to referrals. 

One of the ways we do this is teaching a clarity conversation. So, actually, sitting down and getting clear. And you're just opening my eyes to this book also and looking at it from a family perspective and a personal perspective but clarity conversations are a time where you can actually sit down with somebody and get clear about how you guys can help each other, how you can add value to each other's lives, collaborate.

And from a referral partner perspective, that's a lot of the times missed. Talking about referrals is sometimes a little awkward for people. Asking for referrals is a little awkward for people. But when you frame it as we're going to sit down and get clarity about how we can work together and how we can best add value to each other's businesses to each other's lives, those are the sort of relationship systems that if we implement, we'll see the fruit of. 

And I think that can be applied in personal life, too. Like being intentional, sitting down, having a conversation with a friend or a family member and really understand, "How can I help you this year? What are your goals this year, right? How can we work together to get you to them?" that's what the Clarity Conversation is all about.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Oh, and I love this because we're moving. Even though I know there's a whole lot of different tools in the playbook, we really are moving in a sequential way, right? We started to have intentionality about talking about who are our people? Who are our partners? Who are the people that we want to do things with? And then, we're moving into this clarity conversation. We've identified those people. Now, we're engaging them directly and we're talking to them about, "Look, we're chocolate and peanut butter. How can we be Reese's Pieces?" 

Sara Hardwick:
Yeah. And you've really put us on a perfect track, like linearly doing this, overarching like this referral partner transformation system is broken down into three pieces. That TAP meeting that I said, that's part of prospecting partners. Like how are you going to start thinking about the people that you're going to add value to? Then, that middle piece of clearing the runway, as we say. And then, this last piece, which we can maybe dive into here, is perpetuating givers. How do you continuously add value to the relationship? 

So, in a business way, if they are giving you referrals, they give more. Reward them with gifting, add value to their family, have them think about you. But on a personal level, that's, of course, what we want to do as well. If we have a good friendship with somebody, we want to perpetuate that friendship.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
And I think that it's just human nature. If you think about the way the brain works, and the way we create neural pathways, the more attention we give something, the more the brain creates these neural pathways, almost like tree trunks or tree branches. So, the less we engage in something, it kind of extinguishes that, and then those neuronal pathways break down, it's the same thing with relationships. Obviously, the more that we add value to people, the more that we show people that we genuinely care about them, the more they're going to want to reciprocate that.

Sara Hardwick:
Yeah, a few times in the book, John uses the metaphor of like, relationships are like teeth, that whatever teeth you wanna keep, you have to floss. If you don't wanna keep that tooth, you stop flossing it, and that's what happens. So, exactly. Paying attention to the important relationships in your life, in your business. Unfortunately, the thing is, we all have very busy businesses, we all have very busy inboxes, we all have very busy calendars, and actually taking the time to invest in people or have those strategic conversations, that just falls to the bottom of the to-do list. And we don't end up sending that handwritten note. And we don't end up sending that video. And we don't end up sending that gift. And two to three years goes by, and we don't have a partnership with that individual anymore.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
So, in the new book, does John give any rules of things you should absolutely not do in terms of relationship development or maintenance?

Sara Hardwick:
Yeah. I think one of the overarching ones that even comes to life in Giftology too, his first book, is never develop relationships or engage in gifting with a "do this, get that" mindset or even a "do this, get that" program. So, when it comes to referrals, that's actually the way that most referral programs are built. Do this, get that. Refer me business, get 15%, . And that's really from a systematic approach of building out a referral-based business, not at all what John teaches here. 

Of course, we want to, again, reward our referral partners in a way that they feel valued and appreciated, but it's not this tit for tat mentality. There's a book that he references as well, which maybe this is a great book, maybe you know it as well, Give and Take by Adam Grant. That is like, there's givers in the world, there's matchers in the world, there's takers in the world. If you're a matcher, whatever you give, you expect to get, that's not going to get you very far, whether it's in personal life or in business. The givers are the ones that always win. And I think developing that givers mindset and be able to apply that strategically is what this book talks exactly about.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
I love this. I mean, again, when it comes out of your mouth, it feels like it should just be common sense, these things.

Sara Hardwick:
I know.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
But yet, people don't do it. So, I'm grateful that you've presented this in a way, and I like these three different - the prospecting, the clearing the runway, the perpetuating of the giving. This is fantastic. So, we've got a few minutes left, and I want to give you space, if you're open to this, of maybe sharing a few stories about John's generosity in particular for those of the audience that don't really know a lot about him.

Sara Hardwick:
Oh, I would love to. And I'll leave just how much John truly has impacted my life and how I view now the marketplace, the world, business, all the things through this generous giving lens. It really is so beautiful to be able to look at life and always be asking the question, "How can I help? How can I give?" And that's exactly the mindset that John imparted on me and a lot of other people. 

He was just an incredible boss. When I started actually working for Giftology in college, following Giftology style, I was receiving gifts at my college dorm room, college apartment, all these things. And my roommates are like, "What company are you working for?" They're all working for some larger corporations that, unfortunately, may not be – maybe they're sending some water bottle, swag, and things like that. But I was getting $300 headphones before it was finals week from John with my name engraved in them and a nice handwritten note. 

And that was just his heart. Being an employee for him, I've seen just how much he values people that also value him and are willing to work for him and show up for him. But he did that for everybody. It wasn't just about his employees. It was about anyone he touched. And I'm sure you've had that experience too with him, Dr. Richard. Giving gifts was his specialty, but even just the way that a lot of people shared, he would always FaceTime instead of phone call. He wanted to show up and really appreciate that relationship and show his gratitude visually. And those are just some of my favorite stories about John.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
If there's one thing that you want people to remember John by that maybe isn't readily apparent in his work and his legacy, as people know it, what would that be?

Sara Hardwick:
Well, obviously, I've just seen this from the outside looking in. John was an incredible husband, an incredible father, and an incredible man of faith. And something that I absolutely want to carry on is, yes, his mission was giving and that was imparted on his heart by the Lord, and he felt called to that mission. And his favorite verse, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." That's been the thread through this whole episode. And that's absolutely something I want people to remember John by, that he lived that out. And that's what we are carrying on in Giftology. 

Dr. Richard Shuster:
So perfect, so beautiful. Sara, as you know, I wrap up every episode by asking my guests just a single question, and this is an important one, what is your biggest helping? What is that one most important thing you'd like somebody to walk away with after hearing our conversation today?

Sara Hardwick:
Do one thing today to add value to a relationship. Give more. Look at the world through a generous lens. And I'll repeat what I just said from John, it is more blessed to give than it is to receive.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Absolutely. The book is Beyond Giftology and that will be available everywhere books are sold on March 19th. So be sure to check that out. You will not regret it. Sara, this has been a wonderful conversation. I'm so grateful we had the time today to do this. Tell us where people can learn more about John's work and legacy online. 

Sara Hardwick:
Absolutely. Giftologygroup.com will have everything that you need to know everywhere you need to go to learn more about our business, but also purchase the book. And then, finding us on LinkedIn. Also Giftology Group there. And I'm more than happy to connect with anyone who wants to learn more. So, just Sara Hardwick when you search me up. 

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Perfect. And we'll have everything Giftology in the show notes at drrichardshuster.com. So, if you're in the car, we got you covered. Sara, again, thank you so much for spending your time with us today. I'm just so grateful we had this conversation.

Sara Hardwick:
Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Absolutely. And for each and every one of you who took time out of your day to listen to this conversation, I appreciate you too. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you liked it, if you're inspired, go give us a follow and a five-star review on your podcast app of choice because this is what helps other people find this show. But most importantly, go out there today and do something nice for somebody else, even if you don't know who they are, and post it in your social media feeds using the #MyDailyHelping because the happiest people are those that help others.