Author of From Crisis to Clarity and Co-founder of GIFT·OLOGY

 

627. Rod Neuenschwander

SPEAKERS

Rod Neuenschwander, Will Bachman,

 

Will Bachman  00:02

Hello and welcome to Unleashed. I’m your host, Will Bachman, and I’m delighted to be here today with Rod Neuenschwander, who is the author of From Crisis to clarity, and he is the president and co-founder of GIFT·OLOGY, and he’s also the managing partner of a consulting firm, Ruhlin Group. Rod, welcome to the show.

 

Rod Neuenschwander  00:24

Thank you. Look forward to be here so.

 

Will Bachman  00:27

Rod, I first heard about GIFT.OLOGY Several years ago, your co-founder and partner, it was sort of the face of your firm, John ruin and would talk about it, and I heard some podcasts where kind of talked about your unique philosophy around corporate gifts and the power of it and then I was really saddened to see that that John passed away very suddenly, and you, you were kind of left to scramble and kind of reconstitute and take the Full reins of the firm. When your co-founder passed. Out of that came the book from crisis to clarity. I’d love to, you know, hear about, you know, this, this whole story, and maybe you could start go back in time and talk about how you and John started this firm.

 

Rod Neuenschwander    01:17

Yeah, no, that would be, I’d be happy to will. And so the story starts 18 years ago when John and I over 18 years ago. Now, John and I joined forces, but prior to that, so four years before that, we were young college graduates, and we had this lunch where we decided that we wanted to buy companies together. We didn’t really know each other at the time, but we had when there was two-hour lunches, and just scars aligned, and we just had that immediate connection. And so we were young enough and dumb enough to think that we could do that. So we mid 20s, we started down that path. And make a long story short, the first company we’re going to buy out didn’t pan out, and so I agreed to come in as President to run that, and we didn’t know at the time, but it was heading in the wrong direction. So that’s how I sort of backed my way into turnarounds by accident. After that, you know, we didn’t buy it. It’s two years later, I went to a larger turnaround, sort of like a hired gun. And after that, John, Knight. John said the whole time we were like, we want to do something together. By that point, John’s like, hey, you know what? We should we should just merge together. I think the wheels are falling off. And this little he had a ruler promotion group, is what it was called at the time. And so we did. And he wasn’t wrong. The wheels were falling off. And so from that we during that timeframe, we were trying to figure out what to do with the firm, and our lawyer approached me and asked me if I would be willing to help one of his clients, because he knew how to background and turnarounds. And so I agreed, and to do that, John, I was like, Yeah, we’re going to do that because, you know, like most entrepreneurs, early in the day, we needed the money, so we agreed to do it, and that led to other opportunities. And while we sort of figured out what to do with his gifting company, which ultimately led to GIFT.OLOGY, we also developed another firm that nobody really knows about, called ruling partners, where we we partnered with founders of companies that were in some verge of crisis, and we led them through a crisis to turn, through the turnaround, and ultimately to a wealth creating event. And so now you love you. Fast forward, what? 15 some years later, and we’re getting ready to launch our next book project. We’ve been, you know, we waited seven years because we really want, we just want another GIFT.OLOGY out in the market for John. We wanted to really hone in on what would be the right message for us. And so we’ve been focusing more and more on on the relationship of like. So why do you gift like? It’s the relationship, and there’s more to it than just gifting. And so we had our content creators and writers had sort of built a program around, how do you do that, the way John does it. How do you build relationships, the way John built them. And so that was in beta. And so that was what the next book was going to be about. And called Beyond, we would eventually call it beyondGIFT.OLOGY, before anything, all of any of that could come to market. John passed and died of a heart attack a year and year ago, August. And so that’s where, kind of my worlds collided, right? And so at that point, I’m, like, had to do what I had to do for so many other companies. So two days after John passed, I had to, like, just remove the emotions and force myself to sit down and be like, Hey, I have to go to recovery plan for my company. And so that’s what I did. And and then, you know, a couple weeks later, as you know, people wanted to meet with me. And when you own a company called GIFT.OLOGY, you. What do you think they want to talk about? Is gifting, and the the irony of that, as well as that, I suck at gifting, so my team is our experts. They they are brilliant at what system that allows people to get like John, right and so. So after one horrible podcast, I remember Sharlene from our team reached out to me and said she asked, Hey, how’d it go? And I was like, horrendous. I’ll never forget the look on her face when I said, like, buried that podcast. Nobody can see that. And so at that point, I agreed to do podcasts that were focused on how we built the brand, and Sarah on our team takes the podcast related to the promotion beyond cryptology and our service offering of Catholic and then, and then one day I had a thought on a run, what if i What if I wrote a book? Because John always wanted me to write about our turnaround experiences. And I just like, yeah, I will. I promise you, I will someday. And it just, you know how you just never do it. And then it’s like, what if I wrote a book using our current cryptology transformation, and I provided the framework for how I did turnarounds, and I used our current situation as our primary case study through that book, and that’s what we did. So from crisis to clarity is a real time case study of and provides a framework to founders of, you know, how you sort of work through a crisis. And it also allows me to fulfill a promise I made to John. And then, thirdly, it allows me to speak about getology In a way I can speak to it with authority. So that’s how we ended up here. That’s the, that’s the five minute version of, you know, 20 years of history.

 

Will Bachman  06:45

Tell us a little bit about the kind of the state of the company, the structure, the organization, and the role that John was playing, you know, when he passed away. So we understand what, like, what was the gap that you had to fill?

 

Rod Neuenschwander    07:00

Yeah, so John’s our primary face, our primary lead generator, and so, you know, going back that that story, so how did we get from rule and promotion group to GIFT.OLOGY? Well, you know, during that timeframe, what we were doing, some really deep dive into our company. We realized that we served so many industries at that time when John joined together and but we couldn’t continue to shotgun marketing dollars across all these industries and all these geographies and so but what we realized is that it was really the makeup of the person that we served well. Didn’t matter the industry like they they truly understood how relationships impacted their world, right? Those were our best clients. And so then we said, Well, how do how do we reach them? And so it was that insight in that revelation that, well, what if John, what have you presented to groups that relationship oriented people gathered? Is that’s what started down the path for John to go on stage in the first place. And so from there, then obviously, you know, he’s a world class talent, like he was brilliant at what he did. And so that allowed us to, eventually, we launched the writing and launching of GIFT.OLOGY itself, which completely trains, transformed our business model, right? But then what that that set up was our primary lead generation source was John from stage. Okay, right, and so, and you know, we were getting ready to position the company to that next phase and that next level, which would lessen that, that that reliance on John from stage with this new platform that we were building, plus then the next book that we were planning on writing, but unfortunately, that that never materialized. So at the time of John’s passing, we had the framework of what we were leaning into. We had a beta program that we knew worked, because we’re getting really good, positive impact from it, and a lot of feedback that was positive, but it was underdeveloped, and it wasn’t ready yet, and we weren’t ready to promote with our with a new book. So when John passed, you know, at that point, we pretty much eliminated our primary lead generator, our key relationship builder, and our about 70% of our most profitable revenue streams were in some way tied, tied

 

Will Bachman  09:26

to John. And for listeners that aren’t familiar with the firm, tell us a little bit about you know, what was distinct about GIFT.OLOGY, or what is distinct compared to a more typical, generic promotional item type, gift firm,

 

Rod Neuenschwander    09:45

yeah, so we don’t do any promotion like nothing that we send out has anybody’s logos on it. Everything that we send out is personalized to the person that’s receiving it. And so our philosophy is just. Different. We don’t work. We don’t do swag, we don’t our campaigns that we work with on behalf of our clients are targeted towards reaching them at a personal level and their inner circle too, and that’s why we focus most of our gifting opportunities and focus on on the kitchen, where there’s the hub of the house, because we want to be present and into their inner circle as well. And so that’s what we’ve been doing for, you know, 15 plus years, is we’re helping leaders love on their relationships. Because everything we believe everything rises and falls on relationships, right? And so how we the mechanism we did that was delivering highly personalized gifting, done at scale, right? And so what we’ve moved the brand into, and how we started this prior to John passing, but we’ve accelerated basically three years of planning into one year of execution since John passed, largely because my team is amazing, but what we were able to do then is really come full circle with that, because it’s not just gifting alone. So what our writer and partner Mike was able to sort of unpack from the ethos of GIFT.OLOGY, but also John’s mind, was all the stuff that John did so naturally, to build relationships in very and build that out in very tangible ways so others could show up for their relationships like John did, right? And that’s what the book Beyond GIFT.OLOGY is all about. And the direction that we’ve taken GIFT.OLOGY is helping relationships become that number one growth strategy and for for companies. But it’s not just gifts alone that do it. There’s other elements that allow them to support just like John

 

Will Bachman  11:49

would. What are those other other

 

Rod Neuenschwander    11:51

elements? So the we call it the relationship operating system of of or ethology, and so help identify, help connect, help equip, help track, help celebrate and scale, right? So that’s the operating system for for what we do. And so things like, demonstrations of value, how you stay connected with them. Things like, how do you talk about yourself? We call them clarity, conversations with your network. And then, and you know, gifting is a part of that operating system, because, you know, we can have 1000 touch point be meaningful on behalf of a leader when you can’t have 1000 conversations, right? And so that’s, that’s the scope of what what we do. But then we also that training platform. What we built is also the tech to support it from a CRM perspective. So we have a plugin that’s coming out later this year, so we will train leaders in their teams on the relationship operating system, and then we have a CRM plugin that allows them to work for workflows, for reporting and things of that nature that that match with what we’re training them to do. So we’re trying to come full circle with that.

 

Will Bachman  13:14

Yeah, could you double click on that and talk a little bit more about the relationship operating system? Give us a bit more of a step by step of what, what that means,

 

Rod Neuenschwander    13:24

yeah, sure, yep, yep. I’ll actually use a real engagement that I have right here. Same with this has been an example of what we do with the client. So we would help them install a relationship operating system. We would and then the scope of that would we help, we’d have a so how we’d onboard a client? Let’s just walk through it that way. So we would have a call to identify their key relationships. So who should we be focusing on? We would help them design their demonstrations to value rhythm. So how do they show up for their relationships in a way that matches that person’s natural so not forcing somebody to do something if they don’t, if they don’t do handwritten notes, and they’re just not wired that way. Well, what do you do? Like, maybe it’s books, or we help them come up with those rhythms of what makes sense for them. Then we have the core of it is built to the what we call the connection plan. So it’s like, how are you going to show up for your relationships? And that’s built through that connection plan. And then then there comes the implementation so, and then the outcomes. And how do we track those outcomes, and how do we help support you in doing so? And so that’s, that’s sort of the nuts and bolts of it. And then in this particular case, there is parts where there’s an outreach, because they have a pretty extensive network. So we’re going to be doing two gifting campaigns to them in what we call surprise and delight. They’re not at your normal birthdays. They’re not like it’s just it shows up because I value and it’s going to. Show up and it’s going to impact your family. It’s probably going to be something oriented in the kitchen. It’s going to be personalized to you. It’s going to have your your name on it, not our company logo, or, in this case, that that company. And so our team handles all of that, and so we support them in all the training on how they actually execute on that. But then our team does on those gifting campaigns. We do we do everything so we do the delivery, we do the shipments, we do the personalization, and we do the handwritten notes, and they’re all done at scale. Oh, wow. Okay, yeah,

 

Will Bachman  15:33

we the connection plan. Tell me a little bit about that, like, how you show up for your relationships. What are some of the different tactics that could be included in a connection plan.

 

Rod Neuenschwander    15:45

So again, we’re going to focus on a couple things related to demonstrations of value. So there’s going to be a couple core elements to it. Demonstrations of value are things that you’re showing up for your relationships in a way that match how you naturally are. So maybe it’s books. Maybe you’re a reader. Like, you’re gonna send books out on a on a basis. We’re gonna give you rhythms related to that. We’re gonna give you like, how do you talk about yourself? We call it the big four. Like, who? Like, who you serve, who you don’t serve, what you do and what you don’t do. Like, how you speak about that very clearly. And then we’re going to, like match that in with your normal rhythms of how you show up already, and then we’re going to lay it all out on that connection plan. And then in Now, depending on your situation, some include gifting. Some don’t it’s not required. But then it’ll all be in that connection plan. So we, we all have as your outsourced relationship operating system, and we help install that for you, but we also help implement that for you. And the way we do that is through that connection plan, and that becomes like, sort of the center of the bullseye for both parties, so we can point back to it’s like, Hey, how are we doing to this? And that’s why we built the CRM plugin as well. Because people are asking for like, Well, how do I help install this for my teams? Well, we’re going to help you do that, and then we’re going to provide you the workflows in the reporting to show that it’s happening right, and then also the results from it, right?

 

Will Bachman  17:23

Who tends to be your clients? Is it like a single executive at a company? Or will they get the whole sales team as clients of yours? Or who are you serving?

 

Rod Neuenschwander    17:34

So we are serving? In most instances, there’s, I would say there’s two answers, that large SMB is a big client of ours, and a lot of times they’re privately held, not they don’t have to be. We have clients that are public, publicly traded. In that instance, we’re typically working with a leader of a of the company or big division, and oftentimes their sales teams. We also work with a lot of companies that would have a lot of sales reps, and so they would, they would hire us to help install a relationship operating system in for them. And then we also, you know, lesser so. But then we also work with, you know, founders of companies that are smaller on that scale, but they just don’t have the network reach, but they’re growing, and so we help them, sort of, like, install that early on in the day, and so we can sort of fit that whole range, because, you know, we can have Our training will match no matter who’s that serving. It’s just how you show up for your relationships. You know, as the bigger you get, and that the wider the reach you are is, where gifting really helps that scalability side and helps accelerate those connections, right? So that’s, that’s the sort of the essence of of who we who we serve, and what we do for him.

 

Will Bachman  19:00

So the really, the gifting, it seems it’s an important element, but it’s just kind of one little piece of the overall kind of training and systems that you help provide.

 

Rod Neuenschwander    19:13

Yeah, yeah. So and, you know, early on, that’s what we were known for, because we started there. But John would constantly say over the seven years he’s on big stages, was it’s not about to get us when companies come to us to say, well, well, we would like to give this instead. We’re like, you are focusing on the wrong thing. Like we want you to focus on the relationship itself. And so that is where we’re we’re so that’s why we sort of design the relationship operating system, and why we were coming out with this, this next book, which eventually became beyond GIFT.OLOGY, we launched in March, because it maps through all those other elements that John would do for touch points. John had a brilliance of like he would never call you. He. Would video. He would video every time, based on you, every single time, to the point of being annoying about it, right? Because, oh, my god, jeez. But I always took it and but everybody so at his funeral. I mean, there was, I mean, it’s over 500 people show up, and a couple 100 people online build a network like that, without connection, right? And and what he was able to do that, that’s what our team has mapped out for others, to be able to show up for them, for their relationships, just like John did. But it would be, you know, video, he would video. He would have a unique way. One of their demonstrations of value we teach is making introductions for others, yeah, and John, but have done in a certain way. John would do everything through a video call three way, and it’s just a different way to connect with people and connect people that way. And so those are the some of the like, some of the more ground level things that we do,

 

Will Bachman  21:03

let’s, let’s turn back to your book. So yeah, you kind of set up the situation for us where John, speaking from the stage, was responsible for most of your leads and the most profitable leads, and he, you know, has this tragic passing at the age of 44 tell us a little bit. You know, some of the lessons from your book about, how did you move on from that, and what were the, some of the specific things you did to help, you know, you know, rebuild the sales engine and run the company.

 

Rod Neuenschwander    21:40

Yeah. So, like I said, providing a framework for founders. So I just, I use the same framework I use for all the companies we partnered with that were going through some version of a crisis. Those crisis were not their partner dying and their best friend dying, losing 70% of the revenue either it were more things like chronic underperformance. I call it the hamster wheel. So I define crisis in four different ways in the book HAMP, the hamster wheels like chronic underperformance, like a lot of companies we partner with around for 20 years, right? So or they just sort of like existed, and I think there’s a lot of companies that just sort of exist, and one week I call the broken mirror. Like, sometimes there’s just leadership problems. Maybe the company outgrew the strengths of the founder. Maybe, then maybe just founder doesn’t listen, like, or whoever’s leading doesn’t listen. And then this slow leak is, you know, like, just unaddressed things that they know exist is don’t address until it becomes urgent. And then the last one would be, I call it the fire, where it’s like, everybody knows, like, it’s like your business partner of 18 years and your best friend just passed away, and 70% of your thoughtful revenue. And those are very visible, but this not just doesn’t have to be that, but the framework that I’m offering is the same I used for all the companies. I call it the one page recovery plan. It’s made up of four very simple things, a clear purpose statement, a go forward. Operating plan, go forward. Financial Plan, go forward. Team plan, if it all has to fit in one page and not in like eight font either, like, like. And what we’re trying to do is focus on the best and the highest priorities, right? So let’s just start with the clear purpose statement ours is we help leaders love on their relationships, because everything rises and falls on relationships. And why do we believe that? Because we believe relationships take you where marketing can’t right. So that provides direction for like, everything that we’re going to do for  GIFT.OLOGY is going to be tied to that in some capacity, the operating plan, then, is what I leaned into here. We’re typically looking for three to five things like, what are the what are the things that are going to really move the needle for us and as fast as possible well for us? What we had already started on this, on what our future was going to look like already right? When we knew that it was resonating because of it was already in a beta program, and we had hired people to already build that and and they would they were in place unbelievably talented as well. And so for our operating plan, we we focused on that, and what I realized is I have this thing I called founders math hack. It’s like, I know, you know, a lot of people in your group are consultants and and so, but I use very simplified modeling. I’m not, I don’t use a lot. I call it the founders math act, because I just isolate the highest, most important variables. That’s what all founders care about. That’s all they understand. Anyway, sounds like I developed this thing. So I look through it, I’m like, Okay, what I realized is that program that we had, we had started in beta, and is already out there, maybe 7500 people in the beta program, is that I needed that program. That was our future. That’s what eventually became our relationship operating system. We call it the rich relationship society, and it was a program in that platform, and so in the using the founders math hack, I realized we need 600 new members or clients in that program to replace the revenue and earnings that we lost from John from stage. And so our primary operating plan became mission, 600 right, replacing it with using 600 new clients and members through that program and that and that so and then that our financial plan, I’m just giving you the high levels of it. The was simple. It’s like I looked at our founders, my founders math pack. I said, Hey, you know what? I can maintain profitability and keep our entire team intact if I could Unencumber the company from John and I’s compensation for two years, right? So then the primary financial priority became how Lindsay and I John’s spouse could remove our compensation needs from the company for two years, giving our team enough window to execute our operating plan. So that was our financial our primary financial plan. Other things included, but that’s the primary one, and then a go for a team plan, what I focus on is a lot of times, and this is the amazing part, and one of my regrets on being honest will is, why did it take a crisis for me to realize how unbelievably talented our team is? Right? Because it’s almost like you take for granted, like their job, what they do, and the other do a good job, but like, they have so much capability and so much capacity that, and, you know, they just roast the equation. And, you know, we had a good culture. One things to talk about in the book is like, hey, crisis is not the time to build your culture. So if you’re concerned about your culture, it’s better address it. Fortunately, we’re going in with a very strong culture, and what ended up happening is we lean heavily on sort of those hidden assets that sort of materialized throughout this process. And so that team has just been remarkable in our ability. And I tell them all the times like, Hey, I’ve never experienced a time where, you know, we’ve absorbed the body blows since John’s past, right? And I’ve done it in such a fast way, even though I do, I do teach speed, like as part of the in the book, too. It’s like, move fast with the plan, because your one page plan provides direction and guardrails, but you’re going to learn along the way. And so I keep telling our team, like, make decisions and execute. Like, if any decision that’s made will take the company, it’s mine, not yours. So like, and so I just need you to go fast and learn and make decisions. And they are just so unbelievable in executing that, but it’s it’s that plan that provides that sort of structure in place, and then we had a really good culture going into it, and that’s sort of like utilizing that plan, plus moving fast with the plan and learning along the way, is how we went from like a training program in beta to a fully launched relationship operating system plan with now software coming out the end of this year to support our training on that, all done within one year.

 

Will Bachman  28:37

Tell me about the reaction to the book and what sort of what you’ve heard back from readers

 

Rod Neuenschwander    28:44

my book, or beyond guitar,

 

Will Bachman  28:47

your book, your book, you’re crazy. Yeah. So,

 

Rod Neuenschwander    28:51

so far, you know, honestly, so far, I’m getting really good feedback from it, so I’m not sure if they’re my friends. We do have a pretty large network, and so obviously, with John. They want to support us and and so, but, um, but they’re also pretty candid people, so I think they would tell me if it sucked. So right now, I’m getting, I’m getting good, good feedback from it, and I’m proud of it. I’m happy about it as well, because it does, I believe offer particularly it’s written for founders of companies. It doesn’t have to be a founder company like leaders in general, but particularly for founders, because that’s who we partnered with all over all these years, and and so it, I believe it provides them a very simple framework to work through some difficult things. And so regardless of the what, what type of crisis they’re experiencing, I believe that it, it’ll help them. And so I tried to keep it relatively simple. One of the good things about the the editing process and the editor. Is quick to tell me it’s like, Hey, listen, the people that are be interested in reading your book do not have time to sit down and read through a novel. Like, let’s like, let’s make this condensed and let’s and, and so this is a basically a three-hour read, but I think it provides them a lot of value in that in that process. And so so far, we’re getting good we’re getting good feedback from it.

 

Will Bachman  30:30

The book is from crisis to clarity, and we’ll include a link to the book in the show notes, and we’ll also include a lift to link to GIFT.OLOGY in the show notes. Rod, thanks so much for joining today, I

 

Rod Neuenschwander    30:40

appreciate it. Thank you for the time you.