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Freedom in Five Minutes


Apr 5, 2020

This gift-giving concept is in place for a very good reason. It is there as a means to show and give value to your people even if they are non-customers. This is actually a very effective — yet subtle strategy.

You are building great connections with people. What happens over time is you have put some kind of positive thing out there and that positivity is bound to come back to you eventually.

The biggest thing is to give. And be giving in a strategic manner.

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Automated Transcript Below

Dean Soto  0:00  

Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com. And we're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode. 

 

Today's topic is this: Increasing Your Value to Customers Through Gifting. That and more coming up. 

 

Good morning! Beautiful, beautiful, sunny, sunny morning over here. It's starting to become spring. Got a lot of green grass and everything going over here. 

 

It's pretty amazing what we have in our California area. 

 

So, before I get into the story guys. Go check out FreedomInFiveMinutes.com. Go to Google & type in Freedom In Five Minutes podcast, Apple Podcasts, or something like that. 

 

You actually see Freedom In Five Minutes pop up for your Apple Podcasts app that you can subscribe to. You can do the same thing for Spotify and Stitcher and a whole bunch of other stuff as well. 

 

Okay, so go do that. You'll get these episodes every time they come out, and you will love them. Alright, Luna is chasing a whole bunch of crows that are flying and I don't think she realizes that is really not going to work. 

 

Anyway. So with my first daughter, this was almost 12 years ago, 13 years ago. 

 

With my first daughter, really my first child. We were living in Buena Park, California. We were not looking to sell our house, at least at that time. We were not looking to sell our house. But there's one real estate agent who came by. A guy by the name of David Sidoni – really cool guy. I'm still connected with him on Instagram. 

 

He came around and started talking with my wife and was saying, "Hey, you know, I'm in the area. Have you ever thought about selling and moving and whatever?" 

 

And my wife was like, "No, no, not really." But I was chatting with her. 

 

So he was chatting with her and with me. And things were cool. You know, he seemed like a really nice guy. And so he went on his way. 

 

Well, it was about a week later. It was about a week later that he came back to the house and brought my wife some sunscreen. It was summer and my wife was pregnant with our first child. 

 

It was summer and he brought her some sunscreen and he left a little note just saying, "Hey, it's hot out there. Especially if you have a new baby. Congratulations. That is so cool. Why don't you go spend some time at the beach and just enjoy yourself? You and your husband deserve it." 

 

So I was like, Oh, that was really really cool. Well, about a month later he comes back. Now keep in mind we were not wanting or even looking to move at all. We weren't. 

 

Well, a week later he comes back with this baby DVD.

 

It was called The Happiest Baby On the Block. It was this doctor that showed you how to shush your baby. How to help your baby to not cry all the time. And boy did we need that.

 

Afterward, it actually worked out really, really well. Especially with my first who was such a huge crier. It was really rough. 

 

Anyway. So he came back with his Happiest Baby On the Block DVD. Keep in mind, we were still not in any way looking to move out. I was just blown away. 

 

I'm like, "This guy. We're not giving him any business. Like in the sense of from us. This guy is doing this. Wow. Like what would he do if we were actually looking for business?" 

 

So what do you think we did? Well, I knew that we weren't going to be moving anytime soon. But I had some friends. We had some friends that we knew were removing and we called them when we're like, "You have to use this guy."

 

This guy is awesome. Like we're not even moving and he's already doing this, this, and this. Can you imagine what it would be like if you actually worked with him? And we literally became evangelists for David Sidoni. We became evangelists for David Sidoni. Without ever doing really truly any business with him.

 

And what happened was, our friends – our really good friends ended up using him as their realtor. And he ended up finding a house. They ended up finding a house with David Sidoni. Their dream home, which I believe that they're still into this day, so 12 years ago. They're still in that same house. And it was all through sunscreen, which probably cost them at the time like four bucks. And sunscreen and then a Happiest Baby On the Block DVD, which I think Probably was more – that was probably more around the $9.95 or $14.95 cents. So let's say $20 of investment into a gift to people that he liked. 

 

And he was able to close – at least at the time – I want to say it was about a $650,000 house in elite Aliso Viejo, California. It was around there – it might have even been in the 700 thousand. 

 

So if that guy is getting 3% – you know, his 20 bucks turned into several thousand. So, just to think that you know, his $20 plus, you know, the time that he spent talking and enjoying turned into a high – you know, a good percentage that's not counting any other fees or anything like that. That he was able to get a sale. Simply from that $20 and taking the time to grow his business in that way right? 

 

Taking the time to actually find out about us people – who literally were not interested in moving which is crazy to think about right? 

 

Oh my gosh. So it actually opened up my eyes. I never I'd so I didn't use I didn't really I saw it when– 

 

It opened up my eyes to what is possible when you give and you give. 

 

I mean, it's like what Jesus says, right? "It's better to give than to receive."

 

Well, when you give and give and give, without asking & without taking. To me, it's without going in and saying "Hey, buy this thing from me." 

 

 

 

It really showed me the value of doing that. So it was interesting because, you know, at the time I was not an entrepreneur, it wasn't even thinking about it until I got back from being deployed. That's when all of that started. 

 

I started listening to Gary Vaynerchuk. The typical entrepreneur path where you listen to Gary Vaynerchuk. You get all hyped up and on the hustle and then move on to other things so that you can kind of start systemizing things and, and so on and so forth. 

 

But uh, but I started seeing that it was all that. So I started seeing how to apply what David Sidoni had essentially taught me. 

 

I mean, it was a really cool coaching lesson before I was even a business person. And one of the things that – when I first started my business, I was like going to Craigslist. I was putting up advertising. I was doing all this. Doing all this stuff that really was not working. 

 

And it was not until I started, I started using social media. And I was doing the typical social media thing where it's like, post all this content on Twitter. And then ask people to go to your website and try and make a sale and blah, blah, blah. 

 

It didn't work. None of that ever worked. What did work though, as I started attending these tweetups. It was really big in Orange County – these tweets... what they called tweetups. 

 

And it was just a bunch of people meeting up who were on social media and Twitter and so on and so forth. And I'd go to these meetups and I would do nothing but give. I would give. I would give advice. I would talk with people just to hear about their day. 

 

I would give shout outs to them on Twitter, you know, saying thank you. It was never like a salesy type thing. And it was when that happened. When I literally started giving with Twitter that I started seeing growth in my business. A lot of growth and a lot of traction.

 

Had that not happened I probably would have quit I probably would have not even gone the entrepreneurial route I would have stuck.

 

I would have stayed in the full-time employee route, which was not bad. 

 

It just wasn't something that I wanted and I felt called to. That translated later on, as my business and business grew it translated into... How can I make my customers feel special? 

 

I want my customers to feel special. I want people to feel like they are taken care of whenever I'm working with them. When they're one of my customers. I want them to feel like "Wow." 

 

I want them to see that they're not just spending money on service but they have a friend who has someone who's thinking about them & caring about them – giving to them. Because nobody does that anymore. Right?

 

Think of the last thing that you've bought for the last service that you've had. How many times a year do you get something from them? Whether it's a handwritten thank you card, usually you get emails on Christmas, your birthday. 

 

You'll get emails and Christmas birthday, New Year's and a lot of the times it's like, "Hey, happy birthday. We really care about you. Come here's a $20 gift discount to buy something from us." 

 

It's this half-hearted fake thing. Right? It's not really truly just giving. Right? And so, when's the last time that's happened? Never. 

 

And so it's great. Because when you give. In your business, when you give, in your business, you're able... 

 

Luna hears a truck. Go get them, Luna. Get them. 

 

When you give in your business, you are swimming in a pool of a ton of fish. And you're able to just take whatever fish you want. Because nobody does it.

 

It's such a really huge surprise when people see –

 

You know, I just actually had an idea. I had an idea of gift-giving that I think I'm going to do relatively soon. 




But you're playing in a pool that nobody else is playing. Whether it's a consultant and a lot of people will do like consultants and things like that, who have really high margins. 

 

They'll be like, "Hey, I'm gonna send you a, I'm gonna send you flowers." or something like "...right after you pay me." 

 

Like, that's great. But for the most part, like, imagine, you know, you're like, two months, three months down the road, and all of a sudden you get a gift. That's way different, right? That's huge. And so, you really want to see that this gifting concept is there for a reason. It is there as a means to show and give the value like literally to just give. 

 

And what happens is, over time, whether it's that person coming in and buying more from you, or whether they refer you, or whether you know. You've put some kind of positive thing out there, eventually, it comes back, generally. 

 

You shouldn't do it just because you want something in return, but generally, that's what seems to happen. And so, the more that you can give, in the beginning, the more that you can give, the more that you're going to see that there is a tremendous value, tremendous value in giving value before taking anything, okay. 

 

To the point where I'm like, I just had an idea of cuz like, think about. A little business talk. Let's talk business real quick. 

 

Think about it. Would you? 

 

Like if you're in the consulting side of things. You're on the consulting side of things. Would you spend $100 to make $5,000? Well, if you send four gifts throughout the year to somebody, more than likely is going to cost you about $100. 

 

Now, they might not be buying now. They might not be buying later. You might not be buying within three months, six months, but at that 12th month... I actually had someone that I talked to yesterday that I've been talking to for 12 months and now they're finally ready to move forward. 

 

And so, this idea that you can't spend $100... because if you look at Facebook advertising or any type of Advertising. The cost, not just per lead, on average for a customer. But the cost per lead, generally, is going to be, you know, around $50, depending on what you're in. But it could be anywhere between $50 to $100. That's not a customer, that's per lead. 

 

So then, for them to become a customer, especially in the consulting field, you're looking at $250 - $500, sometimes even $1000, depending on how high your ticket is, right? 

 

Well, imagine spending $100. Just $100 and you're making that happen. That's huge. 

 

So you don't want to simply just want to see that. Really, I mean, to get something in the mail. There's like a 100% open rate, never asking for an ID for anything. 

 

And you're getting this, you're getting the potential of making thousands of dollars, it's pretty huge. 

 

Sorry, I'm all over the place. I literally am like thinking, Oh, I need to do this, I need to do that. 

 

And I'm totally thinking of new things, a new strategy right now. So, which I'm actually gonna go implement as soon as I get to my computer. 

 

So why is this important? It is important because the more that you give, the more you will receive, whether you like it or not. 

 

The biggest thing is to give, give, give, give, give, but give strategically, as well. 

 

Like, don't break the bank. Don't go into debt, in order to give. But give to give, so that you can receive and then give more and then receive and give more and more. So, you give more. 

 

There are so many automated ways to do it now. You just gotta figure it out. 

 

So alright. So this is Dean Soto. FreedomInFiveMinutes.calm

 

Go check that out. FreedomInFiveMinutes.com 

 

If you want a Virtual Systems Architect, go and get a Virtual Systems Architect where they'll take everything off your plate in as little as five minutes a day. Over at ProSulm.com

 

P R O S U L U M .com and I will catch you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.