E172 | Customer Loyalty in the Age of AI: Why Relationships Beat Marketing

Your customers are not loyal to your brand, and that one misunderstanding may be costing your business more than any marketing mistake.

Most business owners assume customer loyalty belongs to the company, but Sara Hardwick Grintz of Giftology says it belongs to the people behind it. On The Proven Entrepreneur Show, she explains why so many corporate gifting programs miss the mark when the logo takes center stage. She shows how a personal touch does more for client retention, referrals, and long-term relationships. Host Don Williams adds stories about effort, thoughtfulness, and the “wow” customer experience, proving that the thought behind a client gift often counts for more than the gift itself.

The conversation also tackles a question every founder and entrepreneur faces: what happens to human connection as AI, automation, and content marketing take over? Sara gives a clear answer, and she shares why relationship marketing may become the strongest business growth strategy for sales teams, marketers, and customer success leaders. Along the way, you hear how small gifts can build employee loyalty, why a simple coffee mug can become an unforgettable moment, and what a company’s gifting budget says about its culture and leadership. It is a story-rich look at customer experience, employee retention, and business gifts that people actually keep.

Practical ideas are here too, including a simple referral system that any B2B company or small business owner can start using right away. Sara covers how to thank referral givers, how to follow up, and how to turn appreciation into referrals, referrals into revenue, and revenue into lasting client relationships. She closes with a personal lesson about giving and receiving that reaches well beyond sales and marketing. Listen to the full episode of The Proven Entrepreneur Show, then connect with Sara Hardwick Grintz on LinkedIn to keep the conversation going.

For information on how to work with Don visit us at https://donwilliamsglobal.com
You can also reach out to Don Williams at https://provenentrepreneurshow.com

Watch the episode here

Hey, it’s Don Williams here with today’s episode of The Proven Entrepreneur Show. I have a real treat for you, a powerhouse in the company of Giftology. Sara Hardwick Grintz, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Dawn. I’m so grateful to be here today having this conversation with you.

Thrilled to have you. You know I love Giftology, think that’s a great company, and know many of the team members, and every one of them is HQH, a high quality human, and and and I dig that. So let’s just hop right in and I’m going to leverage your experience and your wisdom on

on things that maybe you know something about, like relationships and revenue and all that jazz. So let’s let’s go. Give us the giftology commercial. What do you do? Who do you serve? Why do you do it? How do you get there? Give us give us the story.

Sara Hardwick Grintz (01:05)
Yeah, I would say the the story is a little bit different than the commercial. So I’ll start there of where we are today. many people know Giftology, our brand, our book, through the great John Rulin, who really turned the corporate gifting philosophy on its head as he embarked in his early career in trying to sell Cutco knives as a business gift. So instead of

Going door to door, he realized the importance of relationships as businesses grew and the value of investing in those in a meaningful and creative way through gifting. So over the years, John and our team has built tons of philosophies and systems and strategies around how businesses can actually invest in their relationships meaningfully to drive referrals, increase retention.

increased loyalty with their employees. and today, especially in the face of AI and automation and the fact that everyone can copy everything you’re doing, your marketing, your website, your offers, we really do believe that relationships can take you places marketing can’t. And our services span even beyond just gifting, in the fact that we sit down and really think and strategize with organizations.

about how they can be leveraging relationships as their number one growth strategy.

Love that. And you know, we’re all in the people business. We’re we we think we’re buying from vendors, but those companies are populated by people and

and

Yeah.

and we’re selling to either consumers, businesses, or the government, but even businesses or government are populated by people. And entities don’t have relationships with entities. People have relationships with people. And so I know that

You’re a fan of my concept of wow, of delivering that unbelievable experience because I’ve seen you do it many times. So okay. thanks for the story. Okay, not the commercial. And

Yeah.

here’s your first question.

In your professional opinion, what’s the most expensive mistake customers make when they try to build customer loyalty? And why is it in their blind spot? Why that why don’t they realize they’re making the mistake?

Mm, that’s great, Dawn. I think a lot of business leaders believe that their customers, their clients, their network are loyal to their business and their brand. But exactly what you just brought up, they’re loyal to the relationship that they’re having with you and your team on a human-to-human level. So how this is then applied most of the time in the gifting space is we see a ton of organizations gift with.

their logo on something, thinking that that’s going to create deep, meaningful relationship and brand affinity and all the things with their customers and their network. But what we found is actually investing in those people, gifting them with their name on it instead of your logo actually drives that so much more.

Yeah, I I love that. And I’ll tell you a logo story that you’ll get a kick out of. Probably 20 years ago, Yet Yeti coolers had just come out. You’re welcome, Yeti, for the shout-out. And I we had a client that were they were in the physician staffing business, which is can be a pretty lucrative business, and they were very, very good at it. And so they’d been a client with us a long time, and we called and said, Hey, we’d like to get a copy of your logo. We’re gonna buy some.

gifts and we’re going to put your logo on them, not ours. And and as it turned out, you know, they were owned by a Fortune 100 company and they could not release the logo. And and so it kind of it kind of it kind of failed, but only

Yeah.

kind of because we got these points for trying to do something good for them, not for

us, I mean we weren’t gonna put our logo on it. and so even though it didn’t work out, we didn’t get to buy the cups, we didn’t get to put their logo on, you know, we got we got points. And points are good, you know. Points are good.

I I think that even spans to the overall concept of truly thinking about who you are serving before thinking about what you need as the service provider from them. and we see that too in, you know, the event space. It’s great to spend time with your clients. It’s great to take people to dinner and golf and all these things. But especially in today’s world, like a lot of people want that time with.

their friends and their family and probably would actually much more appreciate something that lives in that realm versus needing to go to a baseball game with a you know client of theirs or something like that.

Yeah, I I I totally agree. And and the thought, I mean, you you know I wrote a book and getting ready to release book two, Romancing Your Customer Two. But, you know, one of the principles of romance is that you know, you have given it thought and and and then even if it fails, as many times it does, from guys like me to women like my wife, I you know, I don’t

Right.

I don’t necessarily execute it perfectly.

Yeah.

But

but still there’s points.

Sara Hardwick Grintz (06:44)
Yeah.

There’s there’s points because he tried. And and and I think there’s actually more points on the effort than there is on the, you know, the deliverable.

And Don, just to close this loop here, have you heard this is one of the quotes in the giftology book that so many people bring up that I I love from John. That’s just it’s not the thought that counts, it’s the thoughtful thought.

Mm-hmm.

and it is just taking it one step further to be like, let me ask them for their logo, right? Like

Yeah.

that’s thoughtful thought.

And that is the type of behavior and relationship building that builds loyalty. and that’s what we all want.

Yeah, yeah, so agreed. And and I know you guys can help them get it. Okay, question two. Can you share a story where a relatively small gift produced a big business result?

Hmm.

Two for you, and they actually both come from our team internally. given what our team has gone through over the past two years with John’s passing, we have just seen our team step step up in an incredible way, and not to say that it’s because of a gift that we did that, but all of those little investments in the relationship of

Our team, the employees at Giftology that our leadership have done over time, I think has increased our ability and willingness and energy to show up each and every day. And I think that can happen for a lot of organizations as well. I know that the things that I’ve received, the things that my parents have received from Giftology, from our organization, from our leadership,

My dad’s a big golfer. He’s received a Scotty Cameron putter with his name on it. Right. One of our team members, Charlia, our COO, she always tells the story about how one day she was complaining over the phone to John about her juicer. And the next day there was a state-of-the-art juicer at her door. Right. And those little investments of a leader really recognizing that they see you beyond just the employee that you are.

They see you as a daughter, a spouse, a friend to other people in your world and they’re willing to recognize that with some sort of investment. that business result of real loyalty, hard work, retention. We’ve seen that in our own organization and know that that occurs for others as well.

Yeah, I I love that. And and there was there was a nugget there. And so I’m gonna I’m gonna hit it one more time to be sure everybody caught it. Don’t see them just as an employee, as a vendor, as a customer. See them for the human that they are, and that will pay huge dividends. Okay, you you kind of touched on this, and I wondered if you’d seen my questions ahead time. Okay. So

Ha ha ha.

today we are in an incredible.

Increasingly AI-driven world, so much communication, so much content is

Mm-hmm.

automated. And so, you know, the the if content was there was this much going out, now there’s this much going out. Do you believe that genuine human connection is becoming more or less?

Variable.

More times a hundred, Don. I think the while it’s totally understandable that businesses are engaging and keeping up with the content demands and some of the marketing demands of today and the adoption of AI practices, especially internally in their business, great. but what we’ve seen from the market is

Then the pushback of desiring actual human connection and relationships, especially in the sales process, for example, even more. It sounds so silly, but I find myself now that if I go through a drive-thru at a fast food restaurant and there isn’t a person, that immediately ruins my experience. And I think that goes all the way up the food chain to.

the highest tier services and organizations of if we are constantly being fed all of this automation, our craving for human connection is only going to increase. And I believe it’s the companies that are going to lean into that as a strategy that are going to win.

I agree. I agree. Okay, what’s the most memorable gift you’ve ever seen someone give? And why did it work so well?

Hmm. We give these incredible heirloom artifacts all of the time to individuals that they can use in their daily life and be reminded that someone sees them, has thought of them, has invested in them. But the one that stands out the most that we have in our portfolio, and I’ve seen

John give from stage, and I’ve had the opportunity to give and receive myself is our artifact mug. We have an artist who collects information from people in the recipient’s life that they love most and just create a masterpiece life story out of this person’s story into a mug. And I joke all the time that probably one of the worst gifts we say to give.

Dawn is a coffee mug. It’s like, okay, every every brand and every company logos a coffee mug and gives it as a gift. but this is the one that there is so much thought and design put into it that people feel so seen. It comes with a video of the artist explaining it. It really is, in your words, a wow moment.

Yeah, and and I I’ve witnessed that and it is and and there there’ll be water from people’s eyes when that one happens. So it’s sandy or windy or something

Yeah.

there. So if I looked at a company’s gifting strategy, would it tell me something about their culture and leadership?

Absolutely. I was talking with a colleague of mine a couple of days ago about how there’s some businesses who I feel like have maybe read Giftology our book or have engaged with our content and believe in this philosophically. But when it comes time to actually put the dollars behind it, there’s hesitation. And I think the investment

Of recognizing people and investing in people is the biggest green or red flag of what culture they truly want to cultivate, both internally and for the clients they serve externally, what they want their brand to be known for beyond just the service they provide. Do they want to be truly servants and givers? There’s a great book we’ve talked about, our books here, but there’s a great book, Give and Take by Adam Grant that

essentially lays out that there’s three types of people in the marketplace, givers, matchers, takers. Givers always win. If you’re strategic about it, they also sometimes lose. but but I do think that by looking at where an organization is truly investing some of those marketing dollars, their actual employee like loyalty culture, like is it

the swag backpacks or is it something that these individuals are really, really going to hold on to? so I I I think by just looking at some of that budget sometimes as simple as an answer as it is, we’re able to tell pretty quickly where we can add value.

How a company invests in recognizing and gifting its people is one of the clearest signals of the culture its leaders actually want to build. Share on X
Givers always win in the marketplace, but only when they're strategic about it. Share on X

Yeah, I I I love that. And you know, I I think it’s budget and I think it’s repetition, you know, occurring interval, how often, you know, 40 years ago we started buying turkeys for our staff at Thanksgiving. And and when you had four or five people when we first started out, that was really easy. Now 80 turkeys, which are kind of odd shaped.

bowling balls. They don’t stack well.

Yeah.

And so you have to put them in a truck and then they’re frozen. They slide all around. That that became problematic. But of course, at that point we’ve been doing them like 20 years. It’s like we can’t stop.

Yeah.

And and then we’re buying so many turkeys. We’re adopting a elementary school, you know, down the street and we’re we’re buying turkeys for them too. And so whole, whole flocks of turkeys are terrified of of us at Thanksgiving.

And and and then a manager in a remote location said, Well, Don, why don’t you just buy gift cards? And it was like it’s like I was hit by lightning, you know, because we’re

Yeah.

sending somebody with a pickup truck there, putting a hundred turkeys in the bed of a pickup, which is just a problem.

can they do that?

we could get

we could get into the weeds of this question Don because I think

No.

that’s the that’s the biggest gap of most leaders most businesses believe that while yes we want relationships to be this like authentic natural human to human thing that then there can’t be some sort of strategy or system associated with them that can make them work better more efficiently produce better results right like

Those two things are not mutually exclusive. You can be an incredible relational business leader that’s generating referrals and increasing retention and doing that in a systematic strategic way by way of actually sitting down and spending time and creating levers that allow you to do it over and over and over again. So I would say from a generating referrals perspective, our number

system that I always tell all of our business leaders about is right now, if I were to guess, you likely don’t have a system of receiving referrals well. You’re probably a relational individual and people introduce you to people, but then the relationship kind of ends there. So what we recommend is to always make sure A, to report positive progress consistently back to the referral giver.

So that that behavior is perpetuated and that you’re sharing that gratitude and making sure that you’re saying thank you and updating them about the individual they passed along along the way. And then also if there’s no positive progress to report, refine the referral. Make sure you’re having those conversations with those individuals in your network of, hey, you passed Susie along and she wasn’t a great fit, and here’s why.

If we have those consistent communication touch points systematically embedded into our business, like for me, if I have a partner introduction call 15 minutes after on my calendar, that’s blocked off. That’s what I need to do. I need to let Dawn know that Dawn sent us Suzy and this is the co how the conversation went with Susie. So that’s always system number one. And then also if the referral does close.

Do you have a way to make sure that you are reinvesting a portion of that profit back into the referral giver? This is not a typical transactional agreement. It doesn’t have to look like a 10% commission, whatever. It does, though, need to be a systematic way of sharing gratitude and making sure that that happens.

Authentic relationships and strategic systems aren't mutually exclusive. You can build genuine relationships and still have a repeatable system for generating referrals. Share on X
If you want more referrals, start by reporting progress back to the person who referred you. That consistent gratitude is what keeps referrals coming. Share on X

Love that.

since you’ve been with giftology, what something you’ve learned about human nature through gifting that maybe has nothing to do with business, but’s changed how you live your life.

Mm.

That there is an art and a science and a practice and a strategy to receiving as much as there is one to giving.

I was on the phone with a client the other day who called and said, I planned to pick up the tab at dinner. I’m going to an event with this client. And their business partner told me, do not pick up the check. Like, we want to treat you. And it was like, How like, what do I do? Like, that’s what I wanted, I wanted to do, right? And my response was what I just told you, Dawn, of I think there’s

In art in all of this, if we want to be givers in the marketplace and we want to build what we call rich relationships, ones that are reciprocal, influential, connect, connected, and humble, we need to be okay with that reciprocity coming back our way and sitting in the receiving side of it and letting people give to us. And I think that’s been a learning experience in both.

the workplace for me and also at home with my friends and my network and my community of I like to be the one that helps and shows up and cooks and hosts. But there’s also value in allowing opportunity for others to show up for you in that way when you need it. being able to also go through the passing of John.

And see how the community, his network showed up for us, and us being in a place of receiving for once as a company named Giftology, where we do a lot of the giving was a hard practice. But that’s that’s what people want. They don’t want one-way relationships out of

Mm-hmm.

this marketplace. They want two-way as much as

You know, you want to give, they want to as well.

Very wise. And so, you know, it reminds me of who’s it, Gary Smalley? The five love languages. So one of my love languages is is giving gifts, but it’s not my love language to receive gifts. I’ve well, I mean it is, but it’s number five. You know, it’s way down it’s way down the list. But it took me a long time to learn that there is an art to that.

and for the person whose love language is to give gifts, it really helps if you receive them graciously. It it just does. Okay,

Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah, if somebody in the audience says, Man, I gotta call giftology, I gotta call Sarah, I gotta, I gotta get on the ball, what’s the best way to reach you or the company?

love and welcome anyone to connect with me on LinkedIn and build a relationship there first. From there, I’d be more than happy to connect you in with our team and be able to point you in the right direction for what you and your business needs.

Awesome. So LinkedIn, Sara Hardwick Grintz Giftology. Sarah, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s been my pleasure today.

Thank you, Don. Appreciate it.

That’s today’s episode of the Proven Entrepreneur Show. We’ll see you next time. Thanks.