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BNI & The Power of One
BNI 789: Special Guest - Dean Stanzel - Power of Thanks
00:21:06
In this episode we welcome a special guest Dean Stanzel from Top of Mind Gifts
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- [00:39]
A
Welcome back. You and I in the Power of One. We are doing it a little different today. Pretty excited. It's been, it's not a first time, but it's a, it's been a long time since we've had a guest on the show that isn't Michael Martin. As part of our Business Matters podcast though, we've got a couple lined up. So I'm super excited about that and it's good to be back. As you heard in the last episode, I was out for a bit. I don't know if you can hear still my voice, Dean, but been sick from travel and I was bragging to my doctor a couple months ago how I hadn't been sick in years and then boom. I was like, there you go. Jinxed it completely. But I've got a special guest with us. His name is Dean Stanzel. Dean is a member in Canada. He is a member of a virtual chapter lunch network for success out of Ontario. Been a member for three and a half years, you said. Just almost on the, on the dot. We connected completely through the podcast. We've never actually hung out or anything like that. So it's just power to doing this. And, and I've always said to everybody, very humble when people listen and then even more humbled when they reach out. And Dean reached out, he, he sent me a really nice gift twice now, which I really apprec. So, you know, as we were talking about what he does and everything else, I thought it'd be really good to, to kind of have this topic of conversation happen, but also to give back to you for just being so generous in what you've done for me. So maybe read a bio then we'll, we'll jump into it. So Dean is the gift master and owner of Top of Mind Gifts. He helps businesses stand out from their competitors and increase the number of referrals they receive by giving unforbidden, unforgettable gifts that create top of Mind awareness. Most businesses find it difficult to differentiate themselves from their competitors. We were talking about this off air. In today's fast paced world, a business must break through the noise to leave a lasting impression with their clients. Roughly 60% of referral opportunities are missed out are missed out on by businesses because clients don't have their name Top of Mind. So Dean, Top of Mind Gifts. First of all, welcome. Appreciate you taking time to, to be on here with us.
- [02:54]
B
Yeah, thanks for having me. It's kind of like being with a celebrity. Listen to you on the podcast.
- [03:00]
A
Infamous maybe. Are you. Are you going to the U.S. canadian Conference in April?
- [03:07]
B
No, I really wanted to. I actually was looking at getting a vendor table.
- [03:10]
A
Okay.
- [03:11]
B
But it's not going to work out this year. My kids got some pretty big sports commitments and it won't work. But I'm, I'm really missing that because I think it would have been awesome.
- [03:21]
A
It would have been. But they're, you know, good thing of them being there'll be another chance. What sport?
- [03:27]
B
He's in soccer and there's Canadian Summer Games going on next year and he's qualified to be on one of the teams for that. So. Every holiday is not a holiday, it's a soccer practice.
- [03:38]
A
There you go. Well, funny enough, my kid is into hockey, which I would have expected to come out of your mouth, especially with last night's big game and everything. But we won't talk about that. Yeah, we won't talk about that. But, yeah, so I get it. It's tough. Definitely. And they used to be more weekend based. They used to be Thursday to Sunday, now it's Tuesday to Friday. So it's like more during the business, the regular week, I guess. But anyways, sad you're not coming next year. Wherever it is after that, we'll look forward to having you. We're. We actually are doing a, a breakout on podcasts, which will be interesting. Yeah, first time. So they asked me to lead that and I was like, okay. I guess it's like, just because I do one doesn't mean I know anything about. So be interesting. All right. What I really wanted to talk to you about though, you know, we talk about the importance of saying thank you and bni, we have the thank you for close business part. We've done trainings over the years as part of our advanced training programs that we do in our regions around the importance of thanking people, like, as you mentioned, like in a memorable way, in a way that isn't just, oh, they're doing it because it's an obligation to do it or isn't done half assed, for lack of a better term, where, I don't know, it doesn't move the needle in a positive way. And so I think what your expertise is isn't exactly that. What advice do you give people first and foremost when they are even thinking about, hey, should I do a thank you gift? And then how do I try to figure out how to make it impactful?
- [05:18]
B
Yeah, well, the. I think the first thing is, is the question why, you know, why are you giving the gift? Like you said, if it's just a rote. I'm giving a gift because I'm giving it. I don't even know why. It really makes it hard to be effective. If you have a motivation or reason like a lot of things, then you can start to look at, okay, if I have a why now, how am I going to execute on that and what is going to make the most sense? And that's a lot of thought quite honestly. You know, my whole business thoughtful gift giving is not the front and the fire that most people are worried about. It's very far back on the back burner. And yet long term it can have some of the biggest impacts in business. You know, long term relationships and you know, there's stories it somewhat ties into the whole B and I philosophy as well. But appreciation never goes unforgotten, unrewarded in the long term.
- [06:09]
A
Yeah. What now? The key to your business name and I think the key to the, the strategy is, is for if I'm going to give somebody a thank you, I want it to be impactful enough that it stays top of mind or it has some kind of remembrance to it. Right. So it's not just a hey, they gave me this really nice gift card to a restaurant. That's great but once the dinner's over or maybe a week after the dinner's over, it's kind of forgotten. But unless it's to like a really hard to get into specialty kind of like memory making type of place. I find like a lot of times people will give you thank you gifts and it's, you know, it's a nice touch but it's just, it stops as soon as whatever is done. I've, I've eaten the nuts you sent me, I ate the cookies you sent me. Like that was great. But that doesn't matter. What is your strategy on how do we keep it top of mind?
- [06:59]
B
Well, you just said the key word which is strategy. And most people again 90% of gifts across the board that are given tend to be consumable. So your, your nuts, your chocolate, your wine cards, you know, whatever, and they're great for making somebody smile right now. But strategically after weeks or even a few months they're, they're forgotten. And even that extravagant, you know, experience that huge restaurant that you couldn't get into before, those are great gifts but they don't have a long term top of mind awareness aspect to them. Which is why I focus very, very focused niche, niche on what I do and, and that is to provide a non consumable product, something that People are going to have, not only that, they're going to use it and see it and interact and organically touch base with you on a daily basis. Because statistically, you know, you need about 37 touches, varies back and forth per year to stay top of mind with somebody. And when I say top of mind, everybody thinks, oh, my clients love me, I'm top of mind. But I'm talking about the definition of it where, you know, if I ask you, what's your wife's name? You don't have to think about that. It's there. You know, what country do you live in? Those kind of things. That's top of mind awareness. So if your clients don't have you top of mind, if they can't give your name out and an enthusiastic recommendation within six seconds of being asked, that opportunity is lost. And there are tons of those that are lost for that very reason. And people know it. I mean, we're a bash, you know, you, you. Everybody's been in the mall or at the rink or whatever, talking to people and they go, hey, do you know a good xyz? And you go, oh, yeah, I had this great person. They did some awesome work for me. What was their name again?
- [08:39]
A
Right.
- [08:39]
B
The scratch of the head. Everybody's done that. And for that business, that's a lost referral. So I simply try and help businesses stay top of mind through strategic gifting and, and that's the whole business. I love working with a lot of the promo companies in BNI because we have the same agenda and philosophy, the marketing and branding. It's great.
- [09:00]
A
Yeah. What? So you said 37 times.
- [09:03]
B
They need to be 37 touches to be top of mind. There, you hear the ones. You know, it takes 12 touches to make an impact or breakthrough on somebody and there's all kinds of stats. But to be top of mind to the point where like again, your, your name is instantly there, that takes about 36, 37 touches a year. Based on the last stats I had almost once a week.
- [09:25]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Which again speaks to why BNI is designed the way it is. Right. That's why we meet weekly and we don't meet every other week or once a month. I mean, every other week is less than that. So you need that, that consistency. So, yeah, the non consumable. I could think of a few, you know, gifts like that that I've received over the years from some people we've done business with. We had a one guy gave me a nice cutting board. You, you gave me two now. Beautiful cutco knives that you know, you use over and over again. My first ever real estate agent, we bought a house, bought me a grill. So every time I grilled I could remember, you know, I mean, that they, they did something like that. What is your philosophy on. I got two parts, I guess. One is when do you give them? Like are you seeing most of your businesses or anytime somebody does business, they do a gift or if there's like a certain threshold that somebody does business with them, they get a gift. What's kind of the strategy play? Because I can see it becoming cost prohibitive too, depending on your clientele and how many to be able to keep up with and that kind of stuff.
- [10:28]
B
Yeah, well, for me I focus on the high end giving. You know, the 8020 rule comes back in, always in different places. So if you look at your business, most businesses, 80% of their business referrals, etc will come from 20% of their client base and the opposite side. So I always tell people it would be nice to think that everybody's equal and you should treat everybody equal and so on. You know, let's all be fair. But the reality is that you need to turn those good clients into advocates, the ones that are really going to step out and recommend you all the time. That's where you need to put your focus because that's where you're going to get results. So with what I do, it's definitely more pricey, higher end and it, it can't be used across the board for anybody unless you're in a really top. You know, realtors make a lot of money on every referral or every deal so they can afford something like that. Your, your local mechanic, you know, doing a $50 oil change or something. He can't give gifts like what I do because it just, there's no roi, so that's part of it. And then when to do it, it really depends on the business. Some people like, I've used it a lot for prospecting so you know, there's people that you want to see, you want to meet and talk to and there's no way you're getting through the phone. Email secretary, you know, watchdog et and I've done some really, I don't know, kind of funky, bizarre things out there. I took one of the top real estate brokerages who actually is a famous ex hockey player and I sent one of those engraved knives to his wife just with their logo on it. Nothing to do with me, no note or anything. And then I followed up two weeks later. With the staff saying, hey, I just wanted to make sure my package got delivered. And I was on the phone with her in person, you know, where I never would have been otherwise. Just so thank you so much. And it's not about the specific gift, you know, there's, there's lots of different things you can do, but it's the intention, the thought put behind it and being different, standing out.
- [12:29]
A
Yeah.
- [12:29]
B
You know that everybody wants that nowadays.
- [12:31]
A
Yeah, it's really smart. I like the idea of prospecting with it too. Now what is your thought on the need of putting your own logo on the gift when you're giving a gift?
- [12:44]
B
That is the question these days, I should say. I mean prospecting is one obviously thank you gifts, things like that or referrals are a big part of it too. So in some cases all three. But as far as branding goes, it's somewhat personality driven. You know, there are people out there that are boisterous in your face. They're known for that, you know, their, their egos and that's okay. And they like to have their name front and center, you know, and so on. There's other people and I don't go this far that say it can't have my name on it or else it's bad. And I don't think that's the case either. But there is a trend over the last five years for sure of people going, instead of branding myself, I'm going to recognize the person, whether it be a discrete my logo, but a message to the client or whether it be totally branded, directed to them. Again, for me personally, I'm looking at strategic giving. So it's, it's not only about a great gift and leaving an impression, but it is creating that top of mind awareness too. So there has to be something to be seen. But it doesn't have to be glaring. It's not advertising. It's something that I guess if you've had a positive interaction or relationship with somebody, then that reminder is a positive thing. It's not a negative.
- [14:03]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think I'm kind of go both ways on it. I can see both ways. I love like you're saying a high end consumable probably doesn't need it because it stands out as its own product as like a reminder. Right. So like the nice knife you sent, it's just like I don't have any other ones like that. So I'm gonna remember who gave it to me every time.
- [14:26]
B
It's more than that though, because this is the little, the, the Kind of subtle part of it. You can. There's tons of really nice gifts, and there's lots of good ones. You know, I don't have the only one by any means that will last, but you have to have the interaction and you have to have those organic touches. So if you have the greatest gift in the world and it's, you know, a cruise or something like that, that's awesome. And when people think back and think about you, they'll talk about the cruise and so on, and there's definitely value in that. But when they run into the average person in the street that asks about your service, will that cruise, will that dinner, whatever it is, will that have had enough of an impact not only to be remembered, but to remember your name in that instance? That's the key where the ROI comes in, and that needs to have some branding associated with it.
- [15:16]
A
Yeah. Okay. I guess that kind of makes sense. It can go both ways, but I can see trying to think of some other ones. Like, the cutting board I got was really nice because it was a big cutting board with our last name on it and their logo was on the back. Oh, yeah. So it wasn't like front, front, front and center, but that makes a lot of sense.
- [15:33]
B
Should never be advertising. Like, don't get me wrong, we've got cutting boards. We'll put it on the very side, you know, of the board. So it's there, but it's not something you're staring at and very much the personalized message or something. We did a couple of. One really neat thing. We took a block of knives for an executive that was, you know, a bigger. But we took his personal favorite quotes and we engraved them on each of the different knives in the set.
- [15:58]
A
Oh, wow.
- [15:59]
B
Nothing to do with anybody else. It was totally about him. And that's okay because he's one person getting it from a very specific group. If you've got an owner, founder, CEO, retiring, that's a different thing. If you're using it more for the marketing, thank you side, there's nothing wrong with getting some business and benefit from it either. I think some people, you know, kind of like in bni, too, they. They think that if they benefit that there's something wrong with what they did. And I don't think that's the case at all. You have to just understand and think through what you're doing and why, and everybody can win.
- [16:34]
A
Yeah. So it seems that you can't really go overly wrong. I guess the wrong answer would be to not do it. And I Do think some people don't just from sheer being overwhelmed with the prospect of trying to figure it out. Right. Like what is it? How am I going to do it? Like, I think you and I have run into it with me because it's like a big part for me with my team is the holidays. And the holidays will just sneak up on me and it's just by the time I even get things settled, it's like too late to do some stuff and it just becomes a nightmare. So it's one of those like I think we've used the word multiple times. Just clearly having a strategy around it. Some of them take longer production time, some of them are probably readily available, that kind of stuff. So a lot to think about. You are obviously an expert in it. Obviously you have a product with it and can you just tell everybody what is the product that you. You use for your.
- [17:26]
B
Oh yeah. For the most part I mainly work with Cutco cutlery. Cutco knives. I would suspect most if not everybody's heard of them before, maybe seen a presentation. And again the reason is they're guaranteed forever. Most people don't have good knives. Everybody uses knives and they use them every day. So it checks off a lot of those boxes. And it's not the only thing. I've looked and I've talked to a lot of people about some really creative ideas. But for me I want to be able to scale. So I want to help somebody that needs five gifts or 5,000 and a local artisan who's doing two pieces per week. You know, it just, it can't work with my business model. So that's why I focused on Cutco. But it's also why that is all I do. I don't do mugs, I don't do pens, I don't do shirts. I don't do other really cool stuff. Which makes it great because I can collaborate with pretty much everybody in bni.
- [18:24]
A
Yeah.
- [18:24]
B
Because I don't compete. My. My seat, so to speak. There's no other knife seats if you will.
- [18:29]
A
Right, right. That's probably true. Or very few if there are. Yeah. People hopefully listening to this are going to want to reach out. They want to maybe do a one to one learn more about you. Have you learned more about them? Ask for advice. I would tell everybody, you know, if you're thinking about this or this is an area your business has been struggling with. I think Dean would be happy to meet with you just to even talk strategy around that you are the expert. So what is the best way for people to connect with you if they want to do that.
- [18:57]
B
Well, BNI people, the app. I mean, my information is actually in there. And soft plug. You should definitely have your information in the app and accessible. So that's probably the easiest way to search me out. You request a meeting, my email's there, my phone, I answer it myself. I don't have other people that are kind of blocking things. So if you want to talk to me, phone me or email, text and I'll get back to you. And I love doing one to ones I don't know. I've done about 70 in the past six months. Probably approaching a thousand in the three and a half years. And so reach out. I'm happy to talk to anybody, give any advice and be because of those. I also love making referrals. You know, it's. I connect with so many people that oftentimes I can find somebody. I can be the ultimate BNI person. You know, I know a guy that. Whatever.
- [19:48]
A
Yep. So it's Dean Stanzels, S T A N Z E L Chapters Lunch Network for success out of Ontario. So if you're searching and connecting the app, which thank you for saying because I keep reminding people that they have it and that you can connect with members globally through it and it's really still just an utilized tool, but do that. I think it would be worth your time. And Dean, thank you for everything you've done with me and for listening and for sharing your time with everybody. I do hope a bunch of people reach out. It's sad that we won't see you in. In Houston, but maybe in 2026, whenever we learn where that's going to be, we look forward to coming in.
- [20:31]
B
The top of Mind Gifts is the company, it's the name, it's the email, it's the idea. So it's all kind of tied together.
- [20:40]
A
It's perfect.
- [20:41]
B
Yes. All right, thank you.
- [20:42]
A
Thank you so much.
- [20:43]
B
You're on your show.
- [20:44]
A
My pleasure.
- [20:45]
B
Okay, bye.