Be early and stand out when giving corporate gifts

The best two strategies for corporate savy gift giving at holiday seasonal time: send a gift with that is impressive and not gift cards and make yours the 1st gift your customer or perspective clients or clientele will receive. Best 2 blunders for corporate gift giving at holiday time are: Not acquiring the gift soon enough and giving gift cards or gift certificates. Let's begin with screw ups.... Not preparing/lateness. By sending it late your gift gets mixed up with all the others in a stack or in the break room and people have a tendency to overlook what they got from who. The cards get shuffled and in the haste and hustle and bustle in the days before Dec. 25 your gift is misplaced and you have lost money by now. Administrative assistants are commonly in the position of giving the holiday corporate gifts and bosses, you need to listen up! Don't come to your administrative assistant at the last second and expect her or him to work amazing things...lateness on your part should not be an problem on their part. You are adding to them in a really hard position to scavenge and find last minute products or gifts and to get them mailed. Many times gift companies, especially holiday basket companies like Baskets by Rita in Aurora are immersed with last minute desperate requests. This year looks like a good one so don't be surprised if local and national basket and food companies run out of stock. Your secretary will be squandering time and spending way too much time on your tardy gift giving task and it not only will stress them out but take away from their normal duties. The remedy to last minute gift giving difficulties is to plan early. Give them a chance to make an order and get the gift at the price point you want to spend. Did you know that most individuals and companies who postpone end up spending a lot more than they had planned? The items they wanted are sold out and they have to take what is remaining even if it costs more. So the two downfalls or errors with mailing it late or the hassle itself and the cost of over spending and more importantly the less constructive impact for your money. So what do you do? First of all in timeliness, give your administrative assistant a budget and time to make the order. Be sure it arrives as soon after Thanksgiving as possible to have that really positive effect at your clients and customers businesses. Secondly, fore go the gift card and gift certificate plan. Those have been popular in the past but in past years everyone gets and gives gift cards and they have lost their appeal and affect. It also is the most effortless way to go..it shows they weren't well worth the time or energy or they were a last minute gift thought. Gift certificates to restaurants have worked in the past too except someone is now in charge to order the food and go get it. Choose a gift that comes with a joyful wow isn't that great or how nice or isn't that beautiful. These days individuals buy just about what they want, so send a gift that comes with bling and a bow and the ulitmate gourmet gift basket is probably your very best. Check out local places where you can probably just go and pick them up to save shipping costs. In Denver or Colorado Baskets by Rita in Aurora is a good start.

Plan Early and Beat the Holiday Rush!

This holiday season I will plan to ship corporate holiday gifts ahead of time. Horror story. Last year I thought there was no hurry and that I would get real deals by waiting until mid December to purchase gifts for my clients. Client gifts of gratitude for their business is very important and if you falter to send a holiday gift you have botched the customary gift that has come to be expected yearly. Don't forget how important and necessary these thankfulness tokens are. Three years ago I decided to forego the gifts because of a budget crunch. Thinking it made very little or no difference I felt quite smug about the amount of money and time and problem I would save for this extra frivolous expenditure. Was I ever wrong. In fact many of us were wrong. The other firm people I meet with weekly all talked it over and were in agreement that one year couldn't make that much difference and we were quite smug about our money saving tactics. In my business my principal competitor is someone who has tried to get my clients but I've always received their trust. Unfortunately for me he decided to take the risk and send out gifts early. The next year I found I was losing some of my clients because they had decided to take a look at other businesses that could deliver the same or same service. As we approached new customers many of them had already signed up with the rival companies and my laid back and trusted style that I would easily keep clients was slipping away. I had to work really hard to keep the clients I had and put in a lot of time and effort for the next few years to get some of my primary companies loyalties back. Maybe it wasn't just the holiday present, but the next year I took note. Listening and asking questions of close friends and relatives about what made them loyal and things that made a change I noted that follow up letters of thanks,phone calls, and gifts aren't just tokens they are are reminders and stamps of assurance for the clients. So two years ago I made sure I had money for gifts at holiday time planned. I started looking for gift ideas and sent them out the first of December. What I observed was that I immediately got cards and calls from clients. They loved them plus mine were the first gifts to arrive at their office. My secretary and I were talking and she pointed out the gift we got at Thanksgiving one year with the note that here's your first holiday gift to take pleasure in. Since it was the first and only gift at that time it did make a big difference. Most gifts of food, gifts baskets, and cards come that last week before December 25 and although we appreciate them they sometimes get tossed in and mixed up and we can't remember exactly who gave what. Besides personnel are bringing in treats and food for each other all week. So my secretary and I started talking and analyzing that the first gifts that come in are the most recognized and appreciated and you normally remember them. That brings me to our plan for this year. We have already contacted a basket business to send out holiday gift baskets to be delivered no later than December l. Why? Because last year we thought we'd purchase them later and they were sold out of the one we really wanted. Since we have clients in 10 states we had failed to note that many would not arrive on time because of shipping days needed. We gave up after checking about sending flower arrangements or poinsettias which seemed useless for a few days in the office. As a last resort we scrambled to get gift cards for area restaurants or bakeries near each client. It took way too much time. We were able to find some gift cards in food market, but they were not the right denomination. We also felt uneasy that the exact amount we were spending was totally obvious, putting a dollar value on the client. But we got the cards sent out. It was fine and at least we sent a gift. However one of the more vocal and brazenly honest secretaries called to thank us and did say she preferred the gift baskets because she was the one who had to order and go to the bistro to bring back what was ordered with the gift card. She also made it clear that to feed everyone they had to add more money. Yikes, not a good plan. This year I called Baskets by Rita the first of October and placed my order for gourmet gift baskets and Christmas in Colorado Gift Baskets to be delivered just before Thanksgiving so they will arrive that first week of December. They explained to me that they have to order all holiday products in August and September to have enough stock to not run out in addition suppliers run out early. We're feeling really smug. Our clients will know these are gifts of appreciation, there are food items to be shared by all, they come packaged fantastically giving that WOW factor and our card and gift will be the first one they get and will be hanging around the break room all holiday season. It won't get misplaced with all the other gifts. Since there is not a dollar amount attached you are not blatantly telling them what money amount they are worth. Plus my secretary is so happy because this is a slower time for us and she was able to make all preparations in a more relaxed way. We came across another money-saving hint for giving holiday gifts. We will have baskets shipped to 9 other states, but the majority are in the Denver area. My secretary has arranged to save some of the shipping and delivery costs by going to pick up most of the baskets and deliver many herself. We've added a wine and cheese FAC the first Saturday in December in our office for clients and we'll give most of them out then. If not, it would be good for me to take them and give them myself and make the personal call. The lesson of the story is do not underestimate the power of the holiday appreciation gift and order early.