Here's a gift! When's the cheque coming?. Review on Tips on Corporate Gifting

Come Diwali time, the season for corporate gifting starts and goes on maybe until Christmas.

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Why Corporate Gifts?

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Gifts given to your corporate clients of course help maintain goodwill, and can be a reason to get in touch as well.  Moreover, gifting during festive season is a time old tradition in India and the world over. Gifting, usually practiced between families and communities, has well extended into the corporate world too.

I do not like to consider gifting as a cost, rather an investment to build a lasting relationship. But this exercise is best left to only maintaining goodwill. Go overboard and the receiver gets only too embarrassed.

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Where does gifting stop and bribing begin?

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True gift is not a method of payment, in fact so many companies are now vary of corporate gifting lest it not be seen as bribery, but that would include only those obscenely expensive gifts.

A small tasteful token souvenir to remind him of your company would do. What become bribing would be cars, free air tickets to Europe etc. But then again that depends on company-to-company ethics.

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Gifting

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It not always sweet to emboss the receiver’s name on the gift, maybe somewhere in the corner, not too blatantly. Get a proofreader to ensure no mistakes in names.

The person giving the gift also counts, not some office messenger boys.

Its nice to have a company or product logo on the gift, but not screaming at your face, the poor chap will be never be able to use it with ease.

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Whom not to gift

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Not to prospects, only existing clients. Gift prospects and watch your gift go waste. Mostly.

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Whom to gift

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For existing but sluggish clients, a gift is a wonderful way of telling them “Hello, I exist here, and I haven’t seen your cheques for some time.” Most of the times, the guy feels too embarrassed and starts transacting again.

Someone with whom there has been some kind of bad blood, a gift and a festival is the right opportunity to break the ice and rekindle cash flow from them.

Regular clientele, of course!

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What are not good corporate gifts

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Dry fruits as gifts is something as old as the Himalayas, be very careful with this. I once noticed some infestations in dry fruit I received(maybe preferential treatment to ‘mean-with-suppliers’ me)

Perfumes are something personal and please not them as gifts. Anyway, keeping in mind the gifting budgets, the perfumes that fall within are essentially those cheap hanky sprays…or some imitation colognes… No No.

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What are good corporate gifts

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Travel bags are my current favorite in gifting. Most of my clients travel a lot and love to receive new bags. And a real good variety is available these days. Plus your co. name and logo can find a discrete little place on it too.

These busy guys need organizers, so fancy digital dairies come a next favorite, but only to my top rung money-spinners. Palms-too expensive to gift, off-budget.

Gift vouchers make an excellent gift. They spare you of the headache of choosing. Leave that to the client. Only make sure that the vouchers are valid for a longish period and are of a departmental store not too far away from the bloke you are giving it to. But a con, the item he purchases will not remind him of you, as then it would have no reference to your company.

Other almost universally appreciated corporate gifts are office organizers, umbrellas(really! I can never understand how so many people love receiving them) car-accessories. Tata Press Yellow pages lists some real good gift suppliers.

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Selecting the gift

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Give your clients a human face, they are real people too, not just a database, as we are so many times tempted to see them as. Spend time thinking of an appropriate corporate gift, and let’s not be done with it in a hurry and select the next available paperweight.

We spend much time selecting gifts for our friends and loved ones, taking into consideration their likes, their personalities, and gifts that will suit them. Why not the same approach to clients too? Understandably, a common gift cannot suit every client, but some thought in selection goes a long way in making the receiver appreciate the gift.