Here’s why 90+% of Business Gifts are Wasted (and the Easy Fix)
To get to where we need to go, we have to talk about Rocky.
Yes, the Rocky that was penned by Sylvester Stallone on a three day writing binge after the struggling actor attended a Muhammad Ali fight, and which took home three Oscars, including best picture, in 1977.
For me, Rocky isn’t just a character. The franchises eight films line up to mark major milestones in my life. I was born in 1982, the year of Rocky III (R.I.P. Mickey). Three years later, 1984 saw both the arrival of my younger sister and Rocky’s defeat of Communism or something in Rocky IV. I graduated from college the same year as Rocky Balboa (“Rocky VI”), got married the year of Creed (“Rocky VII”) and became a parent the year of Creed II (“Rocky VIII”).
Although I spend most of my time running a marketing business, I still do a bit of moonlighting as a writer, mainly in TV and film, for Relevant Magazine. This means I get tons of crap in the mail to get me to “consider” covering a movie, from coffee mugs and USB drives (who uses those in the cloud storage era) to leather bound journals. Aside from the stuff that’s useful (who doesn’t need more notebooks?) most of it goes in the garbage in about five seconds.
Tis the Season…For Throw Away Business Gifts
I get stuff throughout the year, but the schlock sending especially gets ramped up at Christmas. Many companies want to “recognize” their employees, clients and customers this time of year, which means that there will be an overabundance of leaky lidded coffee mugs, unwanted flashlights and inferior throw blankets, all emblazoned with corporate logos, which will soon add to the volume of landfills.
This is subjective, but my take is that it’s better to do nothing than to show “appreciation” by forcing your professional contacts to feel guilty about pitching something they never wanted in the first place. The old adage is that you put your logo on something, and the person you give it to will think of you every time they use it.
Sadly, many companies give out crap that’s just not going to be used. Most of us don’t need a stand alone flashlight unless the power goes out, and I haven’t touched a USB drive in years, thanks to Dropbox. And if my wife and I have friends over, I’m not likely to toss a chilly guest a throw blanket emblazoned with a loud corporate logo. It’s just tacky.
If you can’t think of anything else to do, make a $20 donation to charity in the name of the person you would have bought a worthless gift for, and send it over along with some chocolate.
A business gift is all about the feeling and connection, which is why I usually show up to my on-boarding meetings with a Kringle (a gigantic Scandinavian Pastry that’s available in SE Wisconsin and a hit in the Chicago market) and bring Spotted Cow (a beer only available in my state) to meetings to wrap up projects.
Does anyone I work with actually NEED me to supply them with European donuts and beer? Of course not. The gift is a way to show my goodwill.
The reverse is also true. Sending out dumb crap shows you aren’t paying attention and don’t value the relationship.
Level Up…Get Personal
The best business gift I’ve ever sent was to a contact that gave me a referral, which turned into a $10,000+ contract. The contacts father had served on a WWII Navy Ship, and I was able to find a used WWII Navy ship phone for about $100. Monetarily, that’s 1% of what he brought me in business that year.
The guy lost his marbles.
Again, could he have gone out and purchased the same item himself? Sure. But the gift was an opportunity for me to say “I see you. I get what you care about. Thank you.”
My friend Adam Kail runs a company called Brothers Leather Supply when he’s not running Harrison Grey Search and Consulting. (Editors note: Adam is quite a bit smarter and more successful than me). When Adam got an order for a leather bag from an NFL player, our other friend (also named Adam) suggested that Kail stitch the player’s college number into the interior of the bag.
That’s the kind of delight that you want to bake into your business interactions, by finding ways to create moments of unexpected joy.
Back to Rocky to wrap this this up.
I’m not a person that attaches sentimentality to stuff. I’ve thrown away all my high school and college yearbooks (“the important pictures are somewhere on Facebook”), all my high school and college basketball memorabilia and the diplomas for my undergrad and two master’s degrees (“diploma frames are expensive and I don’t have room to hang them”).
But when I got a package in the mail yesterday containing swag from Creed II, I knew I would replace my gym bag with the movie themed backpack (pictured above), and keep the boxing gloves on display in my office for years. “These are going in my will,” I joked to Amanda, my wife.
Why?
Because the boxing gloves and backpack connect to something I deeply care about and show that someone else understands how I see the world.
If you’re going to send out Christmas gifts to business contacts (or a thank you gift at anytime), stop thinking you can win on the price tag or by slapping your logo on something…
…and find a way to make it personal.
