The Art of Holiday Gifting for Clients

The Art of Holiday Gifting for Clients

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 89 of the business development podcast. And if you've ever had questions regarding client Christmas gifts, stay tuned. We're going to chat all about it.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said business happens over years and years value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs. And business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business.

Brought to you by capital business development, capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 89 of the Business Development Podcast. 90's coming up quick, man, 100's coming up quick. Absolutely blows my mind the rate at which this show has grown over the past 10 months.

Also, we are celebrating our 10 months, we, I missed it, I know, I know, I don't know how. Our I believe it was our last Wednesday episode came out on the 6th, and there was so much going on in our life, like, between the baby being born and just, frankly, everything else, prepping for Christmas, all sorts of stuff going on over here in the Kennedy household.

I completely Missed calling out that it was our 10th or 10 month anniversary of the business development podcast on our last Wednesday show. So I missed it by a week, but we're getting to it. So yes, 10 months of the business development podcast has happened. This is our 89th. episode. Holy cow. 100 coming real quick.

And yeah, we're behind the scenes chatting about what we're going to do for episode 100. I think it's going to be special. I'm not quite sure how we're going to go about doing it. I had some initial plans, didn't quite go to plan. So some of our past guests know I reached out to them and yeah, don't feel bad if you don't hear yourselves past guests.

Just. Didn't quite get as much feedback as I wanted on that one. And then wasn't really sure the avenue I wanted to take. And I think we're going to chat about the road to 100. And I think I'm going to have some special people to come on and chat about that road with me for episode 100, but bear with me not making any solid commitments to it, but it is in the planning and it is going to be special.

And I cannot, cannot wait to be stating that we have hit our episode 100. I am. Honestly, I, I'm over the moon. You guys know that. I talked about that on the last Wednesday show, just absolutely dumbfounded by how many of you are out there listening to this week over week, month over month, and not year over year, but we're getting there, and I appreciate you immensely.

Thank you so much for listening to the business development podcast. I appreciate you from the bottom of my heart. I hope that we brought a ton of value to you over the last 10 months. And as we approach our one year together, and I hope to continue to do that. We are already in the show planning for 2024.

Me and Cole have some awesome, awesome plans and ideas. for episodes and and just routes for the show in 2024. But we also want your feedback. We want our fan feedback. What would you like more of? What would you like the same? What would you like to change? If there are things that we can be doing at the business development podcast to make a better show for you, we want to do it.

So please you know, if you're hearing this show today and you're like, you know what, Kelly, I, yeah, there are some things that I would like to change in 2024 about the business development podcast, or there's some topics that I would like you to spend some time with. Shoot me a message. I'd appreciate it immensely.

We make this show for you. We want to bring out relevant information that is pertinent to your situation, and that's why we do community questions. But I also want to do some stuff in 2024. That's a little bit more focused towards your challenges. So feel free to reach out to me. Shoot me a message.

Shoot me an email podcast at capitalbd.ca. We'd love to know what you think, what are some topics you'd maybe like us to cover in 2024 and we'll make sure that we definitely do touch on that for you. I wanted to provide just a quick call to action before we get into our show today. How about a little Christmas gift, a little Christmas gift for Kelly and the business development podcast.

I would appreciate that immensely. It's a very simple one. It's not going to cost you. A dime. On Spotify and Apple Podcasts. I believe we're sitting at around 40 ratings on Spotify. I think maybe like around the same with Apple Podcasts. If you could take a minute today and give me a little Christmas present and just hop on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, leave us a rating.

If you're really feeling up to it, leave us a review, but a rating takes no more than like 20 seconds of your time. And it means the world to us as we move into 2024. Just one thing. If there's only one thing that I ask of you, my lovely, lovely fans, my 20, 000 of you, who I'm in your top 10, give me a rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

It would be amazing. I would be incredibly, incredibly grateful. And it really does help people to find our show. So. It's just a simple one. 20 seconds of your time. Hop on over to Apple Podcasts and Spotify today if you're on your computer, if you're on your phone, and just give us a lovely, lovely rating.

I would appreciate it immensely. And that is all. That is all I ask of you here for the remainder of Christmas 2023. All right. I also wanted to start out today's show as always and just give a gigantic thank you to Peter Hurd Watler. He was our episode 88 CEO of Impact Applications, gave us the gave us the grant funding 101 and he was a rock star.

If you missed that show, go back. Peter's so nice. One of the kindest people that I've had the pleasure of conversating with. And if you guys are doing grants and you need grant applications, he has a company that will help you with it. Their guarantees are pretty impressive. And Yeah, he'll treat you good.

So go, go give Peter a call. He's absolutely amazing. And thank you, Peter, for coming on the show. It was amazing having you. And I appreciated that greatly. I also got the grant funding one on one from him. So I'm also I'm also very happy about it. All right. So obviously we're talking a little bit about Christmas.

I asked for a little gift from each of you, but I'm going to give back to you today as well and hopefully to your clients. And what I wanted to talk about today was just that giving back to our clients during the holiday season, whether you celebrate Christmas or not. The holiday season is a special time. It really is. And in North America, especially, it is celebrated by almost everybody, regardless of, you know, how you feel about it, or whether you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever you, you celebrate.

The fact is most people do give gifts during this time. And I know that we live in a weird time and I know that being in business development, it can really, really be a weird time where people kind of ask, well, do people even do that anymore? Do people even give client gifts away? And I am here to tell you, yes.

Yes, you should do this. Your organization should do this, and we're going to get into it today, and I'm going to kind of tell you what we've done in the past, and what I've experienced over, you know, my time in business development, and dealing with clients on an account management basis as well. And you know, I'll just give my experience with it, but my opinion is, You should give back to your clients at Christmas, right?

Your clients, your employees, they give to you all year long, right? You don't have an organization without your clients, without your employees. And giving back doesn't have to be this gigantic, expensive thing. But it does have to be thoughtful, and it does have to happen, because it shows that you truly value your clients.

And I don't know about you, but I truly value my clients immensely. Immensely, I recognize that I do not have an organization without my clients, and I recognize this long before I was a business owner, right? You know, I mean, the reality is I've been giving client gifts at Christmas my entire time in business development, right?

The last 12 plus years, I have been giving client gifts to clients at Christmas, and it's a great time, and it's fun and it's exciting and yeah, we're going to talk about that today because I know that there's a lot of you guys out there that aren't doing this and I just have to ask you why and I hope that we can maybe address some of the reasons why you're thinking we don't have to do this anymore today and I hope that you walk away and say, you know what?

I'm, you know, even if it's as simple as a card, I'm going to do it this year. I'm going to give back to my clients. I'm going to say, thank you. I appreciate you. And I look forward to the next year because that is the takeaway. You it's, it's truly critical and it's. It's just such a great place to be. It really is being able to give back to your clients after they give so much to you.

I truly, I love it. I absolutely love it. And if you're a client of capital business development, if you're a client, or if you're a sponsor of this podcast, you would have also, you would have also received some stuff this year. And it's just cause I appreciate you. It really is. Absolutely. Nobody's obligated to give gifts at Christmas, no corporation, no person, but the reality is we do it for people we care about.

Don't we? We do, we do it for our families, we do it for our friends, we do it sometimes for our employees, depending on who you are, you should be doing that too, but we have to do it for our clients as well, they're just as valuable, right, they're relationships that are absolutely critical to the success of our organization, and so we have to do that too, so I hope today to leave you with some nuggets on how we can go about doing that, some avenues you can take, some cool things that I've found along the way, and And yeah, we'll, we'll go through it.

We'll do, we do a little Christmas, Christmas 101. We'll get a little mush mouth there. It happens. It happens. You try podcasting. You'll get a little mush mouth sometimes too. All right. So we don't give client gifts. Yes. I've, I've, I've seen companies say this. We don't do that. My question to that company is why not?

Like. Let's get real. There's no reason that you should not be giving client gifts. Do keep in mind, I suppose I am speaking to my business to business clients, okay? I'm not talking B2C. Although, you know, maybe B2C can do that too. I don't know the, I don't know the levels. You guys know what this show, we're primarily talking business to business relationships.

These are, these are accounts you manage. They repeat business that buy from you over and over and over again. They're relationships that you develop, whether you're in business development, account management operations, you are developing relationships with the people you deal with on the client side of the business, right?

And so it's absolutely critical that we are showing them that we care about them. We, that relationship is valuable to us. And you know what you guys. You guys give us money all year for our service and we just want to say thank you, right? If you are not giving at Christmas time, I'll be honest with you.

I don't think I see a legit reason why you shouldn't. And yeah, I know that might sound a little harsh. But I don't, I really don't see a reason why you shouldn't give your client even something that's 25 or 50. I just don't see why not. The reality is there's no situation in my mind that that doesn't make sense, that that's not valuable for your organization.

And that frankly, in the long term, on its own, just from a place of giving doesn't lead. to repeat business doesn't lead to better relationships with your clients, which is always what we want to do. We want to create better friendship and mutually beneficial relationships between us and our clients. And what better way to do that than to show them that they matter to you at at Christmas time during the holiday season.

Really? Like, there's just no better time to do it. There's just no better time to do it. And if you guys are not doing this right now, I really want you to sit in a room together and just ask yourselves, why are we not doing this? You know, like, and yeah, you can give yourself lots of reasons. You can say, well, hey, you know, I don't think our clients will want that.

Or it may come across as bribery. Come on. Come on, you really think that giving your client a 50 Christmas gift, whether that be just a gift basket or a card with like a 50 Tim Hortons gift card is going to be bribery. That's going to change the whole world. It's going to shake up that other organization and give them no obligation, but to use your company.

Come on, no, no, that is a BS tactic, corporate tactic that in my mind, corporations have thrown in just so that they didn't have to do anything. And I really believe that. And I hope that we can change the paradigm here. I hope that what I'm showing you is that it's ridiculous and that We care about people, and when we care about people, we do nice things for them.

And I care about all my clients. The reality is, I don't have an organization without them. Each one of them took a gamble to come and work with me at Capital Business Development, or took a gamble to sponsor this show. Why the heck can I not just be kind and say, You know what? I get what you guys did. I appreciate you immensely, and I'm going to give back.

I'm going to give back to you at least one time a year here. I get that we provide a service too. That's fine. But the reality is you can give back and it doesn't hurt and it doesn't cost you a fortune. And there's lots of cool ways that you can do it to really save money and still give your clients something amazing.

And we've been doing that at Capital since I started. I've been doing that at organizations I worked at before Capital for many, many, many years, better part of a decade. And there's no reason that you cannot. Give back to your clients at Christmas time and for that matter to your employees, but we can have that conversation as well.

I don't want to get too much into that today, but your clients absolutely need to be looked after, need to be shown that you care about them, need to be shown that they're valued. And Christmas is an amazing, amazing, amazing time. to do that. Remember, client gifts are about a thank you. They're a thank you.

They really are, right? It's not about bribery. It's not about give me, give me work next year. And you know, I'm going to give you this gift, right? That's not what this is. This needs to be given to a client from a place of appreciation and thanks with nothing in expectation. I don't expect Anything from my clients.

I give Christmas gifts to clients who aren't even clients anymore. You know, because why? Because they probably worked with me during the year. So absolutely, I'm going to give them something. They don't have to give me repeat business to get a client gift. I give them a client gift at Christmas because they did.

They were a client of mine. And regardless of whether we continue to work together or not, they're still valuable to me. They're still friends. They're still relationships that I value and look forward to into the future. And so. It doesn't have to be about give me this for that. It can just be a thank you.

And we have to, we have to give from that place. And if you start giving from that place, you might be surprised at what you receive in return. You really, really, really might. All right. Yeah. And I guess what I kind of wanted to just mention was it doesn't have to be expensive, right? It, I know that like, I know the pitch for not giving client gifts as well.

We can't afford it, but really, come on, you can't afford it. You can't afford a card with even a 10 or 15 Tim Hortons gift card inside of it. You can't, you can't afford just an itty bitty coffee mug or a branded branded item. And a card to say thank you, come on, you know, there's none of you. There's none of you that can't do that.

Okay, like we know this, we know this. It's not about the value of the item. It's about the act of giving. It's about the act of saying, I appreciate you. Thank you for all you did. Thank you for believing in us and our organization and working with us over the past year, right? It's just about thank you. It doesn't have to be a Bugatti or a motorcycle or a A briefcase full of money, right?

That's not, that's not what it's about. It's, it doesn't have to be any of those things. It just, it just, it can be as simple, like I said, as a card in a coffee cup. It can just be a, hey, I appreciate you. Here, take this chocolate box and, and a Christmas card, right? Or a holiday card, whatever you want. But my point is, is that it's just about having an interaction with your client saying, hey, we appreciate you.

We appreciate you and we look forward to working with you into 2024 or into into the next year or whatever it might be right. It's about showing that they are valuable to you. That's what giving is about. That's what client Christmas gifts are about. They're about showing your clients that they are valuable to you and your organization.

Okay. So how do we go about doing this? All right. Well, there's lots of ways that we can go about doing this. One of the things you may say to me is Kelly, you know what? We have dealt with clients before, and we totally believe what you're saying. We get it. We want to give back to our clients, but our clients in our industry, they have policies that say that they don't accept gifts.

What happens in that scenario? Okay, absolutely. But I think you'll find that if you say, Hey, Mr. Mrs. Customer, can you just double check that policy? What it says is we cannot accept certain types of gifts. Most of them do allow a certain limit of gifts. So just double check with them. It's usually not we don't accept gifts.

It's they don't accept gifts up to a certain monetary value. Usually it's like more than 50 bucks. So. It's not, no, it's at a limit and that's okay. And you should still meet that limit. That's what I'm telling you today is that if you have a client who says that, just say, Hey, you know what? I get that.

That's fine. We don't want to like break any policy, but we still want to give you something. So do you mind just double checking that policy, seeing what it is? And we'll make sure that we do something that is relevant within that. What are you doing there? You're saying to them, we get what you're saying, you're still valuable to us, and we're going to work within the policy just to show you that we care.

It's still, it's still achieving the same goal. It's still achieving the exact same goal that we're trying to do, which is show that we care. In some ways, it might even be achieving it better, because we're saying like, we get it, instead of just throwing your name into this random hat and giving you this, this random gift that we were going to put together for you or whatever we were going to do, we're actually now going to be even more thoughtful, and we're going to make sure that we give you something that's.

Awesome. That still falls within your rules and just shows that we really do care about you and what's important to you. That is totally okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Just double check with them on that policy. Okay. That is one of the things that I've run into. Usually it's like a 50 dollar policy. In that case, there's other things that you can do underneath 50 or to keep it within that policy that still works for them.

Okay. All right. So what kind of gifts should we do? Well, This is fun and it really does depend on your organization. Okay. I'm going to kind of start at the beginning. So when I first started giving client gifts, working with a local Edmonton firm we, we, it was fun because I, I worked with lots of, lots of individual clients who all had very cool personalities.

So what I actually did back then. was I made some, I made some personal choices. So my company would give me a budget. That's basically how it worked back then is that the company would say, Kelly, you have 5, 000 to spend for Christmas. That was literally, sometimes it was 10 K. It was, it was awesome. It was a great time.

I'm sure you guys are like what you got like 10 K to buy client gifts. Yeah, I did. It was frigging amazing. And usually we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 or 30 clients on average to work with. And so what would I do? I knew my clients really well and I knew what they loved and I knew some of them love motorcycle gear and some of them loved, you know, different types of whiskeys and some of them love this and that.

So I would literally, I would go and I would. Pick each person out and I would write them down. So I would create a list. And I'm going to give you guys kind of an idea on how to do Christmas to kind of help you out. So what I like to do is I take each organization, each client organization that I've worked with over the last year and I write them out.

And then typically I usually work with Anywhere between one and three or four people at each organization, and you have to kind of decide, obviously, who gets what or if you're going to have tiers of gifts. Sometimes that's how it works out. And if you're going to have tiers of gifts, like people that are like your number one that you know that you deal with them all the time, they might get a slightly better gift, maybe then.

The person that you don't see at the organization, but you know is still important and deserve something because they're buying things from you, right? And you can tier them out that way, but we used to just create lists like that. And then what we would do is we would have, okay, tier 1 might have 25 people in it, or 20 people in it, tier 2 has 5, and tier 3 has 5.

Something along those lines, right? And so you would know, okay, I need to buy 30 gifts and we would be doing this pretty early. You can do this at any time. Obviously, you know, I mean, I'm talking to you guys right now it's December 11th. So I know I'm probably a little late on this. I'm sorry. We I always wanted to do this show with you guys.

But I kind of got into our proposal playbook series and that, that, that ate up some time. So I'm sorry for being a little late this year, but I hope that you still have time to enact. Some of this information, and if not, it's going to be great for next year. And the years after, if you guys to prep for, for following Christmases, but yeah, so what we would ultimately do is we would create out those tiered lists and what I would do is I would kind of like, I would like to take maybe the top people that I knew really well, and, and this depends on your organization and who's managing what clients, but it does make sense to have the persons who are managing certain people who deal with them regularly to be the ones selecting the type of gift.

Why? Because they just know them better. It's just a better way to give a more personal gift. And I truly do believe that you should give gifts in a personal way if you can. Obviously there are, there are, what do I wanna say? oh Goodness. I hate it when that happens. , there, there are, oh, what is it?

What is it called? When you have a rule? Anyways, you know what I'm saying? There are situations where it doesn't have to be exactly that way. , we'll call it that. But yeah, you know. Exceptions to the rule, huh? There we go. Exceptions to the rule. Oh my gosh. You guys try podcasting sometime. You would be surprised how many brain farts come in where you're just like, you're like, it's on the tip of my tongue and I just can't remember.

But yes, exceptions to the rule, but it is good to do something personal when you can. And so, like I said, I would go out and I would know, I would know the one guy really loves whiskey and I would buy him a nice bottle of whiskey. I know the other guy likes motorcycle stuff and I would find something in the motorcycle segment to get him.

And remember, these are not crazy expensive things, guys. These are like, we're probably talking 150 bucks for the top tier clients. Like it's, it's negligible in the grand scheme of things. Right. But it shows a lot. It shows that you really do care and know these people and they remember. Right? They remember these things.

They remember people who treated them kindly, who showed true interest in who they are as people. And this is a great way to be able to show that interest in them and just say, Hey, you know what? We value you. We know who you are. We know what you love and we thought about you. That's what this really does when you really create something that is personalized, okay?

All right, so what about branded items? Yes, branded items are amazing. Once again though, there's a lot of crap out there. There really, really is. And you need to pick and choose what you are going to order on behalf of your clients, right? You can buy bags that are super thin. You can get low quality, all sorts of stuff.

And yeah, you're going to save lots of money, but is that really where you want to save your money? I think you have to be really careful with some of those branded item stores out there. What I have done in the past with regards to branded items, I do, I do prefer a more premium product. That's just who I am as a person.

That's who capital is as a business. I just, I don't like to give junk. I never have. And that doesn't matter whether it's my friends or my family or my clients. I do. I, I try to get high quality, high, high value items, not expensive items, high quality, high value items. Okay. And the way that I like to do this is I don't necessarily go to the, to the, you know, the swag shops of the world.

Yeah. There are a couple that I use and I use them for different things and, and when I do pick things out at a swag shop, I don't typically buy them online. What I'll do is I'll go in and I actually have a few people locally that I love and I'll, I'll give one of them a shout out in the show. But and I'll actually go into the shop and I'll say, Hey, you know, show me some of this show me some of the nicer things here.

Show me, show me what might be a really, really high value item that my clients will love. And I have them actually show me and have it in your hand and physically touch it and feel it. Don't just buy this stuff online because you know what? Online is a really hard place to be able to tell. If the value is high, if the quality is high, it can look really high quality and I can show up and be absolute junk.

And I've seen this happen a thousand times over. Right. I'm a huge, huge advocate that when you guys are buying client gifts from a swag shop, do not trust. Do not trust the look of it online. Ask to come down to the shop and take a peek at it in person. And then you can come to your determination if it's going to meet your quality standards and your company quality standards or not, but.

Giving high value items and, and, and high quality items, I think is way, way more important than giving lots of items, right? You're better off to give one or two really high quality items than 10 low quality items. In my opinion, once again, that's my opinion, but that's the way that I've done business over the course of my life and how I will continue to do business.

Because I believe I would write, if someone's going to give us stuff, I would rather it be one high quality. high value item that I, that I cherish and treasure than 10, you know, junkie pens or 10, you know, plastic, you know, cups or koozies or whatever else, right? Right. Branded items are hit or miss, but I'll tell you how have I handled branded items.

So in my first year of capital I created a little capital tradition. And so all new clients at capital, I love to give them debossed. Padfolios. Leather ones. Really beautiful ones. Roots ones, for the most part. But, I started giving those out. Why? Because I noticed that most of my clients, when they were attending meetings with us, didn't have one.

And I was like, how do you not have a padfolio? But, you guys know me, right? I always say, you gotta have a notepad with you. You gotta have a padfolio. I love padfolios because you can put brochures in them. You can put all sorts of goodies in them. You got your pen in there. You got your cards in there. You got notes in there.

And, So yeah, I've, since then I've actually been getting, I got, I got a plate made for capital business development and I take it on over to a place called Nuline emboss in Edmonton Tim Healey. He's absolutely a rockstar. He's amazing. They do emboss so if you buy anything that's like leathery, they, they create a metal plate with your logo on it and they can actually stamp.

They can stamp things either like either push out or push in and you can get embossed or debossed logos in leather items and it looks amazing and it's high quality. And so, yeah, so capital I've been giving away to all new clients. I give Padfolios at Christmas. That's kind of my thing. But we also got backpacks done last year and I kind of got ones that are like a leathery material.

They weren't actual leather, but they were a leathery material, so they could be stamped as well. And I got them debossed. And so, yeah, last year we ended up giving away, I think it was like shirts and hats and, and padfolios and these backpacks and it was absolutely amazing. And they weren't crazy expensive.

Why? Because I was smart about it. I didn't necessarily buy these items at At at one of these swag shops, what I actually did was in Canada, we have a Hudson's Bay company. And I think it's like every September, October, they have a sale called Bay Days. And so you've got these, you'd like really big, big, big price reductions in, in nice items, like high quality items.

And if you know what you're looking for, you can save around like 25, 30 percent on these items. So I was ordering all my Christmas stuff early. Then I ended up taking it down to Tim at New Line Emboss and had them debossed and had these really custom, beautiful. Items to give away to clients that didn't cost me an arm and a leg.

But they were high value, high quality. And that's something that you can think about and do as well. You don't have to buy swag items at a swag shop. You can actually find other ways to either get your logo put onto items or heck, you don't even have to put your logo on items. And you know what?

Sometimes people really appreciate that as well. And that, that leads me into the next part. Do we have to give branded items? And the answer is. No, we do not have to give branded items at Christmas. You do not have to give branded items at Christmas. And let me take you into the next part of this. Okay. So at some of the other organizations that I worked at they like to give nice stuff to you, but once again, just like any business cost conscious.

So what did they do? Well, just like before, we created those, those customer lists. We knew what tiers of items that we were going to get various clients. We broke down the dollar values for what those tiers were. And what did we do? We waited till Black Friday. Black Friday came, we went to Best Buy, we went to various stores, and we picked out items that met within the criterias that we saw there.

And those were the client gifts that we gave that year. And what we always do is create cards. And so I have created my own my own Christmas cards for my company and for the companies I've worked at for the past decade. Is that the best way to do it? Probably not. Probably not. And actually, we might have a guest coming on the show.

I don't want to get too much into it, but they, they create really custom Christmas cards that are absolutely beautiful. And I got to introduce them this year, and we might look at that for next year. But yeah, we've created Christmas cards and it's not expensive. It's easy to do. You can go to like any store.

Staples store or you know I'm talking Canada. I'm not sure where you might go in the US to do that, but you go to any Staples store and you can buy half fold cards that you can print on. And we've been doing that forever. And we make beautiful custom Christmas cards to all of our clients based at home.

We just type them out, print them out, and get these really beautiful, high quality Christmas cards and we just do it that way. And so, like I'm saying, these are, these are really. Easy ways for any organization to be able to give to their clients at Christmas, do it in a personalized custom way, you know, in at a dollar value that doesn't break the bank.

It's just a win win everyone. It really is. It's a win win and there are lots and lots of ways to go about doing it. Like I said find sale shops. You know, Black Friday is a great time. It's always before Christmas. Think about your clients at that time, right? There are ways to, to put your own logos on things.

You can emboss and deboss them. There's lots of shops that do this. Like I said, in Edmonton, Nuline Emboss is amazing. His gentleman's name is Tim Healey. He's really kind. He does absolutely great work. I've had nothing but high quality items from them and I would highly, highly recommend them. The big thing is, is that we definitely want to keep gifts usable and relevant.

Okay. It's easy. Like I said, there's lots of junk. You guys know that if you guys have been in business any length of time, and you've looked to buy branded items, you know, there's a ton and ton of junk out there. Be, be careful, right? Spend a little bit of time. Think about what do I want my brand to look like?

When you're giving out branded items like that, you are in some ways showing the world who you are as a company, right? How, what are you, what are you okay with? I think that's a, that's a really easy way of putting it is saying, what are we okay with? Are we okay with giving away junk to clients? You're like, is that really who we want to be?

Or do we want to take some care and make sure that whatever we give away is thoughtful? It makes sense for our brand. It shows the value and quality of our brand. Right? Everything matters, everyone. You don't really realize this, but every single thing you do as an organization matters. You know, it's all being perceived.

It's you're being judged whether you like it or not. And I'm saying that in the nicest possible way. What I'm trying to say is just be careful. Just think about the items that you're giving away and make sure that they align with who Who you want to be as a company, right? Like if, you know, if you're selling million dollar services, you know, through throwing people, 10 cent pens probably isn't, doesn't really make a lot of sense, right?

It just doesn't make sense for your brand. It really doesn't. Just put some thought into it, put some thought into it. Who are our clients? What will they love? But what, what. What will they love that also aligns with our values and what we would, what we would be okay with the way that we want to represent ourselves, right?

It is critical. And I hope that what you're getting is you have to do it, but you can be very careful and deliberate about it. And that's really what I want you guys to do. I want you guys to be careful and deliberate and make sure that the gifts you're giving, you are proud to give them. They represent your brand.

You know that your clients it's going to mean something to them. Okay. It is important. Remember, it's always important that we give from a place of thank you and not expectation. Remember, I talked about this, guys. Don't expect anything in return. Most of the time, you won't get anything back. Why?

Because your clients are just going to be surprised that you did something like this for them. Right? You would be surprised how many times I get an email. It's like, wow, like, I can't believe you did that. Or I can't believe that, that you, you were so kind and you were so thoughtful with, with your client gift or what you gave us for this year.

And it is, I think people are genuinely surprised, but think about that. If they are genuinely surprised, do you think that they're going to forget about you? Do you think they're going to forget about you in 2024 or whatever year you guys are going into now? No, of course not. They're going to remember that really, really kind person at that organization who thought about them.

And the next time there's an opportunity for that organization, whether that be a year down the line, five years down the line, they're going to remember you. They're going to remember that really kind person who was thoughtful, who cared, and who went out of their way to make sure that they got something back in return for Christmas.

Okay? Very important. Very, very, very important. Alright. So, how do we go about getting them the gifts? Okay. So this is really cool. And once again you guys know me, if there is an opportunity to hang out with some clients and have some face to face time, I'm going to say, go for it. And there's almost no better time to have, you know, a 10 minute or 20 minute conversation with a client than when you're swinging by their office or going, grabbing a quick lunch with them and saying, Hey, I have something for you.

Do you mind if we just get together quickly? And you would be surprised. I have yet to say that to somebody and I'm saying, Nope, I'm too busy today, Kelly. Come back another time. That's not how it goes. When you call somebody and say, Hey great to connect with you. I just have something I want to swing by and drop off for you.

Just to thank you for the year. You would be surprised. I, like I said, I don't think I've ever once had someone say, no, I don't got five or 10 minutes for you. It's never happened. They always make the time. And so it's a great time to just say, Hey, you know, we really appreciate you. Thank you for all you've done for us over the last year.

And this is just a little something for you. Thank you. And we look forward to connecting again in the next year. And that's all you got to do. It's really simple. It's really always from a place of kindness, always from a place of, of no expectation. But remember, the world has a funny way, the universe has a funny way of working things out.

When you do this for somebody and you're just kind about it and you don't ask for anything in return, you would be surprised how often. You know, the new year rolls around and you know, within that month, you're getting a phone call. Hey, we have an opportunity coming up and you came to my mind. Would you like to chat about it?

You would be surprised. It comes back. It comes back tenfold. It really does. And these little tiny things I know for an organization, sometimes it can feel like a pinch, you know, like I've had hard years. I've had hard years where, you know, it was like crap, you know. Do we really have a lot of money to do this right now?

Probably not, but they, they, you know, my clients took, or my clients went out on a limb for us this year. And so even though it's going to be a little tight, I'm, I'm going to give it back. I'm going to give back. And, you know, I think as long as I can do that. I would if there was something that I could do, even if it was like on a small scale, I would do it.

And that would be my opinion to you guys as well. Always make time to give back to your clients. Always make time. Like I said, whether you celebrate Christmas or not the holiday season is the holiday season. Most people, most people accept gifts. Most people appreciate. thoughtfulness and kindness during this time.

And so it is definitely worth taking a minute and giving back to those clients. Okay. All right. Some of you may be asking, is liquor okay? And obviously we touched on this earlier. The answer is yes, liquor is okay. But I want you guys to think morally about who you are. Some of you may have experienced challenges with liquor and you know, I'm speaking.

I've had lots of friends. I have some close people in my life who, who struggle with liquor and so that really changed my focus on it for a long time. We did give away liquor As client gifts I'm reluctant to give away liquor now. And the reason is you just don't know what challenges people are struggling with.

And so unless you like 100 percent know that they don't struggle or that they don't have a family member maybe who struggles with with liquor challenge challenges on that front. My opinion would be maybe hold off on it. Like I said, I, I used to, we used to give away, we used to give away lots of liquor at various organizations that I worked with.

I just, now, now that I'm more aware of the challenges out there, I'm a little more reluctant to do it. Just because I don't, I would never want to put somebody in that situation. I would never want to put somebody in a situation where, you know, oh, you know, who knew, who knew. That this person struggled with alcohol and yet we just gave him, you know, a two six a whiskey.

Right? Right. So I, my opinion now is I don't think that we will give away liquor, especially if we do not know without like without a shadow of a doubt that that person doesn't struggle. Just because I, I wouldn't want to put somebody in that situation. I think you guys have to be. cognizant and careful about that as well.

But that came with time that came with with learning and to each their own. If you want to, it is, it is perfectly okay. All right. Okay. So remember, people will always make the time for you when you have gifts for them. They really do. And people always remember who went out of their way. to prioritize them.

Without your clients and employees, you do not have a business. Show them they matter to you at Christmas and watch your business thrive. Shout outs this week, David Fair, Aaron Haberman, Jason Chakkalakal, Steve Austin, Zach Carlin, Brad Warren, Colin Harms, Mel Morris Cerbito, and Rodney Lover. You guys are amazing.

Thank you so much for all the kind words. It's been an absolute pleasure. whirlwind of a week at the Business Development Podcast and in the Kennedy household. We had our new arrival, Jett McKenlyn Kennedy. I'm a very proud father. I love that little boy and looking forward, looking forward to this Christmas.

Until next time, this has been the Business Development Podcast and we will catch you on. The flip side.

Outro: This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation. And business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.

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