Ask a Business Expert

A: Sending holiday greeting cards are a must for anyone who is in business today. It is the least we can do to thank our customers, clients, or vendors for past performance, but above all just to be nice. There has been a growing trend in this country to want to do business with people that care – caring about the world around us and especially caring about people. A holiday card is simply a nice thing to do and shows people that you care about them. But if you are going to send a card, follow these guidelines:

1. Send it before December 1st. It's always the first cards that get read. After that it becomes an "Oh well, just another card."
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3. Avoid deeply religious cards unless you know intimately about the person's faith. Just because someone practices a specific faith doesn't mean he/she is very religious, and many people feel discussing their religion in the form of a card is an invasion of their privacy.
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5. Even if you have a very large customer list, don't get cheap with cards. You want the recipient to talk about your card, and besides your card will be hanging on a wall beside some beautiful cards.
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7. There are some companies that are adopting a policy of sending Thanksgiving cards instead of Christmas cards to avoid the religious issue and to make sure the card gets read.

As for gifts, this really gets tricky. If you are sending a gift to a buyer of your product, beware. Many companies have a policy that any gift over a specified value (either $50 or $100) be either sent back to the sender or donated to the company or to a favorite charity. However, having said that, there are many people that count on Christmas as a time for gifts, paybacks or you could even call it "payola". Either do business that way or not do business at all.

Maybe I am a Pollyanna, but I refuse to do business that way. It's wrong and if I lose business because of it, then too bad. I don't want to feel beholden to anyone and I don't want to win business because of my gifts. There are plenty of very appropriate gifts that are under $100. I recommend going to an Executive Gift Consultant to give you some help as to the variety of gifts available. These consultants generally make their money from a commission from the gifts they sell but there are also some that work on a fee basis.

The type of gift you want to give to someone who has been special should be something that signifies a subject you both have in common. For example, if the customer is interested in baseball, you could give a framed picture of his favorite ballpark. If you are giving the same gift to many, just make sure it is of quality. Cheap gifts hurt more than help. A gift is about building relationships and relationships are all about details.