How Do You Show Your Appreciation?

Traditionally the holiday season is a time of thanksgiving, commemorating the birth of Jesus and celebrating the miracle of Hanukkah. This time of year has also become synonymous with gift-giving to family, friends and business associates.

At a recent Lunch n’ Learn session, hosted by Lori Williams of Your Legal Resource, the topic of the program was on ways to show appreciation to your customers and clients. If you weren’t at the lunch, you missed a lot of valuable suggestions for showing gratitude to your business associates not only at the holidays but for year-round gifting as well. Read her blog post on the roundtable discussion at http://www.bestlegalresource.com/.

Linda Anger, President of The Write Concept, (http://www.thewriteconcept.com/ ) told the group she makes it a point to learn as much as she can about her client or referral partner. “I get to know their likes, interests, taste in music, then customize a small gift such as a book or concert tickets to match their personality.” Since writing is her business, she takes pleasure in attaching a personalized, handwritten note along with the gift, thanking them for their business.

Here are some of the other suggestions for thoughtful gifts of appreciation:

Donations to a charity in the name of the person. Two suggestions are http://www.globalgiving.org/ or http://www.givingnote.org/

Bottle of wine from a local winery or beer from local brewery with your custom label on it

Gift card to Starbucks or other coffee or tea place

Gift card to restaurants

Deliver or send popcorn, bagels or coffee cakes, etc. to their office

Subscriptions to magazines

For many years, I’ve made it a point to meet with my clients and as many of my associates as I can between Thanksgiving and the year’s end and I bring them a little gift-wrapped package of homemade cookies. During the meetings I have in the summer months, I bring fresh or dried herbs or spices from my garden attached to a recipe card using that ingredient.

How do you show appreciation to your clients and business associates at this time of year and all year round?