When Is the Best Time to Send a Corporate Gift?

The timing of a gift can be just as important as what you send. This is as true in corporate gifting as it is personal gifting. Here’s how to time it just right.

Make an Impact During the Holiday Season

While the prime time for gifting is still several months away, it’s never too early to begin planning your holiday gifting strategy. It’s no secret that November and December are popular months to send corporate gifts. However, it requires some thought if you don’t want to get lost in the onslaught of gifts. Or lost, period, since some offices are practically empty during that time.

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How To Create a Corporate Gifting Policy

Everyone loves receiving tokens of appreciation. Heartfelt acknowledgements like client gifts can express what words often cannot. However, preserving balance while honoring ethics within relationships can be tricky business. While formalized contracts govern many financial transactions, companies and their representatives can find themselves “winging it” when giving or receiving gifts. Experience has taught us that establishing a corporate gifting policy can prevent unintended awkwardness and ensure that every gift is always the perfect gift – exactly what it should be.

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Gift Giving and Diversification Within the Oil and Gas Industry

The only certainty in business is the inevitability of change. As the energy sector monitors the swinging pendulum of supply and demand, boom and bust, they find themselves shifting business models and surveying unfamiliar shores. Experienced industry executives recognize this latest downturn as marking a “transformative period” of reinvention, redirection, innovation and resourcefulness. However, these challenges also mean opportunities to open new doors, form new partnerships and build new alliances. In fact, according to the Harvard Business Review, “History shows that the best deals are made in downturns.”

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5 Surprising Health Benefits of the Pecan

National Pecan Month celebrates the value of the pecan, that delicious foundation in so many of our favorite indulgences. Even without their sweet dressings, pecans are a delectable staple able to keep your mind and body active all day long. Packed with power in such a small package, these tree nuts were lauded as “health capsules” in a study published by the National Institutes of Health. Here are five surprising health benefits that pecans provide.

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Louisiana Gifting

Cajun, Creole or transplant, Louisianans revere food as a powerful staple that unites family, strengthens friendships and forms new bonds. We serve our best because we understand that life’s most basic necessity is also one of life’s greatest pleasures. Cane River Pecan Company specializes in helping people express their gratitude through personal and corporate gifting, but a number of other Louisiana-based companies do as well. Order a ready-made box or basket, or choose from several purveyors to craft a custom creation. Whether you’re local to Louisiana or a business based abroad, gifts rich in culture and taste are appreciated across the board.

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Corporate Gift-Giving on Professional Holidays

While we think professional holidays deserve full recognition (translation: a full day of recreation or vacation), in reality, they’re usually limited to simple observances. Fortunately, that makes an unexpected thank you from the boss that much sweeter. If you’d like to reward the people who make your business successful, we’re ready to help!

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Assessing the Success of Your Gifting Strategy

Intangible Assessment?

Profitability comes down to assessing the return on investment (ROI) of every business metric, and corporate gift giving is no exception. In fact, as entrepreneurs and corporations alike focus on making less count for more, client gifts – and the anticipated resulting client retention – increasingly undergo piercing scrutiny. While ROI is often seemingly intangible, the four conventional standards for recognition of revenue still apply:

  • Collection probability.

  • Completed delivery.

  • Evidence of an arrangement.

  • Determined price.

Loosely translated, these four provide a lens to clarify the relationships you have with clients, suppliers, employees, banks and even shareholders – and the worth of strengthening or maintaining them through gifts.

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9 Ways To Stand Out in Holiday Corporate Gifting

From Halloween on, the two remaining months are a mad dash to the year’s finish line for both individuals and businesses. Third-quarter reports are in, shifting the focus to fourth-quarter earnings, the year’s bottom line, inventories, taxes and plans for the new year. Meanwhile, a holiday extravaganza of parties, outings, mixers and gifts goes full bore. Amid it all is the seemingly unavoidable dilemma of corporate gifting. Business can be tough, but gifting in business settings doesn’t have to be.

Making the List

Some companies admit to spending hours agonizing over what to give and who to include while others hope the holidays slide by, attracting as little notice as possible. Nevertheless, the holiday bustle will swirl, with tokens of appreciation acknowledging entrepreneurial partnerships, client loyalty and jobs well done. As the gifts fly, how to stand out becomes the name of the game. Partners, clients, vendors and employees are all giving and taking. Piles of boxes and bags appear in lobby reception areas and crowd corporate credenzas. Does anyone even remember who gave what? If you do it right, they will – and they will appreciate it, too.
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Giving Thanks to Vendors

Large or small, no business venture is an island. A host of other companies supplies goods, machinery, services, advice and expertise that allow you to serve your customers and grow your business. No matter the industry — whether you specialize in power and energy, telecommunications, precious metals, biotechnology or wedding planning — you operate within a complicated networking interplay of skilled individuals, providers and suppliers several levels deep. Business consultants and CEOs all agree: Businesses literally live and die by their vendors. Contemplate your ability to prosper without them, and the picture turns quite grim.

Business-Vendor, Vendor-Business — Perspectives

A number of studies have attempted to quantify the value of vendors to a business. While statistics for customer satisfaction, retention and impact are easily calculated based on repeat purchases and customer surveys, the business-vendor relationship is far more complex. Vendors operate as part of your business, but they aren’t employees. You are their client, but you’re a large-scale client, most likely one of many others. If your vendors are experienced, specialized and top-of-the-line in their field, it is likely that their services are in high demand, and they may even have to turn work away. Before you think that you can simply replace them, consider the true value of a top-notch supplier or service provider. In a trillion-dollar arena of million-dollar specialization, you may not be able to afford losing them. Continue reading Giving Thanks to Vendors