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

Southern Mindfulness – Gifting as a Part of Southern Culture

Everything’s a little slower in the South, but it isn’t due to the heat, and it isn’t laziness, either. What it is is a kind of mindfulness, an awareness of the proper Southern way things should be done and the importance of the manners instilled by family and community. It isn’t something reserved for special occasions. Southern Mindfulness is a daily ritual equally intrinsic to family, community and business. It’s a way of being.

Those ma’ams and sirs are genuine — as essential to a Southerner as sunshine and sweet tea. Hospitality and grace under fire are keynotes of the Southern experience, and the expression of respect even a simple gift conveys speaks volumes about the giver. In the South, the gift is often food, and food is far more than sustenance: It’s the language of the South.

Foundations of Tradition, Family and Community

Forget today’s bustling, high-rise metropolitan cities, like banking giant Charlotte, N.C., jazz capital New Orleans, La., or capital city and industrial-technological hub Baton Rouge. At the turn of the twentieth century, life in the South was a rural existence of long months of unrelenting heat, roving sickness and fever, endless agricultural labor and often loneliness and isolation. Harsh conditions meant large tracts of land were necessary to support farms and plantations. Those acreages to the horizon, however, also made visiting family and friends a social event anticipated for weeks – sometimes, all year. Family meant community, and community was family. Continue reading Southern Mindfulness – Gifting as a Part of Southern Culture

Corporate Gifting for Community Banks

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Community Banks Community-Based

Despite the growth of megabanks, community banks still provide 60 percent of all loans made to small businesses. Your customers count on you to provide full services and keep costs low. You take pride in helping your community thrive, and your clients rest assured that the financial decision makers are locally vested individuals who appreciate what they’re trying to achieve. Within a national bank, a customer may go unnoticed in the $100-billion pool of assets, but at a community bank, every client counts. Corporate gift giving is a perfect way to show them they do.

Customer Retention Equals Profitability

A Forbes article for entrepreneurs stresses that businesses should never underestimate the value of client retention:

  • A mere 5-percent increase in customer retention can expand a company’s profitability by at least 25 percent, often more.
  • A full 80 percent of a company’s future revenue will come from just 20 percent of its existing customers.

The article highlighted that companies often find customer additions exciting but that “ignoring customer attrition could eventually spell their downfall.” High costs associated with customer acquisition mean that the early years of a business relationship are significantly less profitable than later ones, when established trust earns greater sales volumes. The optimal trick is to acquire new clients while keeping current clients happy.

Customer Satisfaction Versus Client Retention

Surprisingly, customer satisfaction does not automatically equal client retention, especially within business-to-business relationships:

  • Repeated studies demonstrate that even though customer satisfaction percentages may rank in the 80s and even 90s, businesses retain less than half of those clients.
  • The key determinant for customer retention was the customers’ position within their business hierarchy. When clients were decision makers, customer retention was much more likely.

Your bankers know those vital people making decisions. Your community bank has a much better chance than a megabank or many other giant businesses of earning customer loyalty and maintaining long-term relationships that will prove profitable for all parties for years – hopefully decades – to come. Continue reading Corporate Gifting for Community Banks

The Art of Corporate Gifting – Meaningful, Ethical Tokens of Appreciation

presentDifferent Sectors,
Different Rules

Showing heartfelt appreciation to people who deserve thanks is vital to a company’s continued success. It can also be a bit like walking on nutshells. You want to build professional bridges with employees, clients and colleagues, especially around holidays or other milestone occasions. Regardless of industry or sector, however, rules and etiquette have become the watchwords of the day, part of a balancing act between ethical behavior and compliance with the law. Legal, ethical corporate gift giving hinges on:

  • Federal, state, and local laws.
  • Professional industry association guidelines.
  • Individual company policies.

Most industries have either laws controlling gifting in the workplace or guidelines and accompanying company policies to ensure gifting remains ethical. In general, a gift must be a gift, and modest is best.

What Is a Gift?

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidelines define a gift as “the transfer of property (including money), or the use of or income from property without expecting to receive something of at least equal value in return.” In simpler terms, the giver must truly be giving a gift – sans strings, future influence or control. The higher the value of the gift, the greater the perceived expectation will be of owing something in return.

Gift Taxes and Value Continue reading The Art of Corporate Gifting – Meaningful, Ethical Tokens of Appreciation

The Timing and Importance of Employee Gifting

10_2ColorCstm_6920Creating a Happier Workforce

You can run any type of business in the world, but if you don’t have happy, productive and talented employees, success is a tough nut to crack. After all, your employees do the hard work of running your business on a day-to-day basis. If they’re not happy, it will show in your bottom line. One of the simplest ways to encourage greater employee engagement and loyalty is to show your workforce that you care through employee gifting. Gifts don’t have to be expensive or high tech to help employees feel more invested in your company. Even the gesture of a small token can boost morale.

Reap Considerable Benefits from Employee Gifting

Gifting is the practice of giving presents or mementos to employees who deserve to be recognized for their accomplishments, on special occasions or just because. Many businesses also engage in gifting around the holidays in an effort to thank their workforce for another year of success. Not all business leaders believe in the idea of employee gifting, but those who do can notice great results from the practice. Giving employees gifts has been found to have a wide range of benefits. Some of the most compelling include:

  • Greater employee satisfaction and fewer overall employee complaints

  • Increased individual productivity

  • Better teamwork among employees

  • Better customer relations

  • Reductions in employee turnover

  • Fewer stress-related illnesses among employees

  • Reductions in workplace accidents

  • Reduced absenteeism

Choosing the Right Times & Occasions for Gifting Continue reading The Timing and Importance of Employee Gifting

The Importance of Corporate Gifting Frequency

The art of sales is like dating; you will have the same feelings of anticipation and hope that the evening will be successful. As with dating, the process of making a sale doesn’t end with just one meeting. You must continue to nurture the relationship by making subsequent appointments and communicating by telephone. In dating, you expend this effort to cement a romantic relationship with another person. With sales, you are strengthening a business relationship. One thing that can help you with both is a periodic gift.

Gifts for New Clients

When you are dating, you will learn that everyone you meet is not a match for you. This also occurs in the business world, and it is the reason that new and old companies alike must continue their marketing efforts so that they can bring in new customers. Gift giving helps people accomplish this goal very well. It is also an excellent way of breaking the ice in the beginning. For example, it’s highly advantageous to have corporate gifts for your guests when you are hosting a promotional event in the community. You could even hold a raffle and give away more thoughtful client gifts. Like a dating partner, these clients will remember you and your brand long after the event is over. Continue reading The Importance of Corporate Gifting Frequency

How to Keep Your Clients During Economic Downturns

Tough economic times hit businesses hard. Budgets, staff and programs get cut, leaving minimal resources to allocate for additional spending, including client retention. Executives are forced to make difficult decisions on where to spend company funds, and budgets that are perceived as being extraneous are some of the first to be cut.

However, an economic downturn is no time to scale back on maintaining and building relationships with your clients. Abandoning your client retention strategy will cause your brand to lose ground and make it difficult to bounce back when conditions improve. As a business owner, you should be looking to invest more in ways to draw in and retain customers. While the competition is busy scaling back, you can move in and stake your claim with a core group of clients who will remain loyal to your business no matter what the economic atmosphere.

The Importance of Customer Retention

Business owners agree: customer loyalty rates are falling. Competition is fierce and economic hardships hit everyone from individuals to corporations. Company executives are keeping a closer eye than ever on the bottom line and becoming more discerning about where they spend their money. When budget cuts loom, the hunt is on for cheaper options and opportunities to slash spending wherever possible. Continue reading How to Keep Your Clients During Economic Downturns

How to Store Pecans without Ruining Them

00010020_1There’s nothing worse than opening a container of pecans you stored months earlier to find them rotten or rancid. If you picked all those pecans, all of your hard work would seem pointless. Fortunately, there are a few principles to storing pecans that will ensure your hard work or money spent was not wasted.

Do Not Store in Moist Places

Regardless if the pecans are shelled or unshelled, storing them in a moist room will promote mold growth and may cause the pecans to decrease in quality. Make sure the pecans have an opportunity to dry out after the harvest to remove moisture. Do this by placing the pecans on a screen or hanging them in small ventilated bags for approximately two weeks. Also, keep the pecans in dry, dark places.

Store in Vacuum-Sealed Containers/Bags

Always store pecans in airtight containers or bags. If you do not have a vacuum-sealer, Ziploc bags work perfectly fine. Make sure all air is removed from the bag and that it is completely sealed so moisture does not form. The method of storage does not matter nearly as much as ensuring they are properly sealed. Continue reading How to Store Pecans without Ruining Them

Stock Up! Why You Should Buy Pecans in Bulk

043crp2Pecans should not appear just around the holidays as a treat or in a warm pecan pie. They should appear all year, in all kinds of food, because they are incredibly nutritious and can add just the right amount of flavor and crunch to a dish. How do you make sure you have pecans to last all year? Stock up! Here are the reasons why:

Excellent Snack

Sometimes, we forget about snacking on nuts because it can be easier to grab that bag of chips. However, pecans are a great alternative to less-healthy options. They are filled with essential vitamins, fiber, and protein (nutritional content here).

Delicious Garnish

Pecans act as an excellent garnish and can accompany many dishes, such as salads, fish or desserts. If you have pecans stocked up, then you never have to worry whether or not your dish could be improved by their presence. Be adventurous with your cooking! Continue reading Stock Up! Why You Should Buy Pecans in Bulk

How to Keep Your New Year Resolutions in 2015

feet-on-scaleWe are all familiar with the desire to make proactive changes to our lives and relationships. We make grand promises with ourselves about how we are going to change and get that body we always wanted. But truth is, we are also oh-so-familiar with the feeling of failure from not achieving what we were so pumped about at the end of the previous year. What are the solutions to this perpetual problem?

Create a Plan

Create a map or outline of how you plan to achieve your resolution. While creating this outline, think about how you are going to handle temptation. Once you start to deviate from your goal, remind yourself what you intended to do with your goal. This moment of intentional reflection could be the difference between falling off the wagon or sticking to your resolution.

Be Realistic

It is unrealistic to attempt to completely change a behavior that has been a part of your identity for the larger part of your life in a matter of a few months or a year. Take small steps first. Continue reading How to Keep Your New Year Resolutions in 2015