Shwarts Family Dentistry Team – great group!!
After a speaking engagement last week, the business owner, Dr. Ellis Shwarts, and I exchanged gifts.
My gift to him – meh.
His gift to me – clever, perfect and MEMORABLE.
Later I wrote Dr. Shwarts, “Your gift is so very thoughtful, and no one has given me this gift before. It was perfect.”
He replied, “Glad you liked it! I got the idea from www.giftologygroup.com. I heard them on a podcast discussing gifts for professionals and how a good gift to someone is something they would appreciate (like you mentioning your coffee ice cream in your bio…).
Dr. Ellis Shwarts
He noticed my email sig line and read my bio in advance. He did his homework.
“SPEAKER, AUTHOR AND COFFEE ICE CREAM EATER”
Dr. Shwarts gave me a gallon of coffee ice cream! Beyond perfect and I dug in as soon as I got back to my office.
Two epiphanies about business gift giving that have the best “return on relationship”
1️⃣ Be thoughtful. What does the recipient really care about?
2️⃣ It’s not about the money! You don’t have to spend a fortune.
Gifts that fail to deliver
According to www.giftologygroup.com the top gift offenders include ⬇️
- Stress balls: Generic promo items that end up in trash bins.
- Branded pens: Overused swag offering zero lasting impression. (Half the time the pens don’t work!)
- Company sweatshirts: Impractical apparel that may not fit or align with personal style, quickly forgotten.
- Corporate candy: Short-lived treats that ignore dietary preferences.
- Desk clutter (mini calendars, stapler removers): Adds chaos without value.
- Food items (nuts, ham): Risks allergies and religious concerns. (ex: Ham is not kosher.)
Delicious. Enough said.
Relevance to you
What was my gift to Dr. Shwarts? A coffee cup with our Speak For Yourself logo.
Why was it “meh”? Not unique and a smidgeon self serving…
Don’t make the mistakes I’ve made! Give clever gifts that your recipients will value AND remind them about you and your organization.
🎁 What have been the best & worst business gifts you’ve given and/or received? Add it to the comments below. 🎁
PS: Thank you to Dr. Ellis Shwarts and Judy Dedmon for this blog’s inspiration!
This post on gifting rings so true, but my takeaway is the reflection you had re: the gift you had given. Self-reflection is a life skill I am practicing and you have mastered!
Hi Nancy – thanks for your comment. I had not thought about the self-reflection part of this. I often ask myself how did I contribute to the good or bad situation I might find myself in.
Giving thoughtful gifts is an art and I will try to do better in the future!
Gifts can also be “indirect.” My father was a general surgeon that almost exclusively depended on referrals from primary care physicians. Instead of giving the physicians generic “thank you” gifts at Christmas time, he had a better idea. My mother would find out which crystal or china patterns the wives collected (almost all of the doctors were men at the time) and personally buy them a piece or place setting. She kept a spreadsheet of the purchases over his 30 years in practice. One of the wives stated” do you know that I have a complete set of Waterford crystal courtesy of you? My mother replied…”Yes, in fact I do and the pattern is Lismore!”
This is CLASSIC!!!!! Your mom was brilliant. Not only did she give personalized gifts, but she kept good records!
Thanks for your comment.
Love this story, Karen! I strive to be a good family gift giver, but struggle more with professional gifts. It’s a work in progress and your advice will be put to good use. The best business gift I ever received was a “money tree” sent at year-end by a financial expert with whom I work in my collaborative divorce practice. Besides being a pretty plant, it was sent with a clever message containing wishes for prosperity in the coming year. Not only has that plant thrived on my kitchen windowsill for several years now, it somehow “pollinated” the plant next to it and now I have two money trees! I look at these plants literally every morning when I am making coffee (the hot kind, not the ice cream kind) and each time I water my money trees I think of the giver and his focus on growth and prosperity (which I appreciate personally AND is something I help strategize for my clients).
Hi Esther – what a great gift. Pretty, sustainable and a high “Return On Relationship”. Plus, this gift has relevance to what the gift giver does.
Thanks so much for your comment and observations.