A wonderful thing happened in The Staggs family household last night. After a busy day at work we returned home and there was a beautiful looking black gift box sitting on the front door step, unfortunately not addressed to me but my husband, who, was extremely excited – apparently men don’t receive many gifts!
The box was eagerly unwrapped to reveal a nicely presented letter thanking us for our recent purchase (made about 6 months ago). The gift was an invitation to have a family portrait taken by a professional photographer plus a couple of canvas pictures too. It was interesting to watch our reactions, it was very much an’ hah’ moment, we felt like valued clients. Which led me to this post, do you give a gift to a new client? do you think you should?
I know some Advisers do and I think that if you start, you should continue – nothing worse than someone finding out they didn’t receive a gift and their family member or friend did.
It’s not a necessary in terms of retaining clients but I do believe it’s a necessary to attracting new clients. Imagine when The Staggs family does go and have that family portrait taken and it’s hung on a wall and people make comment, we’ll say, “yes, our XXXX gave it to us as a gift” and that, is what is the magic part – it gives us a reason to talk about the particular business that gave us the gift, if simply to acknowledge their gift to us.
Appreciation for business is a wonderful thing in today’s competitive world but you don’t need to over spend or go mad, just simply acknowledge a new client with something that is appropriate to them and your business.
