I know, I get it. We should give gifts to customers. It shows we are paying attention. It shows are thinking a little more about our customers than just, “when can we close this deal.” It’s just that I have received too many emails from sales people saying, “I’ll give you a pair of headphones or a fleece jacket or a gift card, if you meet with me and let me show you our "wiz-bang, automated, AI, big data, digital transformation, IoT, machine learning, data lake product" that will transform how you deliver value to your customers.
I have taken up sales people on this offer twice in my life. For two reasons; 1) the gifts were excellent and irresistible (see it works); and 2) I had some interest in the product type they were pitching. After a discovery call and a demo with each, I decided I was not going to buy the products.
The gifts arrived.
I felt a little guilt.
Is gifting worth it?
Buyers feel guilty and sellers feel cheated?
Then, I spoke to Chelsea Martin, co-owner of Noms Bake Shop about gifts, and she turned me around.
There are many ways to give gifts that don’t require a quid pro quo.
We talked about gift giving throughout the customer journey. I like that. All of us spend a lot of time mapping out customer journeys and milestones. We should start adding gift giving at the right steps in the customer journey.
I can get down with that.
Then, Chelsea dropped a bomb of a story about what I believe is the best, creative, COVID-19-world gift a B2B company can deliver. One of her customers ordered cookie boxes to be set to webinar attendees.
Let me say that again: A gift box. To webinar attendees.
The instructions in the card were to wait to open the box until during the webinar.
When they ran the webinar, the host asked everyone to open their boxes, and they all did it together. What a creative, fun thing to do in a webinar to pull people in and bring people together.
I am sold.
You gotta listen. Chelsea is a genius.
Learn more about Chelsea and Noms Bake Shop:
Her website
Chelsea on Linkedin
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