IBA, as the premier business brokerage firm in the Pacific Northwest, is firmly established as a respected professional service firm in the legal, accounting, banking, mergers & acquisitions, real estate, and financial planning communities. Periodically, we will post guest blogs from professionals with knowledge to share for the good of owners of privately held companies & family businesses. The following blog article has been provided by Janet McNaughton of Lasting Impressions (https://www.lastingimpressionsgifts.net/):
What Do Business Gifts Actually Say About Your Company?
Be First In Their World™
The thing they unwrap isn’t the gift. Knowing you thought of them is.
A seven-year-old named Luka spent his Christmas money on a LEGO Ninjago set.
He took his favorite minifigure, Jay, to the store — against his dad’s advice — and lost it.
Heartbroken, he wrote to LEGO to explain what happened.
They didn’t just mail a replacement.
Richard, in customer service, wrote back to say he had called Sensei Wu, the Ninjago master, to ask what to do.
Sensei Wu’s answer: “You must always protect your Ninjago minifigures like the dragons protect the Weapons of Spinjitzu!”
Then he sent Jay back — along with a bad guy for him to fight.
Luka will remember that letter long after the toy is gone.
Because the real gift wasn’t the plastic. It was knowing someone paid attention.
That’s the work I do at Lasting Impressions — I design branded gifts that provide proof
you were paying attention. You can’t wrap that feeling. But it’s the part people keep.
I have been doing this for thirty years, and the question business owners ask me most often is some version of: what should we send?
It is the wrong question, and it is an expensive one to get wrong.
Because a gift is never neutral. Whatever you send says something about your company — whether you intended it to or not.
The merchandise is never the point. It’s the carrier.
A good piece says, out loud and every day, “You matter to us.”
A forgettable piece says nothing at all — which is its own kind of message.
And a piece that misses the person entirely says something worse: that you spent money on them without ever thinking about them.
That is the part business owners underestimate. You are not buying an object. You are making a statement about how well you know someone, and they will read it correctly.
The Invisible Gift™
Think about a gift that meant something to you.
You probably remember how it made you feel long after you stopped noticing the thing itself.
That’s the Invisible Gift™.
It’s not in the box. It’s in the fact that someone paid attention.
This is why I don’t start with a catalog.
I start with the people who are going to receive it.
What do they enjoy? Where do they go? What would they actually be glad to own?
Get that right, and the object becomes proof that you were paying attention.
Get it wrong, and even an expensive gift can feel like a transaction.
One question worth asking before you buy anything
Ask where the object is going to live.
A logo is welcome on a jacket at a Saturday game, in a car, on a bag that travels. It is less welcome in a living room, where a company name was never invited.
Useful is not the whole test. The better test is whether your name is welcome in the place the object ends up.
Get that right and the piece works for you for years. Get it wrong and it goes in a drawer — which is the most expensive outcome of all. You paid full price for silence.
For an owner, this is a business decision
If you own the company, you are spending real money on a relationship, and you are entitled to ask what the return is.
The honest answer is that the return is not impressions. It is whether the person on the other end feels known and appreciated.
That feeling doesn’t expire when the season ends.
It rides along — to the lake, to the weekend, into the next conversation about who to recommend.
So before you choose the gift, choose the feeling.
Decide how you want someone to feel when they open it.
Then find the object that carries it.
Lasting Ideas™ — Before You Choose the Gift
Stop asking, “What should we send?”
Start asking:
- Who are we trying to make feel genuinely thought of?
- What do they enjoy — where do they go, what would they be glad to own?
- What feeling do we want them to have the moment they open it?
- Where will this live, and is our name welcome there?
- Will the object still carry that feeling every time they use it?
People rarely remember every gift they receive. They always remember how you made them feel. Design for the feeling first. Start with the person, or your audience, not the catalog, and the gift becomes proof you were paying attention.
That’s the Invisible Gift™ — the part that stays after the wrapping comes off.
If you have questions relating to the content of this article or selecting holiday gifts for your staff or customers, Janet McNaughton, founder of Lasting Impressions, would welcome the opportunity to connect. Janet can be reached at (425) 822-6651 or [email protected].
IBA, the Pacific Northwest’s premier business brokerage firm since 1975, is available as an information resource to the media, business brokerage, mergers & acquisitions, and real estate communities on subjects relevant to the purchase & sale of privately held companies and family businesses. IBA is recognized as one of the best business brokerage firms in the nation based on its long track record of successfully negotiating “win-win” business sale transactions in environments of full disclosure employing “best practices”.