When it comes to showing your clients you care, actions speak louder than words. You may have spent the entire year nurturing relationships across your sphere of influence with the help of care calls and thank-you notes. As the new year comes knocking, you may be cooking up new ideas to engage the nearest and dearest members of your SOI. In addition to showing care through correspondence, here are 10 gift ideas that are sure to make your clients feel nurtured and appreciated.
- Kitchen Cutlery, Board, and Blocks: Bring joy with a customized cutting board from LifeLong Cutlery. Just as the name implies, LifeLong Gifts offers superior-quality, heirloom-worthy products designed to last a lifetime.
- Food and Wine Gift Basket: Add an instant upgrade to the standard stay-at-home snacks with a festive gourmet food-and-wine basket from Wine Country. Who doesn’t love the opportunity to settle in on a chilly day with fuzzy socks and a delicious treat and drink in hand?
- Phone Accessories: With electronics working in overdrive, an extra wall charger, car vent mount, or phone case is always welcome.
- Canvas Prints: Give the gift of safety (and style) with a customized, filtered face mask or a personalized calendar. If you’d like to take it a step further for VIP clients, offer to turn one of their favorite photos into a custom canvas print that they can hang up in their home or office.
- Online Learning: Offer to pay for a month of online learning. Downtime offers the perfect opportunity to pick up new skills, and sites like Lynda.com from LinkedIn or Coursera make it easier than ever. If this isn’t feasible, survey your clients to understand what skills they’d like to acquire and bring in experts from your professional network for exclusive, virtual workshops.
- Donation to Their Charity of Choice: We all have causes that we hold close. By choosing to make a donation to your client’s charity of choice, you’ll not only warm their hearts, but open the door for a conversation to learn more about them. In real estate, emotional proximity matters.
- Greeting Cards: Snail mail and letter writing have grown in popularity as people look for meaningful ways to stay in touch from afar. Help facilitate this genuine form of connection by giving your clients a pack of greeting cards. Make sure to include a note from you, too!
- Stay-At-Home Activity Packs: Bring brightness to your clients’ day by assembling and delivering a box filled with fun activities to keep them busy.
-Ideas for adults: Crossword puzzles, magazines/books, soup mix in a jar, games that can be played solo or with others in the household
-Ideas for children: Coloring books, age-appropriate toys, sidewalk chalk
You know your clients best, so feel free to get creative! - Gift Card to a Local Restaurant: A gift card to a local restaurant is not just a practical attention for your client, but can also help build goodwill with local businesses. You may even buy these in bulk and connect with the restaurant owners, explaining to them the intention behind your purchase.
- Professional Service for Their Home: Some clients may be responsive to physical gifts, while others may be impressed by acts of service. For the latter group, tap into your resources to offer up small acts that can make a big difference in your SOI’s life. Some ideas: Hiring somebody to shovel the snow in their driveway, or a professional cleaning service for their home.
No matter the time of year, these gifts are an evergreen way to naturally weave yourself into your sphere’s life by providing value. Have you kept relationships thriving through the art of gift-giving? What is your favorite gift to share with your sphere? Let us know in the comments.