End of year gift giving: I might be Santa!

It's that time of year when people's minds turn to all things festive. Temperatures drop and snow falls or things heat up depending on where in the world a person happens to be and Christmas is just around the corner...Yes, I know the whole world doesn't believe in the concept of Christmas however it's pretty difficult to avoid with all the retailers urging us to spend up big. I'm not a big spender at Christmas, in fact my wife and I don't do the Christmas present thing at all as we tend to get what we want or need throughout the year as the need arises. For us it simply means a couple of weeks off which is perfect enough.

My office locks the doors for a couple of weeks from around the 23rd and reopens on the 7th of January. We leave some skeletons in charge...Oops, I mean we leave a skeleton-staff behind the locked doors to keep the process running but most of the 70-odd staff are sent on leave. My wife and I don't have much planned over that time and won't organise anything preferring to let it roll out as it will. We're both looking forward to it though. We'll probably kayak a bit, Netflix, hike and go to the beach...The usual.

My role at the office, the work-load I usually carry, diminishes somewhat in December generally; I become less proactive and more reactive typically only doing what what comes in organically rather than seeking business as I would during the other eleven months of the year. I still have things to do of course, just less.

One of my December pre-Christmas break-tasks is to engage with clients; Key clients. It's a task I enjoy because I get to engage with them on a more personal level rather than with a distinctly business-oriented-aspect. My style is always consultative however at this time of year it's a little more relaxed, always professional though.

So, I've been out and about handing gifts to my clients and thanking them for their continued business. It gives me a chance to seek some feedback in a face-to-face manner, to shake hands and generally add another layer of value. The bottle's of wine in the image are one of the gifts I have been handing out. It's a small gesture but one we find is highly appreciated. Of course, not everyone drinks alcohol so we have other options as gifts and I always make sure that the gift is appropriate to the client. Smart huh? I have many, many gifts to deliver and each one means a coffee or similar with the client so it takes time but hey, not a bad sort of way to spend my work day huh?

In addition to these strategically targeted personally-delivered gifts all our our clients get a gift-voucher delivered by surface mail. My team sent out $19,000 worth of them last week and the company as a whole has sent at least double that! Yeah, that's a lot of clients and gift vouchers.

I'm fortunate to have a very autonomous role at my office, to have a lot of support from the Directors and to have no one looking over my shoulder. I'm trusted to hit my KPI's without any pressure or interference and am blessed to have a great team around me who support my role and excel at their own. It's a great situation. Like any job there's things I would change however in the main I am content. My clients are important to me and the business and so we look after them. The gift-giving at Christmas time is simply a small gesture to thank them, to show our gratitude; The real work happens all year round in which my team work tirelessly to deliver outstanding results to the clients and represent the business with enthusiasm and professionalism.

I have some 30 or so more gifts to deliver in the next two weeks which is a lot considering there's only a total of 10 working days left in the year. I'll manage it I think although I understand how Santa must feel having to deliver gifts all over the world in one night!