Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. My name is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. I was talking to a friend of mine on the phone the other day and he needed some advice on sending handwritten notes and buying gifts for. Some of his clients and customers now, he had read my book, the Grateful Entrepreneur, which has some tips talking about this, but he couldn't remember what I had said, so I gave him a few pieces of advice that I wanted to share with you.

Number one, when it comes to writing handwritten notes, he was curious, is it okay to put business cards in there? And I. You don't do that. Um, that signals that you're writing a handwritten note, almost like you're trying to get more business. When you put in your business card in there, make it a completely personal, um, relationship and appreciation.

So leave the business card out. I wouldn't put it in there. Make it like you're writing a handwritten note to a friend if you're writing. A handwritten note to a friend or even a family member, you would not put a business card in there, so don't do that for your clients and customers as well. Okay, so when it comes to gifts, what makes a good gift and what PO possibly could make a bad gift?

Well, despite that, this being a very popular gift, food items and wine. That sometimes, uh, could be a red flag. And here's why. Let's say you get a bottle of wine as a gift to one of your clients, and I certainly have, so I'm not, uh, saying that I've never done this. But what if they are a recovering alcoholic and you don't know that?

Tour. What if you give them a gift of like cookies and they're gluten free because they have a gluten allergy? So I got this tip, actually I didn't make this up from, uh, John Roland who wrote the book, Giftology. So highly recommend you read that book. And he suggests don't get gifts that are consumables where you're drinking wine or uh, excuse me, where you're gifting wine or possibly a food item because you just don't know.

What the person's situation is in terms of allergies or, or being, um, uh, off of alcohol. number two, and again, this, I got this from John Roland. Uh, he suggests you don't put your business logo on the gift. And I know a lot of people do this, and this, again, is really a promotional item if you do that. And that's not really a personal heartfelt gift.

He gave kind of an extreme but funny example, like if you were giving a gift of. Towels, uh, to a bride and groom at a wedding, you would not put your logo on the towels, right? You would put, uh, possibly have their names inscribed on the towels. So when you are doing a gift for a client and customers don't put your logo on it and maybe even go as far as.

If, depending on what the gift is, scripting their name on the gift, that shows a really nice personal touch. Um, also make it more heartfelt by learning more about your customer and clients and what their, their likes are, what their hobbies are, uh, and also even if you know something about their family members and then gifting them something around that.

So, um, imagine. If your client has a cat like I do, and you got them a gift of their cat's face on a pair of socks, somebody gave me, uh, that gift and it was very meaningful. So something like that is gonna have a lot more meaning than just like a Starbucks gift card. So see if you can learn about what their likes are, if they have any pets, if they have any kids, if they have, uh, a spouse, if they're.

and possibly get a gift that the whole family can even enjoy in you. So imagine if you have a, a client that's important to you and you got a gift that their spouse and kids love, that's gonna go a long way, uh, in cultivating that relationship with a client. So hope this helps. Uh, again, you can. Find out more about strategies like this in my book, the Grateful Entrepreneur.

I sell it on Amazon, but if you want a free copy of the downloadable version, you can go to gratitude toolkit.com. Gratitude toolkit.com, and download it for free. And then the other book that I reference, Giftology by John Ruland. I highly recommend that's a great book in learning how to gift to your clients.

I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.