Does Giving Gifts Mean More Business?

It is the season of giving. No doubt, many of you sent out your gifts to your clients, suppliers, and other business associates already. But will your gifts result in more business? They might, and they might not. Like most things about interpersonal relationships, it depends on a lot of different variables.

Researchers study gift giving and have for many years. In the beginning, it was considered a Sociology area, which suggested that gift-giving was primarily an exercise in reciprocity. The idea behind gift-giving was that recipients should return the favor. Because of this fundamental concept, gift-giving became a way to move a relationship forward with someone.

Today, research has changed regarding gift-giving. While there is still the fundamental idea of reciprocity at work, there are also new agendas observed in the gift-giving area.

One of the essential variables in gift-giving success is the alignment between the giver and receiver. Both parties must be in sync as far as relationship status, agendas, reciprocity, and value.

Ironically, this variable is often the one that isn’t, forgive the pun, present. Research on gift-giving shows that misalignment is the norm for when gift-giving goes wrong, and usually, it has to do with agendas.

Now, many of you might think, agendas? Besides being nice, is there any other agenda behind gift-giving? It turns out that there is more going on with gifts than you might have thought. Many different agendas exist with gift-giving, and they may or may not help you win more business.

This episode of The Intuitive Customer explores all the agendas and misfires on gift-giving and what you can do to optimize them. Guest host Marketing, Professor Morgan Ward from Emory University, shares her insight on gift-giving and what makes it go wrong. Moreover, we talk about what kinds of gifts are best for deepening a relationship and what you can do to become a better gift-giver for business and beyond.

 

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