And to All, a Good Night

As the holiday season comes to a close, I wanted to tell you all about my friend Kelly.

Kelly runs a small business here in mid-Michigan. He and his father are appraisers. The look at homes and businesses and assign a value to them, usually for purposes of getting loans against those homes or businesses. They also do assessing for several of the local townships, which involves determining the value of properties for tax purposes.

Each year, Kelly buys a number of cheese trays from one of our other local businesses – a cheese store. He takes those trays and drives them to the offices of some of their best customers. Township supervisors, bank loan officers and other folks are on the list.

While he’s there delivering those trays, he’ll spend a few minutes just chatting. He’ll talk with clients about their kids, about what traveling they may do for the holidays, and even about the weather.

This small gesture serves a couple of purposes. In part, Kelly does this because he enjoys the Christmas season and wants to spread a little bit of Christmas cheer.

There’s another purpose, too. This one isn’t as noble, perhaps – but it’s not ignoble either. You see, those cheese trays are one little part of what Kelly and his dad do to let those clients know how much their business is appreciated. The conversations he has with them at this time of year are almost always personal – it’s not about business.

I’ve been thinking over the past couple of years about how I could translate that sort of demonstration into my business. It’s not realistic for me to deliver cheese trays; I’d have to go to Canada, Australia, New Jersey and California to hit some of my biggest clients.

I could probably have gifts mailed to those clients, but it just seems impersonal. I’m not sure it would have the same kind of effect that Kelly gets.

Still, I do try to take a few minutes and send a “thanks for your business” email, at least to my ongoing clients.

I’m going to make it my goal this year to think of something I can do, though, to spread a little extra Christmas cheer to those big clients, and make that same kind of connection. Maybe by next December, I’ll have come up with something truly original.

As always, if you have ideas, feel free to leave them in the comments. Oh, and Merry Christmas to one and all!