It is near the end of the year. Usually it is customary to entertain, have an office party, take clients out, maybe host a dinner at a restaurant for your clients or team. This year, in this crazy upside-down year, you’re limited as to what you can do socially with your clients.
However, you are not limited to what you can do in sharing some heartfelt thanks to your clients, vendors, stakeholders, and your team. Sure, we might be avoiding those social get-togethers, but you can still share the love. I’d like to provide some ideas for sharing the love, when many of us are struggling.
Now, the degrees of the challenges vary from person to person. However, some are managing well given the situation we are in and some are more despondent.
This range of emotions people are feeling this time of year is why you need to share love.
Here are some ideas and thoughts as to what you can do.
- Go local where you can and support local businesses. For example, that neighborhood chocolatier can really benefit from you ordering from them. Keep it local this year as small business owners have been rocked.
- Send little “pick-me-up” gifts, like cookies, chocolate, flowers, a plant, incense, soaps, etc. Send a little luxury and decadence to your clients and team.
- Be sure to handwrite “thank you” cards; this adds a personal touch. You will connect with the recipient’s heart. Write from your heart so that it lifts their spirits. It is important to acknowledge people right now, since as mentioned above we are all feeling a bit vulnerable and shell-shocked since the world went wild in mid-March.
- Use your local couriers if you can to deliver the gift. Yes, UPS and FedEx are excellent, but the local delivery companies can use the support too!
- If you do not want to send a gift, send a donation to a local charity. It is especially important to do so right now as the social fabric of our communities and the agencies that provide social services are in big demand and big need of funding. My go-to charity is the Kids Help Phone foundation here in Canada, where I live. The help phone is a national 1-800 line that kids in distress, abuse, or fear can call and they can speak to a live counselor on the other end of the phone, right across the country in every area.
- This is a time to thank, be sincere, make a difference and set the tone for 2021. We all want to kick this year out the door and say goodbye. However, it is also critical that we begin 2021 on the right foot and be good businesspeople that don’t just take, but give back and care for clients, teams, banks, and the community we do business in.
Please have a productive last month of the year. Think peace, abundance, comfort, and joy. Remember to set your goals and visualize good things for your business, life, family, and communities in 2021.
Whatever you celebrate, have Happy Holidays! Put love, gratitude, and meaning back into them.
I will see you in January 2021!
