The Gift Bag Stopped Working

Imagine a wedding coordinator named Dana Whitlock who meets each new couple at a café near her studio. At the first meeting, she hands them a gift bag. Inside are a candle, a notebook with her logo, and a small bottle of Champagne. Each bag costs her about $150. She started the bags three years ago, after she saw another planner hand them out at a wedding fair. She has reordered them every January since.

Couples hire Dana a few months before the wedding, once they have booked a venue, a florist, and a photographer. In May, Priya and Tom meet Dana for the first time. The venue and the florist each gave them a gift bag at their first meeting too.

Priya thanks Dana, and the bag goes in the car with the other two. On the drive home, Tom asks which bag came from the coordinator. Neither of them can remember.

Suppose instead that Dana gives no gift bag. Before the first meeting, she asks Priya and Tom to send their contracts with the venue, the florist, and the photographer. At the meeting, she hands them the first draft of their wedding-day timeline, built from those contracts. It shows when the florist arrives, when the photographer needs the couple, and when the venue wants the room cleared.

Tom notices that the photographer’s contract ends an hour before the first dance. Dana adds a call to the photographer to her list. That night, Priya sends the timeline to her mother.

The bag cost Dana $150. It told the couple only that they were her clients, which the venue and the florist had told them too. The timeline cost Dana an evening of her own work. No venue or florist could have handed it over, and it showed Dana already at work on their day.

So test each gesture you make for clients. Keep the ones that come from your own work. Replace the rest with gestures that do, given in the same moment. Here is why a common gesture tells a client nothing, and what makes a gesture belong to your business. Then you will see why a costlier version of the same gift goes wrong.

A gift every business gives tells the client only that they are a client

Here is the course’s view of how a gift from a business works. A gift means something to a client only when they can see that the business chose to give it. The business did not have to give anything. So that choice tells the client that someone thought about them.

Two groups of businesses decide whether a gesture still shows that choice. The first is the other businesses the client hires for the same job or event, like Dana’s venue and florist. The client has usually had a gift from them already.

The second group is the rest of your profession. The client may not have hired any of them. But they might have seen or heard what those businesses give, so they expect the same from you.

A gesture that surprised clients at first becomes expected once it spreads through either group. The handwritten thank-you card has gone the same way. Once every florist in town sends one after each wedding, a card that could go to any couple tells them nothing new.

So a professional who keeps adding the common gestures ends up paying for gifts the client has had already, or was expecting.

A gesture is yours when it comes from your own work

Dana’s timeline, built from the couple’s own contracts, came from the work they hired her for. Another business could not copy it without doing that work.

Imagine, too, an interior designer named Rosa Bellamy who finishes a living room for the Ashworths. On the last day, she leaves a folder on the coffee table. It holds a swatch of each fabric in the room, the name of each paint color, and where each lamp came from.

Months later, Mr. Ashworth spills wine on a cushion. Mrs. Ashworth finds the fabric’s name in Rosa’s folder and orders a new cover that week.

Another designer could copy the idea of a folder. No other designer could fill one with Rosa’s choices for that room.

A photographer who charges above her area’s average gives three gifts

Vanessa Joy, a wedding photographer in New York City, wrote an article for Adorama in 2017 on ways to justify charging more. The year before, she photographed 20 client weddings. Her fees for them ranged from $6,821 to $18,482. In her area, the average price paid for a photographer was $4,000 to $5,500.

One of the ways she justifies her prices is the experience she gives couples from start to finish. Gifts are part of that experience. She gives each couple a “Hello” gift, an “It’s Almost Your Wedding Day” gift, and a “Goodbye” gift.

Joy wants her clients “to feel special.” She also wants “their decision to go with me to be validated throughout our time together.” And she wants them to have something “to share on social media and brag to their friends about.”

Her “Hello” gift comes at the same moment as Dana’s gift bag. Whether it tells a couple anything about Joy depends on what is inside, which her article does not describe. Her advice is to go above and beyond for clients “in a way that superbly represents your brand.”

A gift from your own work does that, because no other photographer could give it. For a wedding photographer, that might be a print from the couple’s engagement session. So if you give gifts at set moments, as Joy does, fill them with something from your own work.

Why a costlier version of the same gift goes wrong

Imagine a home organizer named Grace Abiodun who leaves a candle with her logo on it at the end of every job. In a busy spring, she looks at the websites of three other organizers. Two of them leave a candle too. So, between two jobs, she orders monogrammed linen sets that cost four times as much as the candle.

Her next job is Mrs. Pruitt’s closets. At the end of it, Mrs. Pruitt finds a linen set on her bed and texts Grace a warm thank-you. A month later, a friend asks Mrs. Pruitt about organizers. “They always leave you something,” Mrs. Pruitt says. “Grace’s was lovely.” The friend asks two organizers for prices and books the cheaper one.

Grace now spends four times as much on each gift. The linens told Mrs. Pruitt the same as the candle did, which is that organizers leave a gift. A gesture fails the test because of where it comes from, not because of what it costs.

The version that works replaces the candle with something from Grace’s own work. At the end of each job, she leaves a one-page plan of the closets she organized. It shows where each kind of item now lives. Mrs. Pruitt tapes it inside the closet door. A month later, her friend visits, sees the plan on the door, and asks for Grace’s number.

Stopping a gift that clients expect does not have to look careless

Many professionals worry about stopping a gift that clients expect, at the first meeting or at the end of a job. The worry is fair, because a client who counts on a gift might notice when it does not come. Priya and Tom already have a bag from the venue and one from the florist. If Dana hands them nothing at the first meeting, she could look careless.

So do not simply stop a common gesture. Give a gesture from your own work in the same moment, where the client would have looked for the old one. Dana’s couples still leave the first meeting with something in their hands, and it is their own timeline.

How to test the gestures you make

1. List every gesture you make for each client. Include gifts, cards, packaging, and anything extra you give at no charge.
2. Look at the websites and reviews of three others in your profession. Then ask two recent clients what the other businesses on their job gave them. For example, you can ask, “When you hired the others on this job, did any of them give you something at the start or the end?”
3. Mark a gesture as common if you found it at two or more of the businesses you checked. Three businesses and two clients are the course’s suggestion. They are enough to show what is common without turning the check into a project.
4. For each common gesture, write down what about it comes from your own work. If you cannot name anything, the gesture fails the test.
5. Choose one gesture that failed, and decide on a gesture from your own work to give in the same moment. Stop the old one on the day the new one is ready. For example, a coach might stop handing new clients a journal with her logo. Instead, she hands each one a written plan for their first month.

Next: You will see what a wealthy client notices instead of a gift. It is a detail they mentioned that you remembered and acted on without being asked.