Even Finance Responds To A Free Gift
You know they are there but very often we fail to recognise the needs of the less obvious groups within a company - yes I am talking the teams behind the sales and service activities - finance and operations. Why do I mention these now? Well consider a promotional gifts campaign aimed at increasing reseller sales of a particular product. Here the client may be focusing on purely the sales and service teams but more often than not we need to get buy-in from the company as a whole. Sure operations will process the purchase orders and finance raise the checks but these teams are staffed by humans not robots.
Accounts teams respond to a bit of stroking (PC interpretation required) and so remember to include them in your promotional campaign planning. How often do you have promotional gifts like a coaster or pen but fail to include them in the envelope when you send financial statements ? Anything you send into a finance department gets opened - so make them smile, make them remember you and above all include them in your promotional campaign.
I know a company that uses a lot of field service subcontractors. The one everyone loves the most (and the one who gets the most business) always gives each team a box of chocolates whenever he visits the company HQ - how inspiring. He realises that he needs everyone to buy-in and builds relationships with them all.
