Business Gift Giving Guidelines

Nancy R. Mitchell gives us some protocol and etiquette advice on gift giving, such as if there are general gift giving guidelines in business

Are there general gift giving guidelines in business? Nancy Mitchell: There are, the most important thing that you want to remember is you must address the guidelines of your organization regarding giving and receiving gifts and you must observe the spending limits that goes for the guidelines for your organization of the recipient of your gift as well, that is the bottom line, play by the rules, find out if you don t know, call someone s office, it is a client, gift going out to a client you have got to play by the rules. Follow the gift giving guidelines, do not embarrass yourself, your company or embarrass the recipient. Then I think your goals for giving in business must be either to cement an ongoing relationship, to create goodwill or to thank somebody for something they have done for you throughout the year. Then go and choose a gift that fits one of those guidelines. It is your reason for giving, it is your direction for giving, make sure you are not giving for the wrong reason which would be to influence someone to like your company or to like you better to make up for some past indiscretion or poor performance, that is not why we give a gift in business. Think about the reason and then make the decision, if you are going to give a gift in business.