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You already know that business holiday presents are a great way to reach out to your clients, which include current, past customers you haven’t seen in a while and prospective clients. But if you’ve ever been on the receiving end, you know that oftentimes corporate gifts are impersonal, generic and boring.

By using a little creativity you can express your appreciation and (hopefully) drum up some business without breaking the bank. Read on to discover a few ideas you can use this holiday season.

Send a non-fiction book or booklet with a note that highlights sections pertinent to your client. For instance, if your client just bought a new cat, a cat care book would be a nice idea. You can include a note that on page fifteen there is a list of foods that a cat should never eat. A lawyer recently sent out my stress reduction booklet as a gift to a previous client with back pain and highlighting a few exercises they could do in their chair. She let me know that the client was very appreciative by this gesture and his wife was going to give the lawyer’s name to her boss who needed some legal work. Of course, we don’t always personally know the circumstances of our clients and customers, but sending a booklet with a nice card means a lot to people.

Make up a brief tipsheet to send with your cards. Include tips and tricks relevant to your industry, and set it up as a ‘Top 5′ or ‘Top Ten’ list. Let them know you made this up specifically for them, and format it in a way that will be easy for them to post up around their office or work area.

Give a gift certificate to a class at a gym, yoga studio or even a park pass that can be used for a weekend break.

These are some ideas for business holiday presents that your clients will not only appreciate, but thank you for. By giving presents that directly benefit them, you position yourself as someone who actually cares about them and they will want to do more business with you in return when your services are needed. If you haven’t heard from a previous client in a while, it is nice to reach out to them and let them know you are thinking about them.

The room was quiet as I began to draw a picture showing the difference between a range finder and SLR camera on a chart board. I was speaking to a small group of 20 people. Whereas, everyone seemed to be interested and looking at the picture I made the error of talking to the chart more than I spoke to the audience.

Now, I did not realize this until my wife, who was in the audience, shared her observations with me after the session. As a presentation skills coach she was used to observing audience response and presenter performance.

As an artist and instructor my focus is mainly on drawing or painting a picture while others watched during the lecture portions of my classes or workshops. I had not thought about how the connection to my audience was lost when I “spoke to the visual” rather than the audience.

My wife taught me a simple, yet powerful, tip that I want to share with other people who may be talking to their art or drawings. The tip is TOUCH, TURN AND TALK.

Be SILENT when you draw a part of the image or drawing. Then TOUCH the image or drawing TURN to your audience and then TALK. The results can make a profound connection with your audience.

When you are talking to your visual your energy is directed to the visual and not the audience. Believe it or not, your audience wants to have the full multimedia experience. That means watching your gestures and facial expressions at the same time they are absorbing the information on your chart drawing or painting.

Turning to talk with your audience will also help you to see their facial expressions. You may decide to ask them questions or take questions from them about your technique or information you are sharing.

So now my goal is to be quiet when I am drawing and save my talking for my audience and not my chart board.

Sound easy? Well, actually it is but it takes PRACTICE. So give this simple , yet cutting edge technique, a try.

All rights reserved 2007 Ray Horner Jr.

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Today’s audiences are a jaded bunch. In fact, a Gallup Poll shows that just 16% of us have a favorable opinion of business executives. With all of the Wall Street failures and auto maker bailouts that are currently going on, this number will probably keep going down. What’s a presenter to do in order to cut through the fog of cynicism that we are all existing in?

One way that presenters are doing this is by sharing their own stories of adversity. These stories seem to be able to reach out to audiences and somehow make the presenter much more “real” than just another glib business success story.

If this is what your audience wants, what can you do to meet their needs? We all may not have survived a wild bear attack, but we may be able to find other types of material in our lives that will allow us to connect with our audiences:

• Audiences Love Adversity: The bigger the challenge that you faced, the more they love it. Erik Weihenmayer is a mountain climber who is blind. He over came lots of adversity and ended up climbing Mt. Everest. His story shows his audience how to overcome adversity in their lives.  
• Tales Of Survival Match Today’s Business Environment: Today’s business environment is harsh and unforgiving and surviving is what most of your audience is trying do every day. Trisha Meili was assaulted and left for dead in New York’s Central Park. She now speaks to audiences about what she had to go through in order to recover.  
• Find The Metaphor: What your audience is really looking for is hope. They will be interested in your story no matter what you tell them, but it will have a real impact if they can understand that what you went through is similar to what they are currently going through. The fact that you survived (and hopefully thrived) is what is going to give them the courage to keep on trying.  
• Tie Your Story Into Business: A great story will keep your audience on the edge of their seats – but what happens when you stop talking? John Amatt survived a mountain climb 20 years ago that killed three of his climbing teammates. The only way that he survived that disaster and made it to the top of the mountain was to  make radical changes to his climbing route and tactics. This story is very well received by business people who are facing major changes in their business environments.
• Use Humor Where Appropriate: These topics can be pretty heavy – life and death struggles are rarely something that anyone wants to joke about. That being said, if your entire presentation is dark and scary, then your audience will just be happy when it’s all over. Instead, use humor at the start and at the end in order to start and end on a lighter note. You audience will appreciate it and this will allow your message to sink in further.

We have not all faced life threatening situations. However, what your audience is really looking for is a good story that they can relate to. If you look back over your life, I’m sure that you can find points in which you were faced with a challenging situation that looked impossible at the time. Then all you have to do is weave a story that will grab your audience’s attention…