The Christms Cheer

‘Get out! We are closing!’ The words echoed in my head as much as sound of the slamming door that accompanied them. Five minutes to closing time at a respectable (well not any more) gift store in an upmarket mall and that was the treatment I got as I tried to enter. Perhaps they had just had a bad day? I do not really care-I am their worst nightmare right now-an angry client with a voice. It is not that they have the monopoly on the card and gift market either; I could have, and probably will from now on, gone elsewhere. From me they have lost a lifetime of repeat sales over one 5 second interchange. What is more it is Christmastime-I really expected better. Or should I have?

This year I have noticed a strange hypocrisy around the Christmas season in Zimbabwe. There are gifts available, a better choice perhaps than many years past. Decorations are up, the essential carols play in the background over the Tannoy, a couple of places are even doing mince pies as a bonus addition. There is however this massive lack of goodwill and Christmas cheer. In many places we are playing lip service to a series of traditions with no really spirit behind it. For a holiday that embodies a religious festival there is little to show for the idea of ‘love thy neighbour as thyself.’

But then many businesses, their staff, and their ethic are not Christian so I can hardly expect them to embrace something that they do not believe in. Starbucks was the centre of controversy earlier this year when they issued a plain red holiday cup devoid of holiday motifs. They got accused of secularising Christmas and polarised America. The accusation was a little offside seeing as Starbucks have never put a Christian emblem on any of their cups in the past.

What then can we do about Christmas as businesses?

Attitude is everything here. None of the décor and fancy products matter if you are going to slam the door in my face when I try enter. Christmas is a great time to recalibrate your attitude. It is easy to become jaded over a year. It is easy to wear out your smile and energy levels to a snapping point. Christmas, with its message of love, joy, hope, and giving, is a poignant reminder of how far from ideal attitudes we have fallen. It is a chance to reset broken souls before the New Year breaks upon us. Attitude is a choice.

Goodwill should last past the season. There is much duplicity in a man who is only nice one day a year and spends the rest of it snapping the heads off staff. It’s like putting a small rock in a snowball and still expecting everyone to have fun during the snowball fight. The story of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens that brings us the character Scrooge dwells on this. If Scrooge was only generous once a year he would still be a hated villain rather than a redeemed figure. Christmas specials and hype invoke a sense of drama that has a fixed end. When the decorations vanish back into the storeroom there is a tendency to pack with them the smiles and helpfulness that we showed throughout the season. Choose carefully what you put away this year.

Family is a big focus this season. We travel to be with them, have massive family gatherings over monster meals. We put up with Auntie Evie’s gaudy, knitted jumper that she made for us (again) simply because it is Christmas. Your staff and clients are part of an extended family of sorts-focus on them a little as well. It is not too late to send out a well-crafted Christmas Eve email of gratitude or to arrange an impromptu Christmas party during the last few hours that you are open. Like the goodwill this care should not die with the toll of the bell on the 25^th of December. Take this holiday to think about how you can connect better with your staff and clients in the coming year.

Have fun this festive season. Play with children, laugh with family, and let joy bubble out of you. Bring those emotions to the table next year as you return to work rested and invogorated. At this point let me take a moment to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and may all the doors you try enter be open this coming year!

The Art of Giving: The Practice in Business and Beyond

I have just closed my internet browser after an expansive and varied trawl through the web that may have seriously dented my data cap. What was I looking for-well almost anything really. It is Christmas time and with the holiday comes the expectation of gifts. There is this list of people that I want to give presents to so I was meandering through websites looking for things that may do. Amazon, ThinkGeek, ModCloth and other shopping sites are filled with more ideas that I could imagine-it opens your eyes to what is truly out there outside of little ol’ Zimbabwe. There are still two weeks to go in The Giving Challenge, the dare to give something away each day until Christmas-mine this last week included giving to a charity benefit for which I got rewarded with an electronic, virtual pet (at least I don’t have to clean up after it).

Gift giving is an art. It is easy to dash into a store late on Christmas Eve and load your trolley up with a bunch of chocolates and cheap bottles of wine that can be bundled into generic gifts for every member of the family. Real gift giving on the other hand takes time and effort, thought and planning; sounds a lot like running a business.

A gift communicates something. It communicates whether or not you really know the person you are giving the gift to. It communicates whether or not you have heard their needs-even if those needs are unspoken. A gift communicates that you may actually care. Wow would you look at that list of things a gift does- it looks rather like the same list one would attach to a great product that you are creating for your customers. Thinking of your product as a gift to your clients alters the way you do about creating it. A truly great product gives far more than any financial benefit that you may receive in exchange for it. Your product communicates something to its users-it is up to you to make sure that it communicates what you want it to say.

So how can you go about getting that perfect gift for someone or creating a phenomenal product?

Listen to people; and not just with your ears. Take in their words, observe the behaviour, look for where they are struggling. The grandmother who is telling you she needs nothing but a hug for Christmas while she struggles to open a tin of beans with a blunt can opener and arthritic hands really could do with a new tin opener (or a new set of hands but I understand that those are a little harder to come by). Look for the problems people are facing-a great product solves a problem or meets a need.

One of the greatest needs people have is time. It is a finite commodity and saving someone time opens them up to doing so much more. That is why the smart phone became so pervasive so quickly-it saved time (and space in your pocket) as you could do multiple things from almost any location. Time-saving devices are the perfect gift for the person who ‘has everything’.

I mentioned ModCloth at the beginning of the article as one of the sites I visited. They are a ladies fashion online store and when they started they were a game changer in the fashion world. The reason was they started a client-centric program to get feedback from their customers and relayed this on to design companies. This was the total opposite for an industry where fashion was a top down funnel (i.e. a large firm would decide what it would sell to its clients and the customers would be stuck with that range for the year). Taking time to be client oriented flies in the face of the ‘take-what-we-offer’ mentality that pervades many large scale corporations.

Gift giving should be an experience. We wrap presents to see people get the pleasure and surprise of ripping off the paper on Christmas Day to see what is underneath. We create an elaborate hoax around the figure of Santa Claus complete with milk and cookies laid out the night before to heighten the wonder and emotion for our children. Utilising your product, however mundane it appears, should have an experience attached. Maybe it is the ease of using the spare part you manufacture, or knowing that the plastic ware you sell will not crack in the sun. There is a story attached to your business-work on telling it well this festive season. And practice the art of giving great gifts-so few people do it that if you do then it will make you stand out even more.