‘Everyone has a use for a bottle of wine,’ says Elke Kramer, the marketing manager. ‘Or has anyone got a better idea?’ she asks, looking inquiringly round at us. It’s early November, and the management is holding its monthly meeting in corpore. We have reached item 7 on the agenda: ‘Christmas gifts for our customers’.

‘Everyone has a use for a calendar, too, and with our company name and logo on it, it has greater advertising impact than a bottle of wine.’ Herbert Huber’s word is law, because Herbert Huber is the CEO.

‘Why not give them nothing for a change?’ Eight pairs of eyes turn to stare at me incredulously. ‘What exactly do you mean by that, Kinderman? No Christmas presents for our customers, indeed!’ Huber looks at me reproachfully, as if I had just snatched a lollipop from some kid’s hand.

I know Herbert Huber likes arguments to be presented in ‘firstly, secondly, thirdly’ order, so that’s exactly the tack I follow as I explain what I mean: ‘Firstly, the business climate is not good at the moment, and I think we could put the money to better use. After all, we’re not talking peanuts here. It’s a matter of some 25,000 euros.’

‘Secondly,’ I continue, blithely ignoring the fact that Herbert Huber is obviously itching to shoot that argument down in flames, ‘everybody gives their customers a calendar or a bottle of wine at Christmas. By New Year, they will have completely forgotten which company gave them which wine, so there doesn’t seem to me to be much point. Besides, our customers have received one of those two items from us every Christmas several times over the last few years.’

Then I draw breath for my final argument: ‘And thirdly, isn’t it a bit late to be thinking about Christmas presents now? It seems to me that every year, Christmas catches us completely unawares.’ I make a rhetorical pause here to let my last words sink in, just as I learnt to do from my presentation trainer, Jörg Neumann. I have always found this technique to be very effective when I want to drive my message home.

‘My suggestion is’ – I carefully avoid making eye contact with any of my colleagues – ‘not to give our customers Christmas gifts at all this year. Instead, I think we should select a random day in spring and surprise them with a gift then. I think that would be much more effective.’

Reactions to my proposal vary widely around the table, from ‘Not a bad idea,’ to ‘Unusual, I’ll give it that!’ or ‘No way!’ And once everyone has had a chance to speak their mind in their own unique and inimitable way, we do what we always do in such situations. We look expectantly to Herbert Huber, awaiting his final, irrevocable and incontestable decision, which he always introduces with the following words:

‘Well, as we don’t seem to be able to reach any consensus here, I say let’s…’. He breaks off here, but in his case not for rhetorical effect, but to enable him to shuffle the sheaf of paper in front of him into some semblance of order before he continues. ‘Mr Kinderman has got a point there, but on the other hand, I can’t imagine not giving our customers a gift at all at Christmas. After all, it’s a tradition, and traditions are not there to be broken.’ His eyes rest briefly on me, and I feel like a schoolboy who has just been taught a valuable lesson for future life. ‘I suggest that we donate 5,000 euros to a children’s charity and send our customers a card informing them that we have done so.’

‘I don’t believe this!’ I think to myself. Inside, I’m seething. After the bottle of wine and the calendar, this has got to be the third stupidest idea of all. Not the idea of donating money to a children’s charity, of course, but the card. If we are going to donate money, let’s do it without making a song and dance about it. By announcing our noble gesture to our customers in this way, we are losing the effect of understatement. Besides, the cards serve no useful purpose for our customers, and it’s going to cost us a pretty penny to print and mail them, money that would have been better spent if we had donated it to charity straight away.

‘Ms Kramer? At our next meeting, I need three proposals for card design and text, please.’ ‘Any further questions?’ Herbert Huber inquires. As far back as I can remember, no one has ever answered this question with a ‘Yes,’ mainly because his eyes are always firmly fixed on the pad in front of him when he asks it and because his tone is enough to nip any objections in the bud. And today is no exception.

There were, in fact, questions. They weren’t to be found written on Herbert Huber’s notepad, though, but on the faces of the management. The meeting ends at 11.45 am, having lasted 45 minutes longer than planned, and I leave the room knowing that item 7 on the agenda is not going to surprise our customers at all.

Amazingly good!

In Zurich, there is a company that specializes in providing corporate clients with gifts for their customers. After in-depth consultation and having familiarized themselves with the client’s company and customer groups, its creative team suggests appropriately priced, original and, above all, effective gifts.

A particularly effective gift is the ‘I visit my customers’ method. Punctually at the beginning of spring each year, the sales manageress of a hotel we regularly used for company events would visit us and present us with two large bouquets of colourful spring flowers to thank us for booking with them. Of course we engaged in small talk on such visits. And of course, we will continue to book with them in future. The team of another hotel amazed us by turning up in our office on the hottest day of summer 2000 and serving ice cream in our offices.