The most unique client gift ideas on the internet

Hows your lockdown been going? Having fun? The freedom not to wear pants to the office? Or did you find the only room you could find to set yourself up in was the broom cupboard, and you don't have a broom cupboard? So you've been based in the janitorial supplies closet in your apartment block.

This is a story in our companies team. Because when we all got locked down, the big question became how do you take your customers? When they're also stuck at home, locked down and nervous.

You send them gifts, but how do you stop sending out standard client appreciation gifts? What do you get as gifts for clients?

It was a subject we found ourselves discussing in our last company Microsoft Teams meeting.

Which, if I'm honest, mostly goes.

"Why can't we use Zoom?"

"It's too expensive if you want to take for more than 45 minutes."

"45-minute meetings, that's a great idea!"

"No, they're not, I get lonely, and I'm the boss, so we're meeting getting Microsoft teams!"

Then everybody bursts out laughing because one of our team members (let's call him Paul) has left the potato filter on his Team's avatar.

And he's going,

"what? What? What's everybody laughing at/."

Only it's a potato bouncing around getting all upset, which is always going to be kind of funny.

But he went onto suggest we should be thinking about corporate gift ideas. So our customers would know we were still caring about them without having to spend half an hour on a Zoom call.

There's nothing worse than an ill-thought-out gift basket. We need unique corporate gifts! I mean, if you send a nut muffin basket to someone with a nut allergy, you're saying drop dead!

But as we got stuck further into lockdown, we all started looking a bit like potatoes. You know when the most significant amount of exercise you get is swiveling your chair between your office and kitchen, except maybe you've decided to put your chair in the kitchen. But you've got to move between the kitchen and the bathroom, so why not move the fridge and the microwave into the toilet?

And why is your significant other now packing up the kids and the cat and planning to leave you before bursting into tears because they can't leave the house? “You can afford all those expensive gifts for employees but how about for me?”

But Fortunately, everybody looked the same, except Karen, who always did the meetings in her workout gear on her Peloton. But one person who didn't change was Paul. Because he was still stuck looking like a potato. Nobody minded; nobody even mentioned it. It was kind of comforting, having a kindly potato in every meeting and gently suggesting luxury corporate gift ideas and even luxury branded gifts—something to cheer up our customers who looked as lumpy and flumpy as we indeed did.

But like I said, our clients weren't looking much fresher than us. Sometimes a $5000 suit is really what makes a CEO, and seeing him in his bathrobe, with bed hair, makes you realize how human he is. And almost forget how much you need him to be still loving you and your company.

This was where Paul came in, our reliable bouncing potato. He reminded me of the fun characters on Vegetales, except less preachy. I did ask him where his friends, the Cucumber and Tomato, were? But he just smiled his potatoey smile and rolled his many eyes (he was, after all, a potato). He didn't even mind when other colleagues asked him if he felt chippy or like getting mashed?

He just smiled with his rough brown potato skin; he indeed never lost his appeal or his peel, especially when he was suggesting gift ideas for 2020, like hair products and a housecoat that looked like a business suit that won that CEO's heart. Many of our client gifts under $5 amazing!. Not everyone is the most prominent client, but there are no small ones, only small companies that forgot about them.

Of course, while we're all slacking off, we do find ourselves chatting on slack. And after being locked down for a year, there's not much to chat about.

"Is that pigeon still in your garden? Is the pigeon still in your garden?"

"Nope, the cat ate the pigeon."

"Couldn't you say the pigeon ate the cat? That would have been more interesting."

But our big question was who Paul was? None of us remembered him joining the company; we could not forget what he looked like before going online. And in fact, what was his surname?

It was Kate who noted something interesting if his kids had changed his avatar to a potato?

Where were they? Kids who were cheeky enough to change their dad's avatar but never made a noise or walked in on him?

Had Paul decided to be our office potato?

Nobody cared because he was so great at his job. Indeed, our clients appreciated our lxuurious upscale gifting during the lockdown. Then it was Karen who asked,

"Did we assume Paul's gender? For all, we know it could be Pauline potato."

Still, I didn't care when someone else decided if it would be muffins or music downloads as dgitial gifts for clients

But as the end of lockdown began appearing on the horizon and we all started making plans for vaccinations and vacations, or instead breaks and vaccinations. We also had to start making plans for actually meeting our clients who'd disappeared from our radars.

But nothing gets a client back on your radar faster than a personalized gift for clients. But you suggest that to someone like Karen as she's spinning through her Peloton. And all you'll get is a suggestion to put their name on a pencil.

So you say, but they're not in school and besides no kids in school even use pencils anymore!

And she says,

"fine personalized underwear then; everybody wears underwear, right? Now leave me alone I'm going for the burn."

It's Paul, our Potato friend, who suggests,

"maybe creative client gifts?"

“Or even personalized gifts for clients? Show you care without showing intimate photos?”

Before suggesting creativity and personal, because nothing says you care about them. Then firstly remembering who they are and secondly showing you thought about buying them something.

"Great idea Mr….."

I said, showing that much as I thought about Paul, I didn't know who he was.

Other than a creative potato with great ideas.

The world is full of people, some of whom are important, some critical people. But the most important people are your clients and especially your essential clients, or is that VIP clients? Either way, they're crucial and necessary to hold onto your job.

But it can be hard to get people who you work with to take this seriously! We had our daily Microsoft teams meeting. And our accounting team has had to cancel orders of Lego and My Little Pony gift bags for our serious, corporate clients. Time for luxury corporate gifts with logos.

Don't take the pee out of the VIPs should be a watchword for any company, especially when you're paying drone delivery fees for pissing them off. What are the gift ideas for VIP clients that work?

But as we're talking, I'm wondering where our friend Pete the potato has gone?

And then he chimes in; I was worried he might have gone to seed or even got boiled.

He quietly said how he'd ordered some super lux VIP gifts for our clients, what’s better they were pandemic gifts for our clients. That potato had just turned our VIPs in VVIP.

And then we got to go back to the office, time to shave, lose the sweat pants and get back into gear. Could I even remember where I used to work? I hadn't driven there in a year; would I even know what my co-workers looked like? Would I even remember what my colleagues looked like?

We joked about this on our Microsoft teams chat. But at least we'd know to look out for that one staff member who was a potato. It was the Monday that we would go back that I got dressed with a thoughtful gift from our corporate Team. It wasn't an exclusive gift, but it was a unique gift for employees like us. It was a handmade badge with my name on it, so different I looked after lockdown, everyone would recognize me in the office. These weren’t expensive employee appreciation gifts but they show the company cared.

When I got into work, I greeted everyone, reading their names off of their funky badges. But I didn't see Paul, who was he? Was he like a magical potato, gifting fairy? I know each desk had a single Idaho potato with a blue ribbon around it. Who was our lucky Idaho? I don't know, but I'm very grateful to him.