First, go through your calendar month by month and determine when all your big events will be occurring. Where do your annual trade shows fall? When do you start distributing your Christmas business promotional gifts? Mark these dates in bold lettering. Even if you don't know the exact dates, make a close approximation.

Your pre-planning should always be 12-18 months ahead of time. In order to keep your calendar current, make sure you review it once every three months. This way no events will take you by surprise, especially any that will be occurring in January or February of the following calendar year.

Ideally, you should aim to have your shipment arrive at least three weeks before the date that you intend to begin handing out your promotional gifts. This will help ensure that you have time to make corrections to your order should there be a problem (i.e. you received the wrong items, are missing items, etc.)

In order to have your shipment arrive three weeks before your event, you'll need to find out what the estimated shipping time is. Most business promotional gifts distributors can give you an idea about how long your order will take to be filled and shipped. Find out what that time frame is. And remember, shipping times are usually approximations, unless you pay extra for faster, guaranteed delivery.

Let's say that a company gives you a shipping time of two to three weeks. Armed with this knowledge, you should:

1) Bank on the longer end of the approximation. Plan for a shipping time of three weeks, not two. If it happens to arrive within two weeks, you'll be ahead of the game. But it's best to assume that it will take the full three weeks to reach you. You'll avoid disappointment this way.

2) Add ten percent to the longest estimated delivery time. In other words, add ten percent to three weeks (21 days.) That's 2-3 extra days. Assume that your order will take three weeks plus two to three days to reach you. This will help offset any problems with unforeseen delays with the delivery company or with being able to fill your order due to items being out of stock.

To put this in perspective, take Christmas 2009 as an example. Say that you want to begin distributing your Christmas business promotional gifts on December 1. This means that you should place your order no later than November 6, 2009. This should give you enough time to make changes to your order if items you want are out of stock. This will also allow some extra time to cover delivery delays.

Business owners should never miss out on opportunities like trade shows and holidays to spread the word about their businesses. Being prepared ahead of time is crucial to making business promotional gifts a part of your event advertising campaign.