There are several reasons why business owners use business gifts. The primary one, though, is to build or solidify a business relationship. If you have been doing business with a client for 20 years, you give business gifts to thank that customer for their loyalty. You may also want to give a business gift when a new customer starts to do business with you. You may also want to give a business gift to show your appreciation. In fact, you can even think about giving business gifts to employees.

Letting people, including employees, know that you value them and their business is an important part of the relationship process. Human beings like and want to feel appreciated and it is not really very difficult to make someone a life-long customer or employee, just by giving them a token of your appreciation.

So when do you actually give these business gifts? Is there a rule of thumb to guide when you buy business gifts and give them away? The answer to these questions is yes, there are some predictable times when business gifting is appropriate. The following information describes these times. Business gifts are a good idea when:

1. You want to start some competition and motivate employees to stretch to make a quarterly or monthly mark so you set up what is called and Incentive Program. Incentive Programs, when well designed create a healthy sense of competition and often raise moral. If you look into Incentive Programs you will discover there are basically two types: 1) you purchase a business gift or prize and it is won by the first employee who meets the goal you set, and 2) you set up a program where every employee who meets the goal receives the business gift

The type of business gift(s) you buy depends on how many you are going to give away. If you are giving away only one item you can buy a more expensive business gift; like maybe a 3- day trip somewhere or tickets to a concert etc. If you are going to provide several people with the business gift, you may need to look for ones that are less expensive.

2. Another time, when business gifts might be appropriate, is during different holidays. You need to do this carefully as it would be culturally insensitive to offer Christmas business gifts if you have employees or customers who are not Christian.

3. Honoring customers and employee birthdays is often a time when business gifts can be disseminated. If you are giving a business gift for a birthday to an employee, make sure you do the same for all employees. Nothing lowers moral faster than treating one employee different than the others. If you are giving customers business gifts on their birthdays, you might consider coupons for a percent off of their next purchase.

4. Everyone likes to honor people who are retiring and a business retirement gift is a good way to say goodbye and thank you. If you have a large company, you may set up different types of retirement business gifts for different numbers of years employed. It would be inappropriate to give someone who had been with the company for 30 years the same keychain that the retiree who has been with the company 3 years receives.

In the end, there really are no definite, written in stone, times when business gifts are to be provided. It is a matter of individualization.