Picture Perfect

A long-time client called about gifts for volunteers at their annual appreciation luncheon. Their budget is fairly small, and the challenge is to find something newer and better each year, while staying within their price range.

Someone on her staff had suggested hand sanitizers with a neoprene sleeve around the bottle and a carabiner hook to latch onto belt loops or purse hooks. This could have been a slam-dunk order; simply find one at or below the price her staff found on-line (500 @$1.89), and bingo, I’d have a sale and could move on to the next one.

I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of hand sanitizers. The luncheon is a fairly formal event, with linen napkins and tablecloths, and held at a nice function facility. Hand sanitizers are great in a variety of settings; this wasn’t one of them.

I offered to do some research to find something that might be better. I found pocket-sized photo albums, which hold 24 photos; perfect “brag books” for this group of grand- and great-grand parents .

Not only were the albums a more appropriate gift, they cost less, saving my client almost $200.00! And I threw in the tagline: “Our Volunteers are Picture Perfect!” for free.

In the end, I made less money on the sale, and put in a lot more time than if I had simply placed the order for the hand sanitizers. For some people, that would have been “good enough.”

I don’t believe in “good enough.” Because I am a resource and consultant, and not simply an order-taker, placing an order for the sanitizers would not have been “good enough.”