Corporate gift giving can be tricky, with some customers or business associates having policies limiting monetary value of what they may accept, personal preference, and even allergies playing a part in choosing perfect corporate gift basket. The easiest way to find out what is an acceptable gift and within company policy is to call your customer.s company and ask to speak to their human resources department. They can provide you with acceptable gift-giving guidelines for their company. Smaller companies may have less strict guidelines or you may be able to give a gift to whole office, rather than one individual. Choosing a corporate gift basket tailored to your customer shows that you pay attention to detail.

And while I didn't sell any insurance, I did learn a thing or two, and I'd like to explore one of them with you today - time horizons.

Some of prospective policyholders I met could visualize themselves well into future, say 20 or 30 years into future. They were obviously good prospects for life insurance. Others focused more on coming year or few years. To them, something that might or might not happen 20 years ahead was a pure abstraction with little relevance.

Now, let's put these perspectives into a communication context: When you send or receive messages, do you factor in time horizon of person who sent you a message or gets one from you?

Let's consider an example that's similar to my experience. Say you're trying to sell mutual funds to a new investor. You enthusiastically point out possibility of getting rich by saving every month for perhaps 25 years. But person across desk looks at you with a blank face. Perhaps he's thinking to himself that money could be used to pay down loan on his truck in three years instead of five, and then he could buy a new one much sooner.