Several of my clients are wondering what to do for their clients this year. I’m wondering, too. How can I differentiate myself? We all receive dozens of holidays cards, which get shuffled around and maybe set on the side table in the conference room and ultimately thrown out. In this era of reduce, reuse, recycle, this doesn’t seem very “green” to us at Peridot.

We are designing a chocolate bar for a client to send to their clients. Our designer and copywriter put together an eye-catching design with clever copy, which we are producing as a Belgium dark chocolate bar and delivering in a shiny metallic blue envelope. I think this is a great way to separate yourself from the masses when it comes to small, affordable holiday gifts.

Peet’s Coffee has ECups, a very clever way to say hi and thanks.

From the Fast Company’s Blog:If you want to create a transformational holiday experience – as opposed to the typical transactional approach – consider the following three questions:

(a) what kind of unique experience can you create that your family or friends will remember for years?

(b) what kind of gift can you give that will self-actualize your gift recipient (for example, how about donating $100 to a teenager’s favorite cause?)? or

(c) what’s an educational experience you can gift someone that will boost their sense of esteem and will benefit them for years to come?

In sum, as the feverish shopping season kicks into gear, consider a new approach to creating a more meaningful season of giving.

Fast Company’s Blog lists The Seven Steps to Instilling Confidence. When you become clear about the following seven questions, you will find that you are better able to articulate them, which will result in more confidence when discussing your business. It will help you in all of your sales and marketing efforts!

1. What do you love making (product) or doing (service) that has enough value that other people would be willing and want to pay for (your DREAM)?

2. What desire or problem is your product (what you make) or service (what you do) the best answer or solution to (your VISION and MISSION)?

3. What people or what company has a desire or problem that most urgently needs your product or service, i.e. who are the ones that “Gotta’ have you!” (your MARKETING)?

4. How do you get those people or that company to be aware of their urgent need for your product or service (your ADVERTISING)?

5. How do you convince those people to buy that service or product that they “gotta have?” (your SALES)

6. How do you get your product or service to those people or that company (your PRODUCTION and DELIVERY)?

7. How do you continue to increase the satisfaction and enthusiasm for your product or service, so they’ll tell others (your CUSTOMER SERVICE and CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT of products and services)?

What these questions ultimately demand that you think about are your company’s benefits and results and your ideal client. These are invaluable tools in business, because without them, you don’t have a clear direction. What is a benefit of your product/service? And what does that do for your client?

For example, I might say, “Peridot has a tremendous amount of resources available for a wide variety of projects.” That’s a benefit. What does that do for my client? I can easily answer that with, “Peridot provides it’s clients with one-stop shopping.” Well, again, that’s a benefit, not a result. If you can say “so what?” at the end of the phrase, you haven’t identified the result. If I say, “Peridot’s clients know that whatever curve ball they throw our way, we have the resources to handle it, which saves them the cost and time of finding another resource.” Can you say, “so what” to that? No, because I have identified the most common client desires: How will Peridot save me time and money?

Once you have solid answers to these questions, you will be ready to start talking about your company, your service or your product, in a confidence-inspiring way!