A Simple VIP Gifting Hack

“Loyal customers, they don’t just come back, they don’t simply recommend you, they insist that their friends do business with you.”

– Chip Bell

A Simple VIP Gifting Hack

My wife’s team recently celebrated 15 years in the business of helping families find and sell homes, investors build wealth, and homeowners navigate all the twists and turns of homeownership. We’ve served about 2,200 so far! A big part of our success has been building and maintaining relationships over the years. The only way to do that well is with the help of a database.

We host movie nights, conduct seminars, do Pie Days, send market reports, and connect with texts and calls (in a TCPA compliant way). Sometimes, we do gift campaigns for our VIPs. VIPs live at the heart of your business. You treat them differently because they treat you differently. They buy and sell homes with you. They refer business your way and, often, they become friends along the way.

The biggest challenge with a gift campaign is shipping. You may have it in your budget to buy the gifts, but what about postage? Nevermind the drag of packing and addressing your tchotchkes! Here’s a simple hack to make your next gift campaign easy and affordable.

First, sign up for an Amazon Business Account. Then, upload your VIP list with the ‘bulk address upload’ feature. With a few clicks, you can select, purchase, and send your gift for groups of up to 50 addresses at a time. Amazon expertly handles your shipping and handling. Shipping is free on eligible items if you add Prime to your business account. Thanks, Mr. Bezos.

We’re book nerds and books have free shipping. So we sent out The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy when people needed something purely good after COVID lockdowns. We’ve gifted The Millionaire Real Estate Investor hoping to inspire some future investor business. Morgan Housel’s Psychology of Money made the list just because we loved it. The ONE Thing made the VIP gift list and a thrifty employee selected the yellow-paperback edition, which is actually the British version. That made for an entertaining conversation with my publisher.

Whatever you choose to gift, just make sure you abide by RESPA guidelines if you’re a real estate professional.

Amazon Gift Notes don’t work for this and that’s fine. Follow-up with an email or a call letting them know the gift was from you, why you selected it, and why they were on the list. Those conversations can create a lot of business energy

One question to ponder in your thinking time: How can you make your most important people feel like they matter most?

Make an Impact!
Jay Papasan

Co-author of The One Thing & The Millionaire Real Estate Agent ​