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O P I N I O N
Client recognition
I n the AEC business, the holiday season can be 45 very pleasant days or 45 of the year’s most stressful days. Principals, marketing leaders, and project and office managers have to figure out how to thank clients for their business without jeopardizing their client relationships. Giving gifts to your clients is a great show of appreciation, but make sure you know the differences between public and private entities.
Bernie Siben THE FAST LANE
I recently was employed in-house at a surveying firm. In doing basic client research, I discovered that an old friend from Dallas was now employed at TxDOT in Austin. I made arrangements to meet him for lunch to catch up. In setting up the appointment, his assistant reminded me that, while he could meet me for lunch, he had to pay for his own meal. Apparently, if I paid for his lunch, it could be considered an attempt to “Looking ahead to the 2019 holiday season and beyond, it’s important to understand the difference between private- and public-sector clients.”
Looking ahead to the 2019 holiday season and beyond, it’s important to understand the difference between private- and public-sector clients. If your clients are in the private-sector, you can do almost anything. There are few or no laws covering what you can do for private- sector clients. In the 1990s, my large national engineering firm gave away color television sets and weekends at local ski resorts. We even offered one big client a choice of items, one of which was a week of skiing in Switzerland for him and his wife. You can do almost anything for a private sector client that your budget will bear. If your clients are public sector entities, it’s a totally different situation; you have to be careful about gift giving. Each public agency has rules or policies about accepting gifts – and all of them are different.
See BERNIE SIBEN, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER February 11, 2019, ISSUE 1283
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