The Ultimate Gift Guide for Lawyers (2024)

Episode Notes

Transcript

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Conrad, it is the gift giving season and certainly gift giving in the professional context has its place. What do you think about when you think about professional gift giving?

Conrad Saam:

Well, I think my biggest point is it is always the giftgiving season. I think that is one of the things that we often miss is that this is a good time to remember that we should be being thankful and recognizing our gratitude, not just when some arbitrary version of Christiandom decides that we should be, but throughout the entire year. And gifts are a great way to express gratitude and thanks. And so we’re talking about it now. It’s a great time to talk about gifts, but maybe we should be talking about it in April when everyone has forgotten and you are curmudgeons.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

That’s a really good point. And we’ve talked about gifting in the past on Lunch Hour, Legal Marketing, but a lot of people right now we’re doing gifts and in fact, we’re going to make some recommendations about gifting, but forgetting about what time of season it is, when you think about giving a gift or how about this, let’s play this role. You’re a marketing director at a law firm and your firm is sitting around talking marketing strategy and maybe they’re doing it in April. What are you talking about strategically from a gift keeping standpoint?

Conrad Saam:

I think there are a couple of things to think about here. Number one, what type of volume are we talking about, right? How

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Many? That’s question number one. Who are you giving? Who’s on the list that’s getting X gift?

Conrad Saam:

And I do believe that gifts that are personalized spend a little more time comes with a thank you note. They go a lot further. Having said that, here’s my flip to that. If you’re, you’re a large law firm and you’re generating more than one referral a week, you are not going to spend the time to think about individually customizing a gift for every single person who sends you that

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Referral. Especially you’re including former clients. I mean, some of these firms could be talking about thousands.

Conrad Saam:

Yeah, so I think it is. Okay. And you and I are really big on these personalized gifts, and I believe that 100%. I received a gift when I came home from our client meeting, our client summit. It was from Joe gi, Vanoli of Nine Sale Marketing. He and I, he’s an agency owner. He’s a competitor. He had a question about something that I spent, I don’t know, an hour on the phone with him going over and pretty open. He sent me a thank you gift. It was perfectly right before Thanksgiving, a carving set that had my family’s name on it. So that was super grateful, super thoughtful, super individualized. Having said that. And so I love that in general. I like moving in that direction. Having said that, if you are doing volume, build a machine, a gift giving machine, right? And I think that is okay as well, especially at volume. The key here is to not miss the opportunity to say thank you because you’re trying to individualize everything. Because when you do try to individualize everything, stuff falls through the cracks. I know that for myself,

Gyi Tsakalakis:

100%. The system is key. In fact, I was referencing, I posted on LinkedIn earlier about gift giving in the context of referral marketing. And we’re talking about saying, thank you. That should be a machine. It should be going on all year round, the gratitude machine. And here’s the thing, it keeps you top of mind with all the people who are referring you business. I think that’s the part that I think a lot of people do this, but to your point, building a machine like that that’s customized to individuals at scale, good luck.

Conrad Saam:

It’s harder. It’s much harder. I mean it’s doable, but it’s harder.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

So I mean, here’s my thing again, and there are going to be people in your life that are part of your referral network that you are just going to have a relationship with that you want to send a gift to. They’re going to be on a list of more customized gifts, more personalized gifts, and there’s going to be a group of people that are very valuable source of business for you. You might not have a deep personal relationship with them, but you can look on your p and l and say, Hey, this is a huge source of our business. Those people should be more in the custom gift group, right?

Conrad Saam:

I’ll tell you this, as you go into the 2025, you mentioned p and L, there should be a line item for gift giving in your PL, and I would recommend, I can’t recommend enough looking at that line item in December, seeing what your total was for the year and try to double that next year. The opportunities are there, probably the opportunities are there, you just haven’t executed on it. So try and double your, we literally had that as one of our goals two years ago to double our gift giving line item. It’s the best money you can spend.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

And just to get into some logistics, and again, this is more of the at scale, but you can automate, thank you postcards from CRM triggers. Anyway, that’s something to look into if people are looking for the practical, how do you execute on that? Look for ways that lawyers are implementing CRM. I know Lawmatics, someone was mentioning this, they do it through Lawmatics and I think there’s a postcard site and anyway, there’s a bunch of things you can set to automate all

Conrad Saam:

That stuff. Yes,

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Thank you. Yeah, a hundred percent. So that’s the scale way to it logistically. Alright, now speaking of gift giving and receiving, Conrad, let’s go through some of your more memorable giftings.

Conrad Saam:

I’m going to give a couple, and I’m deliberately making this cute, but we’re going into the winter season, so I’m going to do a cute one here to start out with. I like finding things that are a little out there. Ice bug shoes. Ice bug shoes are deliberately built to help you from flipping and falling in winter weather. And they literally have what look like old track spikes built into the soles and they’re designed to not have you fall on your butt. I think that is a great kind of tongue in cheek gift for the personal injury lawyer. They’re also actually really good and helpful if you spend a lot of time outside in the winter and you happen to live in a northern climate. So iceberg shoes are one of my favorite little things. I’ve actually given them out a couple times as thank you gifts and they kind of fit with the slip and fall. Don’t injure yourself. Motif, what do you got?

Gyi Tsakalakis:

I am going in a little bit different direction from my first one. I am going to recommend the sure MV seven, the Sony Alpha ZVE 10, the camera and Mike. Now again, this is more in your personalized, generous gift giving,

Conrad Saam:

But

Gyi Tsakalakis:

I think giving the gift of the tools to create content is very valuable. This might be, you know what? This is a great gift for the marketing director to get for the lawyers at their firm. Hey, here’s a gift. Now, by the way, it’s on the firm dollar, but yeah,

Conrad Saam:

I bought you something for yourself.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

I bought you something that you really need with your wallet, with your, and hey, there it is on the p and l, a gift to you lawyer.

Conrad Saam:

No. So I love this idea because I think one of the things, those of you who have listened to us regularly, you’ll remember the last episode that we, sorry, two episodes ago. By the time you listened to this, it was a great episode that Gyi and I recorded. Unfortunately, I tried to do the recording myself. We screwed up the microphone and the audio pickup was from Gyi’s cell phone and it was not great. You can really improve the quality of your audio, and it’s not just content creating. I mean, do you take client calls on that story, Mike, on the story speak? Yeah,

Gyi Tsakalakis:

I do. This is my full-time rig. I

Conrad Saam:

Do too.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Full-time camera and I won’t go

Conrad Saam:

Back. It is a great way of upgrading the audio experience when you’re talking to someone. I love that gift. I think that is very clever and it is right in the realm of what we do and tech nerdiness. And the other thing that you mentioned there was the, well, sorry that you didn’t mention, but I’m looking at it right now. The boom mic stand is awesome. So I can’t recommend enough spending extra to get a high quality boom mic stand because you can then push the mic away from yourself when you’re not using it and when you’re on a call or a Zoom or whatever it might be, you can just pull it in front of you. I love that. I will tell people that is it a bit of an art? You need to learn to position the microphone correctly. You need to talk.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

I’m not great at it. I’m not great at it

Conrad Saam:

Yet. I know Adam keeps yelling at you, but I

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Like it. It’s new, it’s new to me, it’s new to me. And I’ll tell you what, it’s made all the difference. In fact, my downgraded boom mics are sitting over in the corner. I’m looking at them right now, and this thing is just like a hundred percent better.

Conrad Saam:

The high-end boom mic is awesome

Gyi Tsakalakis:

And the spirit of gratitude now you can record yourself being grateful for your clients and for your team and for all these other people in your life in a higher quality video message. There you go.

Conrad Saam:

We do this. If we find out someone has had a kid in their family, we will send the onesie, not with a Mockingbird logo on it, but from the University of Alabama or whatever it might be.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

But I think that that one sticks because it’s like, hey, they spent enough time to think like, oh hey, we actually connected. We talked about this thing that was personal. To me, that is outside the context of the regular business relationship. Those are the types of things that I think are memorable. I mean, I think about, even though it was more of a contest than anything else, but the gift exchange we did with Michigan and Alabama jerseys with Bart Ard, I love that. I’ll always remember that that stuff in that kind of vein I think stands out a little bit more.

Conrad Saam:

Couldn’t agree more. Couldn’t agree. I love those kind of personalized, thoughtful things. It makes an impact, right?

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Yeah. And they’ll remember that. I’ll give you another really, one of my favorite examples. Charlie Madden had me come out to speak to one of his groups and I was talking as I often do, talking about spending more time doing the things that the bots can’t do. Doing what? The bots cannot got me a shirt. Do what the bots

Conrad Saam:

Cannot. Oh, I love

Gyi Tsakalakis:

That. Again, I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I’m imagining it’s not big brand that caused Charlie an arm and a leg. He had this made, but the thought of him having it made with the quote from my talk on it. I think finding ways to do that kind of stuff and lawyer to lawyer, you can do that kind of stuff. Especially if a person that you’re doing the gifting to as a speaker, if they’re a content creator, you can use their own words. And that’s the look. It was funny, my wife was like, why didn’t he put your name on him? Because I wouldn’t wear it my own

Conrad Saam:

Quote. He didn’t. That’s exactly right. Yeah, I wouldn’t

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Wear it. That’s exactly right. And so anyway, I thought that was a really thoughtful creative, in fact, that’s something that I learned a lot from Charlie, but that was one that really, I was like, this is great. Taking people’s words and creating a gift for them in their own words. That’s pretty powerful stuff.

Conrad Saam:

Alright, simple scalable gift bench made knives. They’re based out of Bellingham, Washington. They’re super high-end knives and you can throw your friend’s logo or name on that really quickly and send out a bench made knife. Now you’re probably looking at three to $500 a pop. Throw the logo on it and that always means something that the shirt that you got that reminds me, Michael Mogul, when I was on his podcast the first time, sent me a shirt and it’s something that has turned into a topic that you and I talk about all the time, which is a brand affinity over brand awareness. He sent me a shirt that said Affinity over awareness. And I wear that very carefully because it’s such an important concept that you and I talk about all the time. It was a great thank you gift.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

And I think in the practical advice category, this is where I think if you can pull this off, it’s like that’s the most powerful thing that he’s doing is that he gave you a gift that has his branding on it, but because of that affinity, you wear that shirt. That’s pretty powerful stuff because I think typically the mistake that’s made that we see all the time is that firms will send stuff out in their own firm brand and no one wants to use. Now look, you do fridge magnets. People will use fridge magnets. And I would love listeners if you’ve got examples of this where I’m totally wrong, I would love to see where there are lawyers giving out firm, solely firm branded clothing apparel that people are regularly wearing in their community. They’re wearing it. You think that happens a

Conrad Saam:

Lot? I think it happens more than we think it happens.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

I’m sure it does. I’m sure it does. I think that’s the case. I think, well, you know what? Kudos to those firms, right? Kudos to those firms that have built that

Conrad Saam:

Affinity.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

But I think a lot of that branding though, it’s got to be a little bit more creative branding. I mean, I don’t know. I decided maybe I’m not having my eyes open to it, but I think you do a lot better when you can send stuff out that people actually want to receive and use. And if that’s a t-shirt, then great.

Conrad Saam:

I’ve got what might come across as a bit of a morbid idea.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Oh good. But

Conrad Saam:

This is kind of one of the things that I believe in. It’s also something that we be very publicly displayed and will stick around for a long time. I don’t even want to say this, all this, it’s kind of like, eh, I think giving a corporate gift of an a ED to be held in someone’s office, there are too few AEDs sitting around. It literally can save someone’s life and they are dumbed down. They’re designed to be used by an 8-year-old. So if you have an a ED, you can have that mounted and they’re designed to be mounted very publicly in public spaces, including an office. If you can have that, and that’s a gift that someone will walk by and see and remember every single time. It’s a bit of a morbid thing to talk about, but I love this from a safety taking care of you perspective and something that will literally be displayed in public and it’s a bit out of the box. I like out of the box stuff.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

I love that idea. Well, and you got me thinking of once we went with more, but I was going in a different direction, but I think it’s worth another idea here in this kind of context, is sponsoring a cause that one of your referral partners is very passionate about,

Conrad Saam:

Right? Yes.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Many people that, some people have their own foundations, some people are doing scholarships, some people are very passionately vocal about certain passion social causes. I think making a donation in their name, that’s a great gift.

Conrad Saam:

Well, and it also, it throws it at you. Many times. People for their birthday will do, please do a donation to the March of Dimes, for example. Every time you see that, play the game. Play the game. Right? And don’t do it anonymously.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Maybe do it anonymously.

Conrad Saam:

No, but don’t get the, this is the whole,

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Well, again, that’s why I’m like maybe you send them the check so that they can put it in their foundation or whatever. But again, for the online thing, of course I think that you would just do that. You do it however you want, but obviously take credit for it.

Conrad Saam:

Love it. I’m going to give another idea. So we have tried with our kids to be more experientially based instead of materialistically based. We struggle with this all the time. And now that I said materialistically, when I say what I’m about to say, you’re going to be like, that is so materialistic.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

But is it he of cat skiing?

Conrad Saam:

I’m going to combine them into one. We just did our customer summit and we did at a racetrack. There’s a company called Extreme Experience that we worked with. They travel around the country to race tracks around the country and you can take laps in exotic cars. People loved it. We brought all our customers out. Yeah, that’s a great gift. It’s an easy way to give someone an opportunity to do something that you would never really do on your own. It’s over the top and it’s ridiculous and it’s fun and I can’t recommend enough that type of experience. You can find what their schedule is, find when they’re going to be around and send that as a gift. And it’s fun. It is really a blast.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

And I mean, again, I know this is not a surprise here, but the gift of spending time together, that’s really what you’re giving, right? And you’re doing it in a really cool spot. But those, you talk about some of the purposes behind some of this. You want to solidify relationships, you want to solidify referral partners. You want to solidify mentor groups, like share time with people.

Conrad Saam:

Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

That’s the best gift you can give. Alright, I got one. I got another one.

Conrad Saam:

Go go.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

And I’m going to give, giving it a shout is my gift to our good friend Ryan McKean. But his book The Way, A Simple Roadmap for Leading a healthy Law firm.

Conrad Saam:

I am on the book side of things. If you want to book for people in your life right now, actually, maybe this is a dangerous thing to give. We saw this at the Crisp Game Changer Summit. Robert Green, not Richard Green. Robert Green,

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Ah, great book.

Conrad Saam:

He’s written a bunch of great stuff. I bought 43 Laws of Power after hearing his talk. It feels like I’m reading a translation of Sun Tsu in the Art of War with a bigger historical context. Just the way he writes is very much like that great book to give. I can’t recommend that enough. That was a really, a really, really good read it and it makes you, and it’s also bitesize. So fun gifts. I going to leave. I think we’ll finish with this last idea because this is only appropriate for the right person.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Oh good.

Conrad Saam:

Adam’s like we can wrap this. This is the bonus. No bonus footage right here. Bonus, bonus one. And you’ll see this is a good one. This is the best one. Has to

Be the right person. The lead here comes the lead. This company in Seattle called Filson and they make outdoor gear. They’ve been making outdoor gear forever, but this is kind of the anti patagucci side of outdoor gear. This is like the lager gold miner type gear. It is the Filson, F-I-L-S-O-N oil skin tin cloth pants. The thing I like the most about them above and beyond the fat Gyi, that they are kind of more burly and hardcore than Carhartt and they’re a little bit waterproof. They’re treated with this stuff. You can’t wash them. They just wear in over time. And if you wash them, you destroy them. And so if you are the kind of person or if you know the kind of person who likes working outside and doesn’t mind getting filthy, I think these would be a great gift for Hunter Garnet. For example, the Filson oil skin tin cloth pants are fantastic.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Can I assume that you already have these pants?

Conrad Saam:

Oh yeah. Don’t buy ’em. Yeah. And here’s the thing, they in, you need to buy one of them. They will last. They

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Last forever.

Conrad Saam:

Absolutely

Gyi Tsakalakis:

Forever. And this episode not brought to you by Filson, despite that very descriptive, beautifully read reveal.

Conrad Saam:

Well, let me give it a slight angle on this that we did not cover. Filson is a local company to Seattle. If you are an outdoor person in Seattle, you know what they are. If you’re not, you’ve probably never heard of them. But there is value. I want to double back to this as a concept of gift giving and a big picture. There is value in giving locally. There is 100% value. If you’re in Maine and you give LL bean, that’s great, right? And every one of you has an example of something local that you can give that is supporting the local market and makes you a magnanimous gift giver just by supporting that local small business. And I would really encourage you to think about opportunities to gift locally.

Gyi Tsakalakis:

And I’m even going to Yes, yes, yes. And I’m going to combine two concepts that we’ve already talked about. Local gift giving for experience. So you’re sending people out for dinner, you’re taking people out for dinner at the local places. You’re doing community events with co-market, with other local businesses because guess what else happens with that stuff? And we talk about this all the time. It goes online, it creates the media that you want to be spreading about you online. And so again, people want, you’re giving back to the community. You should always, that’s not even, that’s like you said back to the start. That’s an all year round thing.

Conrad Saam:

That’s right. Alright, now that we’ve just told you to gift give outside of the December timeframe, you’re listening to this most likely in December, go put a reminder on your calendar sometime in mid to late February. Ask yourself, have we given any gifts out yet in 2025? And the answer is probably not. So put that on your calendar and think about who you should send a gift to mid to late if put it in your p and l.

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