Feedback is a great thing! Recently, I wrote an article “12 Holiday Gift Ideas for Clients.” A financial advisor shared their opinion “no one wants a calendar.” They raised an important observation that was the starting point for this article. Should you give a calendar to clients? It depends on the client.

The Case For Not Giving Calendars
The reader made the point that smartphone functionality makes traditional paper calendars obsolete. They are correct. Calendar apps add even more functionality, like aggregating your daily schedule and prompting you when you need to be someplace or get onto a Zoom call.

There are at least six reasons why traditional calendars would be a terrible client gift:
1. Your niche is technology. Your clientele is in Silicon Valley or Silicon Bayou, Silicon Prairie, Silicon Harbor or one of the other 30+ tech hubs in the Unite States. They are on the leading edge of technology;

2. Your clientele embraces technology. Your clients are millennials and younger. They embrace the convenience of technology. They access entertainment online and communicate through social media. They don’t make phone calls.

3. Remember realtors? Years ago, real estate agents would send paper calendar pads with magnetic backing you could attach to your refrigerator. You peeled off a monthly page at a time until December. They were and are incredibly tacky. Not the image you want your business to portray.

4. It hangs from a nail. These calendars are about a foot square and feature cats, dogs or birds. If you mount them on the back of a door, they are constantly in motion.

5. There’s no “one size fits all” gift. If everyone gets the same item, it loses the personal touch. The gift starts to look like a giveaway.

6. You are stuck in the past. Giving a gift someone won’t use reflects badly at a time when people are looking for technology-driven alternatives to traditional advisors.

The Case For Giving Calendars
The case for giving paper calendars ties into the customization of gifts. A calendar is not right for everyone, yet it’s the ideal gift for someone.

1. The planner. When is a calendar not a calendar? When it’s a desk diary. The Economist magazine produces these on an annual basis. Leather bound, they cost about $135 each. Someone must be buying them.

2. The technophobe. Recently, I took a cruise where the cruise line seeks to get its baby boomer clientele more comfortable with technology. Bar and restaurant menus are accessed by QR codes. You view the ship’s daily program online, check off interesting activities and view your custom daily program, complete with reminders. I liked some features, but not others. Upon returning home, friends told me they would be very resistant to that approach. Those folks use paper calendars.

3. The annotated calendar. It should be possible to find or design a calendar highlighting key dates, like April 15 and when estimated tax payments to the Feds are due. This would logically be a week per page design. 

4. The themed calendar. The film Calendar Girls (2003) followed the story of a group of British women who developed a calendar project to raise money for cancer research. Other organizations have picked up on the theme. If you can find one that aligns with your client’s major charitable interest or passion, it should get favorable attention.

5. The extended calendar. Bound calendars don’t always stop at December 31. You can get versions running 18 months into the future. The pandemic lockdown cast a black cloud over many people’s lives. If they were used to traveling overseas, they might feel the good times are behind them. We bought a couple an extended calendar in early 2021 so they could start penciling in cruises. They might not have taken any this year, but planning one for 2022 gives them something to look forward to, the light at the end of the tunnel.

6. The journal. A calendar can also serve as a journal, if your client enjoys writing. Although the notes function on the iPad is more efficient, a bound book in “page-a-day” format allows them to handwrite things that were important. They can easily clip from magazines and newspapers, attaching them to the pages. These books have staying power. Once the year is over, they go onto a shelf with editions from previous years.

There is no right answer. There’s a case to be made for not giving calendars as client gifts, yet there’s a case for why a calendar is the ideal gift for certain clients. You decide.

Bryce Sanders is president of Perceptive Business Solutions Inc. He provides HNW client acquisition training for the financial services industry. His book Captivating the Wealthy Investor is available on Amazon.