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By Debbie Jones

Corporate gifts aren’t just for your colleagues and business associates anymore. If you work with clients on a regular basis, you know how important they are to the continued success of your business. Word of mouth is one of the most valuable forms of advertising there is. Giving a thoughtful gift when you’ve closed a deal with a client is one way of making your client feel special and ensuring that they will remember you when they need your services again and that they will recommend you to friends.

Corporate Gifts Your Clients Will Really Use

Corporate gifts needn’t be boring or stuffy and they don’t have to prominently display your company’s logo front and center. In fact, you may find that the best corporate gifts for clients are those that have a more personal feel to them. Realtors that are closing on the sale of a house, for instance, can hand over the keys to a newly purchased home on a monogrammed silver key ring. It’s so much more personal than a plastic tag, yet the owners will think of their realtor every time they use it.

Travel agents will endear themselves to their clients if they tuck a few rich, whole-grain leather luggage tags in with their tickets and travel itineraries. Small shoe shine kits, manicure kits or travel alarms will also be appreciated and put to good use. Any of these can be embossed or engraved with the company’s name or the client’s initials.

Corporate gifts for your financial planning clients might include money clips or engraved pen sets (for balancing those pesky checkbooks!). Perhaps a few clients have had a particularly good year with your – shouldn’t you let them know you appreciate the opportunity you’d had to work with them? Give them a corporate gift that helps them enjoy their windfall a bit; it could be anything from a great barbeque tool set to cooler chairs for tailgating, fishing trips or camping.

Salon or spa managers can’t go wrong giving a token of appreciation to their regular clients. Tucking a few samples of nail enamel into an embroidered mini cosmetic bag is a charming idea for touch-ups between visits. Other thoughtful ideas include small mirror compacts with jeweled and enameled accents for quick touch-ups.

Gifts That Appeal to Clients’ Leisure Lives

Sometimes a corporate gift is most appreciated when it doesn’t directly tie to your business relationship. This is especially true if you want to give a gift of appreciation to loyal clients who have maintained a long-term relationship with you. Since you’ve known them a long time, you can tailor a gift to something that is more personal to them such as a particular pastime.

Golfing themed corporate gifts for your clients who love hitting the links include engraved ball markers, golf club head covers and a variety of other golfing accessories. Do you have a client who is an avid poker player? A poker set with casino-quality chips, dice and regulation playing card in a leather carrying case will be used plenty of weekends!

To celebrate a milestone in a client’s life, give a fine bottle of vintage wine along with a sterling silver corkscrew or elegant wine stopper as a keepsake. You can complete the gift be enclosing everything in a beautiful solid wood wine presentation engraved with a personal message.

Obviously, corporate gifts no longer need to follow the old rules. They can now be unusual, personal and elegant. And with so many great options to choose from, you can certainly find a multitude of ways to use corporate gifts to make yourself memorable to your clients!

About the Author: Debbie Jones is a contributing author for

mybusinessgifts.com

. Visit My Business Gifts today to find an affordable selection of practical, luxurious, elegant or humorous gifts.

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isnare.com

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By Cliff Berman

There’s something really, really cool about living in a house that’s had the opportunity to be a little piece of history. Do you remember “Sweet Home Alabama”? It’s like there’s ghosts in every hallway. That doesn’t stop a historic home from being a giant pain to buy homeowners insurance for, however. As a matter of fact there might be plenty of days in the near future when you’re tempted to just bulldoze the darn thing and start all over again.

Don’t do that. It’s not that bad.

It’s true that your homeowners insurance rates are going to be a lot higher to insure a historical home than they would be if you just owned your average cookie cutter home in the suburbs. It’s the nature of the beast. But they have a good explanation!

If you live in a historic district the homes there are intended to be a perfect representation of exactly what they looked like during whichever era of history made them famous. For example, if you live in and around Fredericksburg, VA, Charleston, SC or Savannah, GA you’re probably not convinced that the war between the states ever really ended. How could it, when you still see it everywhere you look?

While this is really, really cool for tourists it’s a really big pain for homeowners insurance companies. Historic districts are governed by a historical committee that has dedicated their life to preserving the sanctity of these moments in history, right down the very last slime covered toadstool-or in your case, slate shingle. They can even go so far as to insist that slate shingle come from the very same quarry as the original when you’re rebuilding.

This takes time and money. Lots of money. You have to have the slate imported, and you have to find craftsmen who know how to work with it. Believe it or not, historic craftsmen and masons who know their way around a historical district aren’t as easy to come by as you might think.

Are you having sympathy migraines? That’s how your homeowners insurance provider feels when they’re handling your home insurance claims, which is why most regular home insurance policies don’t cover houses over 100 years old. Fortunately for everyone there are companies that specialize in insuring historical property. If you’re having a hard time finding an insurance provider, or you have a question about insuring or renovating your historical home, you can contact the National Trust for Historical Preservation. They should be able to answer your questions.

Of course, that doesn’t help you find cheap homeowners insurance. The good news is that renovating your home can actually go a long way toward shaving money off your homeowners insurance rates without destroying its historical value. Simple things bringing the wiring up to code or fixing up the plumbing not only make your home more livable (and/or tour group friendly) it also saves you money on your home insurance because it’s not likely to spontaneously combust or flood when the pipes break.

At least, not any time soon.

With a little TLC your historical home can stand for another 100 years, with a sturdy home insurance policy backing it up every step of the way.

About the Author: Cliff Berman is the CEO of QuoteScout.com, where they’re helping savvy shoppers get the best deal on their

homeowners insurance rates

. For more information visit them on the web at http://www.QuoteScout.com.

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isnare.com

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By Daniel Weiss

Very much in the news these days are the public meetings of the Florida Property Tax Reform Committee. The Committee was appointed by Governor Jeb Bush. The Committee is holding hearings around the state, seeking public input.

Eight meetings are scheduled in various locations across the state. On February 13, 2007, the Legislative Hearings on Property Tax Reform were held in Miami. The author of this article attended, both to hear what others had to say and to put in his own two cents worth.

The Committees Charge

The Committee was charged with responsibility to consider, at a minimum, the following:

Consequences of property tax exemptions and assessment differentials;

Appropriateness, affordability and economic consequences of property taxation levels in Florida;

Alternative methods of assessment, including, but not limited to, split-rate and land value taxation;

Replacement alternatives to property taxation as sources of public funding, including increased sales taxes; and

Limitations on local government revenue and expenditures.

Topics Addressed

Topics addressed at preliminary sessions of the Property Tax Reform Committee and at Legislative Hearings on Property Tax Reform convened at Panama City, Jacksonville, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, include the following ideas:

Assess business property based on current use only, instead of highest and best use value.

Cap tax revenue growth for individual local governments.

Cap tax increases on individual properties or classes of property.

Full or partial replacement of the property tax with other forms of taxation.

Assess properties using a moving average value of several years assessments instead of using just the current years value.

Simplify the Truth in Millage annual notice of proposed property taxes to be more easily understood by taxpayers.

Increase the amount of homestead exemption and/or index it by percentage of value.

Institute portability or transferability within Florida of the Save Our Homes cap, in whole or in part.

Phase-out the Save Our Homes tax preference.

Partial-year assessments of improvements to real property.

Improve or limit agricultural use classification regulations.

Protect homestead-related property tax benefits when property is taken for public use by eminent domain.

Protect homestead-related property tax benefits upon relocation required by military service

Further Proceedings

A preliminary report was issued by the Committee in December 2006. A mid-term report is due on or before March 1, 2007, and a final report no later than December 1, 2007. Ultimately, the Committee is charged with responsibility to issue recommendations to improve property taxation in Florida through a comprehensive approach, with an emphasis on simplifying the system for all taxpayers.

The responsibility with which the Committee is tasked is fraught with difficulty, since any adjustment to the current system has repercussions throughout the remainder of the property tax administration system of the State. Think of it as a water balloon; if you squeeze one side, the volume of water displaced expands the rest of the balloon. The metaphor is not exactly Archimedean, but it does give you a visual image of the problems involved.

Notably, most of the changes being considered may require a constitutional amendment before implementation. This means that the most the Legislature can do is propose constitutional amendments. After that, it will be up to the voters of the State of Florida whether the proposals will be adopted.

About the Author: Daniel A. Weiss is an attorney with 25 years of property tax experience and was recently named one of the “Top Lawyers” by the South Florida Legal Guide. For more information go to:

tannebaumweiss.com

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isnare.com

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