A retirement gift is a great way to show appreciation to an employee or congratulate a friend! While you certainly should give a little gift to the soon-to-be retired guy or gal, you definitely don’t want to break the bank. Traditionally a company would offer their retiring employee a gold watch as a farewell gift, but those days are long gone. Nowadays, you can be really creative with the type of farewell gift you would like to offer the retiree.

Engraved Plaque or Frame
An engraved plaque or frame is a really wonderful way to show your appreciation to an employee or co-worker. A plaque has plenty of room for you to offer your thanks for a retiree’s service or a special message about retirement. For a great co-worker who is retiring, you might consider a nice engraved picture frame that has a picture of you and the co-worker at your favorite lunch spot or a group shot of your co-worker’s favorite office friends with a special or even humorous message about retirement.

Mini Gift Basket
If your retiree lives far away, but you would still like to get him or her something special for retirement, then consider a mini gift basket full of goodies. There are lots of themed gift baskets that can be ordered online and delivered right to your retiree’s home. A fun themed gift basket for a new retiree might be “breakfast in bed” because now he or she will be able to sleep in until whenever they want! And gift baskets don’t always have to filled with chocolate and cookies, there are even great healthy gift baskets for retirees who are watching what they eat. So it will be fun to find a great gift basket that matches your retiree’s personality and they will be thrilled to receive such a thoughtful gift.

Make Your Own Mini Gift Basket
If you can’t find a gift basket that would be perfect for your favorite retiree, then consider putting together your own! A coffee related gift basket can be full of new gourmet coffee flavored beans, a cool coffee mug, and maybe some candies. Or a fun beach themed gift basket can include a nice beach blanket, sunscreen, healthy snacks – all tucked into a new beach bag! Making your own gift basket can be cost effective and you might even get your friends and co-workers in on the deal to create a mega gift basket where each person contributes a little something for the retiree!

Personalized Hobby-related Goods
Retirement is all about fun! So if you know what drives your retiree to wake up in the morning, then consider getting a fun hobby-related retirement present. If your retiree loves to go fishing, then consider a nice fisherman’s hat with the retiree’s name embroidered on it. If your retiree loves to workout, then a new personalized gym bag would make a great gift. Finding a hobby related gift may be a little more difficult than finding a traditional retirement gift, but it will mean so much to the retiree that you went to the trouble to make their gift memorable.

I’ve addressed hundreds of thousands of objections over the course of my negotiation career. Objections should be addressed with the mindset of information gathered about the party with whom you’re negotiating; that includes silent partners that are not at the negotiation table, foils that might be aligned with your negotiation opponent to perform nefarious functions, the demeanor of the negotiator(s), and the culture of the negotiator’s organization. Such insights, along with reading one’s body language, will lend credence to the validity and viability of the person making objections during a negotiation. That, in turn, will allow you to discern how important an objection is, versus it being a possible ploy, created to distract you from something that is more beneficial to your position.

Handling Objections:

Before addressing objections, always be aware of the attempts of others on the opposing negotiator’s team to hype them; remember, these attempts could stem from people that are not at the negotiation table. Hyping objections can be in the form of giving them the appearance of being more valuable or dire than they are, for the purpose of gaining insight into how you might react to such attempts. Keeping that in mind, follow the steps below when addressing objections in your negotiations.

1. When the first objection is posed, assess its veracity to determine if you should address it at all. If the other negotiator insists upon having it addressed, note his body language before proceeding to the next step. In particular, you should observe if he looks directly at you with a smile or scowl, if he looks through you as though he’s in a daze, or if he makes such a request in a timid manner. In all such cases, appraise the degree to which any of these gestures might be ploys.

a.) Looking directly at you is a sign that he’s focused. A smile can indicate that he wants to convey a friendly/casual perspective. A scowl may be an indication of a more serious projection and/or one to set the stage to take his request more seriously.

b.) Looking through you in a daze could imply that his mind is somewhere else and the fact that he’s testing you as a ploy.

c.) Making the request in a timid manner could belie the fact that he doesn’t possess a strong demeanor. He might also be examine you to see if you’ll attempt to take advantage of his docile demeanor.

2. Ask the other negotiator to cite all of his objections. Your goal is to get them out in the open. Do this by requesting what else he’s concerned about. If warranted, have him detail why he thinks his objections are valid. Observe hidden insights gleaned from his body language and nonverbal signals, as mentioned in step 1. By doing this, you’ll gain a sense of direction he has for the negotiation.

3. Once you’ve garnered enough insights about the purpose and value he has for citing his objections, have him prioritize them. Then, address one that’s lower on his priority list to see if that has more weight than disclosed. Couple this tactic with the outcome you seek for the negotiation. Continue this process to the successful conclusion of the negotiation.

In any negotiation, you should know what you’re dealing with before you attempt to deal with it. Such is the case when dealing with objections. Thus, by implementing the suggestions above, you’ll be better positioned to keep in check those objections intended to dissuade your attention from what’s more important. That, in turn, will allow you to be more laser focused on addressing the real objections that will impact the negotiation… and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

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“Their eyes seem to glaze over anytime I mention showing our PowerPoint,” said Paul. His concern was real and I soon found out why. “We have a presentation coming with a Fortune 50 company; I don’t want them taking a nap during our presentation. We need to get and keep their attention,” said Paul. “How can we do that, Joe?”

Paul’s concern is common with a lot of my clients. Even though they have jam-packed their PowerPoint with information and they try their best not to be promotional in their presentation, they still found their clients being less than impressed.

One answer is to appeal to both sides of a prospect’s presentation experience, by not only telling them facts but showing them an example. How? Embed a video right in the PowerPoint. A video that expands on the information you are telling and directly shows those benefits in action.

In this example, we knew that prospects had been having a hard time ordering and printing business cards. (Paul’s company is printing) The prospects have to deal with all those names, different titles, different numbers and they are constantly changing with new hires, and promotions as well as people leaving.

So, not only did we tell about Paul’s company in a PowerPoint, we did a video and showed the problem with business cards for a company and showed how a business card is processed and made. The end of the video showed how Paul’s company had their own delivery trucks to assure that deliveries are in control and on time.

Prospects were impressed that Paul’s company handled all facets of the production in house. So, what was the result? “We started writing business the same day we made the presentation, said Paul. “We had never done that before and I think it’s because of your video.”

Why..? A combination of choosing a topic that was common with most prospects, (business cards), while doing a PowerPoint presentation that was entertaining, engaging and relevant. We used a video that got their attention and told a story. It demonstrated a level of professionalism and sensitivity to keep client engaged and entertained. Prospects wanted to do business with the company right away.

So what principles do you need to remember when you do the video? Keep these following tips in mind;

o Video must have some type of story–Problem, what happens, end resolution

o No Talking Heads, please!!

o Have video complement/expand but not repeat presentation points

o Make sure you have good sound speakers for presentation–If your prospects can’t hear clearly, it is a waste of good video

o End your presentation with the movie portion, have a memorable ending that tells them what you want your prospect to do next

PowerPoint presentations are so often dreaded because so many companies abuse them by not doing their homework, reading from the screen, etc. Put the POW back in your PowerPoint with an embedded video that shows them benefits you bring to their problem. You’ll have an interested client that will want to go to the next step of buying from you.