What Is PPE or Personal Protective Equipment?
Simply put, PPE or Personal Protective Equipment is any equipment that provides protection in a workplace against risks to their own health and safety and of those around them. It comes in many forms, including:

• Eye and face protection, safety goggles and glasses, visors, face shields, and face screens
• Ear plugs and earmuffs
• Safety gloves, gauntlets, gloves with cuffs
• Hard hats, helmets, and hairnets
• Hi-Vis (High-Visibility) clothing
• Safety footwear, such as boots and shoes
• Respiratory equipment
• Disposable and conventional overalls, chemical (Haz-Mat) suits and boiler suits

The above list is by no means exhaustive and depending on the industry you are operating in and the different kinds of risks your employees face, you may require specific PPE not outlined above.
Why is Personal Protective Equipment So Important?
It is your duty as an employer to make sure that your employees are protected from all potential hazards and risks that they face on a day to day basis. It is crucial that you not only provide the right equipment and that it is high quality, but that you provide, full instructions, training, strict procedures, and supervision on how to use it properly.
It doesn’t matter if you have practiced thorough risk assessment and taken the appropriate safety measures to prevent accidents, there many other accidents that could happen. Particularly when personal protective equipment is not used.
Hazards and risks exist in all industries and can result in injuries ranging from minor through to severe and even fatal. Personal Protective Equipment is your employees’ last line of protection. Therefore, you need to choose the right PPE.
How Do You Know What Personal Protective Equipment to Use and When?
Deciding to invest in personal protective equipment is just the first part of the process. You need to understand what the right PPE is for your employees and when it should be used. As well as knowing what they should be wearing, your team needs to be fully trained to use it, know how to assess it, and find faults and inform the relevant superiors.
Ask the following questions, to help you choose the best PPE:

• What employees are at risk and what are they at risk of being exposed to?
• How long are they going to be exposed?
• How much are they going to be exposed to?

These questions can be helpful for identifying what from the dizzying variety of personal protective equipment your employees need. When different pieces of PPE need to be used at the same time, it is essential it can all be worn at the same time without impeding the effectiveness of any.
Who is Your Business Is Responsible for Personal Protective Equipment?
As an employer, it is you that is responsible for ensuring that your workforce all have access to and correctly wear the right PPE. You are not allowed to surcharge your employees so that you can provide them with this protective equipment.
However, it is also vital that your employees take responsibility for the safety and welfare of themselves and their colleagues. They need to wear the appropriate PPE correctly and in line with the instructions and guidelines you’ve provided them with. You need to ensure that they have been fully trained in all aspects of using PPE, including how to return it correctly.
Only members of staff who have been trained and authorized to do so should carry out maintenance, whether its repairs or cleaning, on it.
When employees don’t wear PPE at all or do it incorrectly, they are not only putting themselves at risk but also potentially putting other members of the workforce and members of the public (depending on the type of business you operate) at risk. Not only that, but they could be breaching health and safety regulations.
Importance of Personal Protective Equipment Training
As there are both right and wrong ways to wear personal protective equipment and the consequences of not using it appropriately are serious, it is vital your staff are fully trained to use it. You need to make a point of doing the following:

• Explaining why they need PPE
• When they need to use it
• How they use it
• Any limitations associated with wearing it that they should be aware of

They need to learn that there are no exceptions or exemptions. Even jobs that don’t take very long to complete, should only be undertaken with the right personal protective equipment being used.
If this is all new to you, either because you have been lax in the past or have only recently established your business, you need to create a culture within your company where wearing and using PPE is the norm.
If there is one thing that the global pandemic has taught us all is that we can’t be complacent when it comes to health and safety. Even if in the past you have tried to cut corners and save a little money by skipping on hairnets, safety gloves, and other important forms of personal protective equipment for your employees, you won’t be able to do that anymore.
You need to take it seriously, especially as the lives of your workers and any customers, clients, and contractors who frequent your work premises could be at stake.

Solid client relationships don’t just happen and are not simply a result of a naturally fantastic sales team. Quality, lasting relationships take work. From proactive contact, systematic follow-ups, clear communication and doing that little extra that keeps you top of mind with your customers, especially your top customers, requires a seamless solution. 

What is important to realize is that building strong relationships is a process that can be taught and systemized in your company to yield consistent and positive results.

Segment Your Customers

As much as we like to say all clients are important, the truth is that not all clients are created equal. There is a ranking and grouping that must happen to ensure client managers are spending their time where it yields the greatest results. 

Customers need to be segmented and prioritized. There will be acquisition targets, penetration targets and maintenance customers. WIthin those segmentations you also need to group for high, medium and low priority. From there, a clear strategy and set of communication expectations can be established for each target group and priority level. 

Communication Plan

Now that your client segmentation and prioritization has been established, time to put a plan against each level. For acquisition targets this could mean establishing contact scripts, lead products or communication sequencing. Penetration targets could be assigned key products or services that best fit the client’s needs and are important for your company’s growth objectives. Top clients could have an extra level of communication or recognition in their plan.

Establishing communication interval targets for your client tiers is important. It is too easy for time to get away from you, to fall victim to the squeaky wheel (or needy client) syndrome, or only remember to acknowledge clients at the holidays. Communication intervals need to be outlined as part of your annual planning and should vary for client level and segmentation. High priority penetration targets should have a different frequency and method than low priority maintenance targets. Clearly establish these expectations for your team so they can plan accordingly. 

Multiple Touchpoints

One important, and often overlooked, component of good client relationships is that they are not strictly a one-on-one relationship between two people. They should be deeper. Effective client relationship managers do not feel threatened by others in their company having access to “their” clients. They are strengthened by it. 

The more the client feels connected to the company, understands the full suite of resources and support that are offered and has multiple points of contact up and down the organization, the more secure they will feel. They also become harder relationships to convert away. Deeper relationships bring more supporters and extends you beyond just an anonymous price and product on paper that can be easily swapped.

Tracking and Execution

“Winners keep score” is a favorite quote and couldn’t be more true when it comes to sales and the client management process. If you are going to take the time to establish a selling process and set expectations, there should be accountability and measurement against those plans. 

In business today we fortunate to have no shortage of technology and tools to make customer relationship management easier than ever. CRM tools are vital to ensuring communication plans are implemented and tracked as needed for success. Another favorite saying is “the best execution to plan beats the best plan anyday”. CRM tools provide an invaluable way to stay on track with your planning and ensuring those communication goals are being met.

Doing that Little Extra

So now that you have done your customer segmentation, prioritization, set your communication plan and tracking, what is next to go above and beyond and show your top clients that added touch of personalized appreciation? Simple - client appreciation gifts.This is a time-honored and effective way to give your most important clients the recognition they deserve.

The holidays are the most common time of year for corporate gifting. Yet having a systematic process and plan for corporate gifting can be the most effective way to keep your company top-of-mind all year. Simple, personalized gifts for birthdays, life events or as a thank you, are a great way to extend your appreciation and establish deeper corporate relationships.

Rather than creating more work, like anything else, gifting should be systematized and streamlined with a turnkey online management tool. Givenly’s corporate gifting platform enables CRM integration, client segmentation and rankings, pre-scheduling and personalization of gifts from your dashboard. Make client appreciation an easy and valuable integration to your corporate communication plan with Givenly.

Check out this quick video to see how easy it is to create groups and prioritize customers on the Givenly gifting platform. 

Want to learn more about the benefits of developing a gifting plan as part of your corporate communication plan? Simply click through and complete our Contact Us form and we will be in touch soon with more information on how Givenly’s corporate gifting platform can help you grow your relationships with those top clients.

​

 
There’s a saying that 80% of your future business can come from 20% of your current clients. That can be a great ongoing stream of new business – so how can you help make it happen? The first step is to pay careful attention to your current clients, identifying who will be that critical 20%, and the second step is encouraging them - and giving them reasons - to refer you to colleagues, friends, and even family members.

I learned this lesson years ago, when I owned an insurance and financial services agency. I saw that my clients were divided into three groups:

• those who come and go, whose loyalty is to “the best deal” they can find
• those who are content to stay with you, as long as you provide adequate service and keep their best interests in mind
• the evangelists 

 
Ultimately, you want to convert and nurture the evangelists, and grow their numbers. Not only are they loyal clients, but they are also the ones who will refer co-workers, colleagues, friends, and family to you! This type of customer is as precious as gold.

So how do you identify and nurture these valuable clients? Here are my top five tips.  

Tip 1: Use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tool

It’s really important to have an up-to-date system tracking clients, and to have data about them and their businesses (size, location, number of employees, etc.). This information includes when you last contacted them and how well they responded to your communications. It helps to use a CRM tool – there are many to choose from!
 
Whether you use Salesforce, Insightly, Zoho, or Hubspot, or any other, keeping track of the data for your clients and business colleagues is critical because it allows you to understand lots of details about your customers, as well as how well your network responds to you. 

Tip 2: Recognize Loyalty
​
Once you have visibility to the "big picture" of your professional network, you can begin to pick out those customers who represent your “evangelists,” your 20%. Again, having good record keeping helps, as you can efficiently record and track client seniority, where referrals have come from, which positive business relationships have had positive outcomes, etc.  
 
Developing a system that allows you to identify these resources is critical to executing the subsequent steps. It can be as simple as classifying contact via a system of stars (1 star is a low-level contact and 5 stars is an evangelist).  Create a ranking that makes sense to you and keep it organized!

Tip 3: Nurture Loyalty

We all like to get something for nothing. Unfortunately, the world does not work that way, and when it comes to business, it shouldn't!  At the end of the day, growing your business is about people and relationships. So showing those who help you how much they are appreciated is a great way to ensure that the 80/20 rule continues to apply to your business.  
Nurturing loyalty is more than a quick email, thanking someone for their business or for a referral. It’s about truly showing your appreciation for their patronage and support.
 
Phone calls, cards, and gifts are fantastic ways to show your appreciation. Once you do, your 20% will continue to reciprocate, sending more business your way, as they sense your gratitude and appreciation. Givenly.com offers an easy and convenient service to nurture loyalty, such as sending personalized gifts. It’s like an automated CRM but with gifts! 

Tip 4: Consistency is Key

Once you have a process established for recognizing and rewarding loyalty, it’s important to stay consistent. Sending a “thank you” for a referral is important, but wouldn't it be nice to encourage that person to send a continuous stream of referrals your way?
 
That is where consistency counts; stay in front of your network! Stay top of mind, always, in a highly visible and appreciative manner. Even if you are not getting referrals from your contacts, keep at it! You will not only develop an attitude of reciprocity with your evangelists, so they feel almost "obligated" to send you more business, but your name will always be at top of mind the next time someone asks them about a real estate agent, attorney, banker, etc. It’s all about keeping you in front of your best referral network in a friendly and appreciative way.  

Tip 5: Surprise!

When was the last time you sent a valued client or partner a gift on their birthday?  Or for their new baby?  Or for a wedding anniversary? Or for a “deal closing anniversary?”
 
We all love to send gifts over the holidays; it’s almost expected these days. But you are doing exactly what everyone else (and your competition) is doing! You need to stand out! 
 
Show your clients and professional contacts that you know them outside of a formal business context. Demonstrate that you paid attention the last time you spoke; that you listened and asked questions. Show them that they mean more to you than a paycheck by surprising them with something unexpected.
 
Follow these five tips to ensure your name, your brand, and your services are always top of mind with your evangelists. This is also how you will get 80% of your future business from that reliable and faithful segment of your network! 

​-Mark Mancini