At Gift Better Co., we’re all about helping people stay connected through gifting. So when strategic marketing consulting firm Sklar Wilton & Associates reached out to us to help them enhance their staff’s experience at an upcoming virtual retreat, we were thrilled to get to work!
Sklar Wilton & Associates is a Toronto-based strategy and insights advisory firm that helps CEOs, CMOs, and marketing teams solve tough business challenges to unlock growth and build stronger brands. The company helps their clients make smarter business decisions by helping them with their marketing strategies, facilitation, decision making, research and insights, and analytics and storytelling.
We sat down with Sarah Major, who is a partner at the firm and our main point of contact on the gifting project, to dive into how they had to adapt their annual staff retreat due to COVID restrictions, the challenges of keeping a remote team engaged, and the organization’s corporate social responsibility mandate.
Before Gift Better Co.
In a typical year, the partners at Sklar Wilton & Associates would organize and host a three-day offsite event for their entire staff somewhere in the Greater Toronto Area. The event would be a mix of team building, goal setting, and business planning activities that would help the staff align for the year in a relaxed, open environment. Due to this year’s pandemic, the firm had to get especially creative while planning the event, which they moved to online to abide by safety guidelines.
The core content for the retreat was about how to elevate client experiences, so the partners at the firm took that challenge upon themselves for the virtual offsite. That’s where they got the idea to send everyone a unique and customized gift to each staff member. They also hired a speaker, planned virtual games, and left plenty of room for sharing ideas.
Choosing Gift Better Co.
When it came to choosing a gifting company for their virtual event, Sklar Wilton picked Gift Better Co. because they loved the give back portion of the gifts. Giving back is important to Sklar Wilton and Associates. They have been contributing to their corporate charity the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (in addition to others) for almost ten years. The cause hits close to home for the firm, as one of the partners is a leukemia survivor. Being able to support the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society with their gifts made their decision to work with Gift Better Co. a no-brainer.
The Impact
A portion of each of the 35 gifts purchased for the retreat gave back to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada (LLSC), supporting their mission to “cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families."
The Outcome
Sarah was excited about the opportunity to customize each of the 35 gifts for the team, which made each team member feel especially cared for. Although branding wasn’t the priority, custom ribbon and tissue paper elevated the overall aesthetic of each gift and made them feel even more premium.
Everybody opened their gifts at the same time in one of the virtual meetings. Partners read each employee their personal thank you notes, and the team members were over the moon. Making each team member feel recognized and special was the goal of the custom gifts, and it’s safe to say that mission was accomplished.
If you’re looking to elevate a virtual event by sending premium custom gifts, contact us to talk to our team of gifting experts.
Author: Chloe Barclay-Illing
