[duxup]

> Offer to send some swag to the implementing team at your customer - not just your champion.

This seems weird to me. I guess if it works to send some trinkets to people you do it… but if it makes a difference to them I’d be kinda judgmental about that fact ( not really related to the sales process).

Personally I don’t want more trinket crap in my life but maybe other folks feel differently.

[Kamq]

The devs integrating with your solution are going to hate it at a certain point. This may or may not be your fault (underlying technical limitations you've papered over will look like your fault from the outside at a certain point).

Devs hate basically everyone else's code.

A t-shirt (or jacket, or water bottle, or whatever) is a surprisingly cost-effective way to turn "I hate this" into "Sure it has some quirks, but have you seen the other options?"

[bostik]

> Devs hate basically everyone else's code.

Including their recent selves'.

The gentle way of expressing this is well known: if you are not embarrassed by code you wrote a year ago, you have not improved at all.

As far as I am aware, coders and artists are the only two groups of people who routinely describe their own creations as "shit", "crap", "garbage" or "disgusting". How could one even begin to appreciate someone else's work when the primary feeling we have of our own is self-loathing?

(If you haven't looked at a piece of code, gone "what kind of idiot...?" and discovered via git-blame that it was you, you have not been in this profession long enough.)

[noirbot]

Yea, maybe not a shirt, but hell, send them some nice coffee or some snacks or something. My current job is probably at least 50% implementing stuff my company bought, and for one of them, they had an on-site meeting about the implementation/proof of value stuff and they offered to buy everyone coffee/tea/whatever at a coffee shop by our office before the meeting and that definitely helped me be a bit less grumpy about the work.

Any sort of "congrats on launching/implementing our stuff" gift is at least an acknowledgment of the work put in to help the sales team land their contract, and that helps keep the relationship on a good footing.

[fian]

A few companies I have worked for have had a strict no gifts policy. Many of our customers had similar policies, to the point that we couldn't even pay for a customer's coffees if we have a meeting at a cafe.

These policies are aimed at preventing even the whiff of bribes or favoritism wrt purchasing or awarding of contracts.

Mostly this was in the Oil and Gas industry. We had a few mining clients that were less strict wrt gifts/swag. I now work in the banking industry where there are strict regulations against bribery, facilitation payments and many types of gifts.

So I find it a bit weird to hear that sellers provide "swag".

[duxup]

I remember working at a place where the local IT guy’s office was covered in trinkets and swag.

It certainly gave off a kinda wonky vibe, even if he was operating on the up and up.

[noirbot]

Yea, definitely depends on the industry, but even at that point, just a very nice note thanking the implementation team feels good.

[leviathant]

>Yea, maybe not a shirt, but hell, send them some nice coffee or some snacks or something.

So. Tired. Of swag. But food? Even when it's crappy, I appreciate it, and at least it ends up in sewage processing instead of a landfill.

[seanherron]

This is more of a post-sales item. A pivotal part of a renewal is going to be how successful implementation is - and that success is largely dependent not just on the sponsor of the project but on the team that supports them. Those folks are often the ones who don’t get the trinkets. Something like a nice jacket or even a pair of socks can go a long way to building positive sentiment there.