My Story of The Gift Club
By Hadie Perkas, Founder, The Gift Club
When I founded The Gift Club in late 2020, I never imagined that it would grow into one of the world's leading online digital communities in the Gift Card, Loyalty and Reward markets. Perhaps even into a global household name in the industry.
I often speak of the exciting opportunities The Gift Club has for the industry's future. Yet, it's really the journey that led to The Gift Club that speaks volumes about the opportunities that are yet to come.
My hope is that sharing my story will inspire all our industry entrepreneurs out there. Believe in your ideas, grit through the challenges, and you can create something amazing.
The Early Days
The Gift Club's success didn't happen overnight. In fact, where we are today is the culmination of 7 years of my personal experience in the industry.
My first company
Gift Card Recruitment (GCR) is involved in helping businesses around the world supercharge their growth and market position through talent acquisition and recruitment.
Since founding GCR in 2015, I was uniquely blessed to encounter and build relationships with many of today's HR and company leaders.
Seven years and 10,000 followers later, we had made a significant impact on the livelihoods and opportunities of many, and we were watching success stories emerge as we helped employees build careers and companies expand in the UK, Europe and abroad.
Bridging The Gap Between Suppliers, Partners & Clients
Despite the success that GCR experienced, I began to notice that something was still missing. As part of a growing global community, I saw the industry struggle to reach its full potential.
There seemed to be a battle for companies to grow a global influence and reach diverse markets, find the right contacts, build international connections super fast whilst spending time and money on expensive marketing campaigns to win sales leads.
The issue was with how they were being approached or found - in a fragmented, chaotic and undiscoverable world.
What is more, there were so many companies that didn't know where to start to launch their product and grow their international reach. A central resource seemed to be the only way to fuse the entire industry together and solve these problems!
And so, in late 2020, I realized it was time to build something better. . .
Bringing The Gift Club Growth Community To Life
The Gift Club began as a lofty vision that aimed to align the interests of retail brands with loyalty, gift card and reward agencies, HR decision makers with employee reward and recognition solutions and the entire supply chain with potential partners - a global "growth" community that would exist to help businesses and organisations expand their potential through regular digital presence and collaboration within a select audience.
In November 2020, I formally launched The Gift Club - the world's premier global community that promotes the products and services of companies and organisations (who we call our members) through digital media channels so they can be found, collaborate, get connected and create new possibilities throughout the global gift card, incentives, reward and loyalty industries.
I founded The Gift Club believing that this industry has much more to offer if it was represented as one global community. With the combined wisdom of established firms and new start ups and a community of dedicated people from brands, corporates and vendors, The Gift Club has laid the road for the industry to evolve and grow, together.
As more companies and organisations join the ranks of The Gift Club, we grow stronger, forging a path to a better world.
If you are ready to join us at The Gift Club as a corporate member, I invite you to check out our
member directory and then
contact me. Our community of professionals and members are growing by the day. Our goal is to connect people and business at a global scale and across industries and disciplines - in so many different ways but it all starts with you, our community!
Click here to view IMA's collection of news postings which feature press releases from member companies and other important news releases in the incentive industry.