Top 9 Catering Considerations When Planning an Event Menu

When planning the food and beverage for any event, it’s important for event planners to consider several “not-so-obvious” catering menu planning items to help ensure a successful program. Consider the following when planning your menu:

1. Know Your Guest Profile

What is the profile of the guests being invited to the event? For example, most business people attend many events throughout the year, and the phrase “rubber chicken circuit” is common among political, business and fundraising circles (and others). To prevent your event from having this description, consider the following:

• The professional level of your guest.
• The frequency your guest attends similar events.
• The location where guests reside.
• The ethnic background of your guests.

2. Know Your Guest Preferences

Understanding the profile of your guest, this allows the event planner to begin considering what menu options to offer. The following will help you better plan to meet their needs:

• Older groups of attendees may prefer a milder menu.
• Attendees concerned about health may prefer more seafood and vegetable options.
• Younger or middle-aged attendees may prefer spicier, more adventurous meals.

The idea here is to consider what your guests will enjoy the most based on the type of event you are planning.

3. Provide Menu Choices

Anyone planning an event should offer several choices so that all guests will be pleased with what’s available. Some general guidelines:

• Offer at least two choices of entrees (three is better).
• Offer three or more salad dressing options.
• Serve all condiments on the side.
• Offer two dessert options: one very indulgent, one healthy.

4. Incorporate Seasonal and Fresh Items

When selecting the menu, the time of year should play a large factor in determining food and beverage. Take into consideration which items are in season for spring or winter menus. Another important factor is to consider the region or location of the event and popular food items from the area. Incorporate fresh seafood or regionally grown produce.

5. Select a Menu that Fits the Event Schedule

Sometimes the clock will be the greatest guide to determining the menu for an event. Some examples:

• Box lunches are best if you have 30 minutes or on the go.
• Plated meals usually requires at least 1.5 hours.
• Buffets may be finished in about 1 hour.
• Cocktail receptions require a minimum of 1 hour before dinner.
• Working breakfasts or lunches should incorporate menu items that can hold up for longer periods of time than others.

6. Anticipate Special Needs

Before any event, it is critical for an event planner to find out if any of the guests have a special need so that the catering manager can address those needs prior to the event. Considerations include:

• Food allergies
• Religious requirements
• Dietary restrictions

7. Allow for a Comfortable Room Setup

Choose the appropriate room layout that supports your event objectives. If you’re serving a meal, the tables will be filled with used dishes and glassware, in addition to binders, notepads and pens. That’s why it’s important to choose the best room setup, and allow space for people to move. Examples:

• Boardroom setup should be for a maximum of 15 guests.
• U-shape and rectangle table layout to promote discussion.
• Classroom style is great for a presentation.
• Banquet style promotes small group discussions.

Regardless of the setup, allow for people to spread out. Tip: Setup for 8 in a 10 person banquet table.

8. Create Ethnic or Regional Menus

I’m a huge fan of planning events that have ethnic-specific themes. This allows an event planner and the executive chef to work together to bring region-specific and international foods into your event, and this will definitely please guests. Common ethnic catering includes the following:

• Asian/Chinese/Japanese
• French
• German
• Greek
• Italian
• Mexican
• Middle Eastern

Source – Rob Hard, About.com

10 tips for small business startups that want to turn dreams into reality

Think you’re the next Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg? If so, this list may not be for you. The world’s meteoric startups — the rare few that topple industries and remake society — are usually built by breaking rules, not following them.

On the other hand, you probably aren’t them. Startups that turn into multibillion-dollar companies are the business world’s equivalent of lottery winners. Stake everything you have on a dream of a jackpot, and you’re likely to end up holding worthless scraps of paper.

What follows are 10 rules for starting a small business, chosen from Slate reader submissions. The list is designed not to encourage you to chase your wildest dreams but to help you turn your more viable dreams into a real livelihood.

1. Be Realistic About Your Business Model by Patrick L.

When contemplating a business model, look around and find successful examples of that model to study. If you can’t find any, then you are either an extraordinary genius, or the business model can’t work in the real world. Choose whichever is more likely.

2. Don’t Invest Your Own Capital

If you knew with 100 percent certainty that your oil well would strike black gold, then you’d be better off borrowing the money to start it up, knowing full well that you could pay off the loan and keep all the future profits to yourself. But since most businesses are very risky ventures, especially new ones, you should take on equity partners instead (or consider crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter). That way, if things don’t pan out, you won’t be on the hook for the costs and you can move on to the next venture.

3. Be Your Own Slave Labor

Unless you are willing to work for hours on end, forgoing your own benefits and health — or unless you’re blessed with a 401(k) or a trust fund — entrepreneurship may not be for you. Many people burn through their savings, raid their children’s college money, and max out their credit cards to build a product using consultants, laborers and experts — but not all these products even make the market. You can’t hire people cheaply unless you’re willing to work cheaply yourself (at least at first).

4. Value Your Time

I mean this literally: Pick a dollar amount that your time is worth. You may not actually be paying yourself, but just having the number can help you make many day-to-day decisions. For instance, say your time is worth $60 an hour: If Costco will deliver your weekly supplies for $100, and it would take you two hours to do the shopping yourself, then Costco is the way to go.

(Editor’s note: This might sound like it contradicts Rule 3, but an economist will tell you that even slave labor has an economic value.)

5. Hire Well

Regardless of how small a business you own, eventually you will probably have to hire outside help, whether in the form of a cashier, clerk or accountant. I can think of nothing worse than a business owner who has a vision for their business yet hires employees who consistently thwart this vision. Make the hiring process as careful and deliberate and important as the starting of the business.

6. Sell on Features, Not on Price

When starting your own business, you naturally will be desperate for sales. But if all you are competing on is price, soon you will be selling at cost (or even below). Instead, master the art of explaining to your customers why your higher price is actually a better value.

7. Know Your “Nut”

Know exactly how much money you need to stay in business — everything from rent, electricity and worker’s comp insurance to coffee, toner cartridges, paper and even what you pay your tax preparer. Divide that number by the number of days a year that you’re open for business, and that’s your “nut” — the minimum amount of money you need to bring in every day. Keep track of it on a daily basis: If you have a lot of days where you don’t make your nut, you need to rethink things.

8. Embrace New Technologies

New technologies such as cloud applications and mass data storage have lowered the cost of entry for small businesses. These technology solutions are inexpensive and allow small businesses to compete with large corporations on a scale never before seen. Small businesses need to take advantage of low-cost technology tools, leaving entrepreneurs with more money to invest in their ideas.

9. Treat Your Vendors Well

Treat your high-volume vendors at least as well as your best customers. They can discount your raw materials based on volume, or even just on the relationship and the hope of future volume.

10. Be Damn Good at What You Do

An employee at a large corporation can afford to be mediocre — you can’t. Every job you do for a client has to be the best job you can do; every widget you make has to be the best widget you can make. Do that, and word will spread. Self-employment is a meritocracy.

Source – Will Oremus, The Miami Herald

Event Team Management

You need a team to organize an event. You can’t do everything by yourself. So I don’t need to tell you further, how important a team is for your event. Event mismanagement is mostly about team mismanagement.

Do the following things for effective team management:

Know your team

Just knowing the names, faces and job profile of your team members is not enough. You must have good knowledge of their personality, life style, likings, disliking, family background, status, educational qualification, knowledge level, customs, religion and especially there needs and wants. By needs and wants I mean their physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, cognitive needs and self actualization needs.

Every person has different needs and different priority to fulfill them. While for some getting recognition is more important than job security. For others job security is more important. Determine the needs of your team members and fulfill them in order to get optimum results from them.

Physiological needs

The need to have food, water, warmth, shelter and other things necessary for survival.

Your team members will not feel anything, if these needs are met but can cause them discomfort, sickness and pain if these needs are not full filled. So as an event manager it is your job to make sure that all the physiological needs of your team are met from time to time. Just imagine how a team member who hasn’t eaten anything all day will perform his duty in the evening and you will get my point.

Safety needs

It includes need to be safe from physical and psychological harm. It also includes job security and financial security.

As an event manager you have to ensure safety of your team especially women. A person can’t give his best in an unsafe environment.

To protect your team from psychological harm, make sure there are no internal conflicts (like ego clashes, altercations, conflict of interest etc) among team members. If there are conflicts, then resolve them judiciously.

Providing job security to your team is also very important. At no point any team member should feel that his job is under threat either by your actions or by someone else actions.

Take care of your team beyond the work place. If any team member is facing a financial problem, then help him as much as you can.

Social needs

It is the need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance. Need to love and be loved by friends, intimate partner, family and social groups like your team.

To fulfill this need, there must be cordial relationship between you and the team and among the team members. A team member will not perform his best if he has considerable family problems. Try whatever you can to reduce his family problems. If you can’t do much at least accept his problems and empathize with him. Try to reduce his stress by giving him a day off or engaging him in the sport he likes the most. Ask you team members to be as supportive to him as possible. All this will help.

People who have strong social needs should not be placed in a job where they have minimum interaction with people. They are the best for marketing or PR type jobs.

Esteem needs

It is the need to get respect, recognition, fame and status.

Some people have stronger esteem needs than the other. You will have to identify those team members who have strong esteem needs and then find ways to fulfill those needs. For e.g. if a person is working very hard to get recognition among the team members and you are not giving him the recognition he deserves (by openly praising him or giving him promotion) then sooner or later his motivation level will go down and he will not give optimum results or worst will not perform and quit.

Cognitive needs

It is the need to understand, learn, discover and explore.

People who have strong cognitive needs should not be placed in a job which is monotonous and which doesn’t offer any possibility of intellectual growth. Frankly speaking, people with strong cognitive needs are not suitable for event management jobs.

Self Actualization need

It is the need to be the best. It is the need to become everything, one is capable of becoming.

Very few people have that such type of need. If you have some one in you team with this need, then you have both advantage and disadvantage. The advantage is that you can always expect optimum results from him. The disadvantage is that he will tirelessly seek for the position of leadership and if he didn’t get it, then he will leave you soon and may even become your competitor.

Source – Event Education

WRITE PRESS RELEASES THAT DAZZLE

When a reporter is wowed, intrigued, surprised or captivated by your press release, you can be pretty sure you’ll get some media coverage. And for most businesses, positive media coverage is worth its weight in gold. The bad news: Although truckloads of news releases fill reporters inboxes every day, few of them are dazzling, or even interesting.

As a former editor, I speak from experience when I say that most press releases end up in the garbage can. But don’t let that stop you from sending them, a well-written news release can generate more publicity and goodwill than you could ever accomplish with a paid advertisement. To help keep your release out of the garbage and get it in print, start by following these five guidelines.

1. Make it newsworthy. Releases should be used to announce news, and they should only be sent when something truly newsworthy is happening at your company. Don’t send releases that sound more like advertisements than news; they’ll get tossed immediately. (However, newsworthy events may happen more often than you realize.)

In keeping with the news format, eliminate any superfluous language or outrageous claims (don’t describe yourself or your products as wonderful, amazing or unbelievable!). Is your release written in language that would appear in a story in the newspaper or magazine you’re pitching? If not, it might sound like fluff rather than news. Make it clear from the beginning what your news is and why it should matter to the reporter and his or her readers.

2. Tell a good story. Although you’re sharing hard news (I hope), your press release should still be interesting to read. Even though your readers are media-types who do this for a living, they still like to hear a good story. Draw in your readers with a creative introduction and interesting language. Find new ways to say ordinary things. Read magazines, newspapers and books and pay attention to the stories that interest you and keep your attention. Then try to mimic those techniques and styles when writing your own releases.

3. Target your audience. As with any writing project, keep your audience in mind when you’re writing. The editor of a small-town newspaper has different interests than the editor of a trade journal for CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Choose the media outlets that would be most interested in your release and send it to them. For best results, you might even send each person a unique version tailored to their interests. And always send your release to an actual person, rather than sending a release to a general news desk, find out which reporter covers your industry or the type of news you’re sending and send it directly to him or her.

4. Develop a relationship. Once you’ve located the reporters who cover your industry, start developing relationships with them. Call or e-mail to introduce yourself and find out if they prefer releases to be faxed, e-mailed or mailed. Be respectful of their time and the harried pace of their work, but don’t be afraid to check in occasionally to follow-up on a press release or let them know how much you enjoyed a recent article. Don’t just rely on them for free publicity; find out what you can do for them and do it one-sided relationships never last. Be easy to work with and willing to accommodate their needs, and they’ll be much more interested in covering your news.

5. Be consistent. Your communication with the media must be ongoing in order to get their attention. One release sent in a vacuum will probably not yield a lot of results. If reporters are unfamiliar with you or your business, it won’t be a top priority for them to cover your release. However, if they’re accustomed to receiving (actual) news from you and you’ve made an effort to forge a positive relationship with them (see #4), they’re more likely to a) actually read your releases, and b) publish them, or at least keep you in mind as a resource for future stories. If you really want to take advantage of the possibilities press releases can offer, keep hanging in there.

Copyright 2004 Nancy Jackson

Pitching Do’s and Don’ts Every PR Pro Should Follow

Media relations is a lot like dating.

During the early stages of a romance, too much contact simmers the sizzle.

In media relations, why would you reach out to someone, then slam him with a pitch? That isn’t reaching out at all. It comes off as unnatural, insensitive and forced. When you think about it, cold pitches are basically one-night stands.

I chatted with a few food and beverage pals who were more than happy to set the record straight. Their key takeaways about pitching were:

1. Don’t ever call—ever.

2. Don’t “pitch” per se. Just include useful information and tips without a gimmicky story idea. Exclusives have a much better response rate than spam. It’s important to be respectful, resourceful and genuine.

Here is a collection of tips from writers Lauren Bloomberg, Angel Antin and Amy Cao; and editorsJenny Miller (Grub Street/New York Magazine,) Maggie Hoffman (Serious Eats), Andrea Bartz (Whole Living), and Jacqueline Wasilczyk (Zagat.com).

Media Relations Do’s

1. Do understand the types of stories media outlets look for, and what an editor’s needs are. You will immediately lose the writer’s trust if you don’t tailor your pitch.

2. Do send products, if the publication doesn’t have a policy against accepting gifts. Staff will happily bust open those samples and, if they really like them, the product will score a placement.

3. Do meet up with media. I spoke to an editor once who told me he never responded to pitches, unless he knew the PR person.

I prefer to take an organic approach and attend as many industry events as possible. Make sure you’re networking, not working. I’ve heard of PR folks who got blacklisted from gatherings because they were always “on.” Remember, you need to prove you are a resource to journalists. This is earned, not granted.

4. Do offer exclusives that reflect the publication’s need.

5. Do email instead of call. There is never a good time to listen to a pitch over the phone. But, feel free to call a publication’s main number to find out who your best contact might be.

6. Do keep emails brief. Writers love it when you mention how you came across their article, whether through a friend or via Twitter. Demonstrate you’re genuinely interested and share at least one authentic reason for working together. It will go a long way.

7. Do go through connections if you have them. You will get a better response rate.

8. Do include the date on every document you create. Nothing is more frustrating than reading about the rollout of a new product, only to find out it happened eight months ago.

9. Do let a writer know if you pitched her editor. If your pitch catches the writer’s attention and she turns it in to her editor-who heard about it from you two weeks ago and told you no-then you just turned a potential contact into a seriously unhappy camper.

10. Do consider the types of sources the outlet requires. Never assume a news outlet accepts PR pros as spokespeople.

11. Do understand a journalist’s obsession with accurate reporting, especially in the wine world. Angel Antin elaborated further on this:

“Misspellings of crème brûlée keep me awake at night. I write a great deal about the wine industry, and thus have to deal with all those pesky accents on imported wines. I’m indebted to a PR pro who conveys a wine’s correct spelling (with accents), vintage and suggested retail price to me faster than I can spell Gewürztraminer. And I can spell it really, really fast.”

Media Relations Don’ts

1. Don’t make the pitch too specific.

2. Don’t send images unless the reporter asks for them.

3. Don’t send packages without checking first. Addresses change, and so do editorial calendars.

4. Don’t contact media via Twitter. It makes the message receiver feel like he’s being attacked from all sides. Follow-up emails, however, are encouraged. They show you are persistent and that the reporter is not the recipient of a mass email. Do, however, use Twitter as a relationship-building tool.

5. Don’t include large attachments, period. Top-tier media receive 500 emails per day, most of which are pitches.

6. Don’t suggest a quick meeting before you give information. Most journalists are too busy and prefer all the information up front.

7. Don’t be afraid to email the reporter to ask a quick question such as, “What types of stories do you look for?”

8. Don’t pitch made-up holidays like “hamburger week.” The reporter will forward your press release to colleagues, and they will mock you.

9. Don’t target the same person more than three times. If he doesn’t respond, he’s probably not interested. When you don’t hear back, it’s time to move on.

10. Don’t show up at the writer’s house with a pitch. True story.

If you adhere to these tips, you will be a champion.

Source – Cassandra Bianco, Ragan

How Start-ups Should think about PR

If you start a company, you have about a 50% chance of being around in five years, which is the same survival rate as if you were just diagnosed with colon cancer.  Now let’s talk about PR.

When you start a business, you also start a timer that is counting down the days until your cash flow runs dry and your business fails.  Regardless of how well you are financed, who sits on your board or how good you are at keeping your costs under control, there is heightened significance to every moment, dollar or action when you are starting a business.

Every dollar or hour you commit has to have a discernible return.  The duration over when that return plays out may vary from company-to-company, but the return has to be there in a time that makes sense given your balance sheet and cash flow.

PR has traditionally been somewhat amorphous in terms of analyzing its return so it presents a challenge to start-ups.  Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know that it’s important to get people talking about or with you but it’s not always easy to justify the costs (mostly time-based) involved with generating and participating in the conversation.

The evolution of PR has accelerated over the past decade and some would say it’s become more impactful and measurable.  Mid and large-market companies can now take a more quantitative approach to understanding the impact of their activities but the metrics are generally still one step away from the metric that start-ups should care about, which is dollars.

As a start-up on the clock, PR should be tied on some level to dollars generated because if PR isn’t helping to generate sales, then it’s not worth doing.

Starting from this premise, here are some additional thoughts on the how start-ups should think about PR:

1. Even if you’re not spending dollars on PR, you’re spending time on it  and time is the most valuable commodity you have when starting a business.  Your time could be spent building an awesome product, selling it to customers or supporting customers after the transaction to make sure they come back for more and tell their friends about your business.  Every hour you spend on PR is an hour you lose on actions that you know have a discernible ROI.

2. Derive multi-faceted value from singular activities – If you are going to spend an hour on PR, then make sure you get some benefit out of it.  If you spend that hour digging up a journalist to pitch, constructing a pitch, sending the pitch, not hearing back and then summarily forgetting that the hour just happened, then you have just failed.  If you use that pitch as the basis for a story that you share on your blog, then you have derived some value from the effort.

Every day, you are doing things outside of PR that can be repurposed to support PR and vice versa.  Keep that in mind.

If you just spent an hour writing an e-mail to a customer, explaining your perspective on something, then you have just created a story for your blog, which brings us to our next point.

3. PR can be mediated or disintermediated – It used to be that PR meant relying on someone to tell your story on your behalf to their audience.  Not any more.  You can tell your story to your audience yourself these days.  In fact, when you’re getting started, disintermediated PR is often times better because A. You aren’t relying on anyone else to communicate on your behalf so you can be sure that your content gets out there into the public sphere, B. You can get feedback that will help you tweak your product and your marketing/sales mix and C. you can target people who will actually care about your business or product and this is important because…

4. You aren’t that special – As Palahniuk wrote in Fight Club, “You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all a part of the same compost pile.”  Most journalists don’t want to write about you because they know that it’s likely you won’t even be around in a couple of years and they have heard the same pitch ten times today already.

Journalists don’t want to hear you telling them why your business or product is unique and special.  In fact, I don’t really want to hear that either.  What both the journalists and I want to hear, is something interesting that I haven’t heard before.  Don’t write 300 words about why you’re awesome and send that to a journalist, write 300 words about the research you did to determine that “awesome” is actually “not awesome” (and how this sparked your interest in starting a new brand called “not awesome”) and why that research is relevant in the context of a story.  Now we’re having a conversation and the conversation is important because. . .

5. A hit isn’t the result of a pitch, it’s a manifestation of the relationship that you build with your network – When you’re engaging in mediated PR, don’t go looking for one-night stands, look for buddies.  I’ve heard from my friends that one-night stands can be quite exciting.  You meet someone out, flirt, hook-up then never see them again.  You really don’t want to treat journalists or bloggers like this.

Journalists or bloggers are as tuned-in to your market as anyone.  Building a great relationship with one can be incredibly beneficial for a lot of reasons.  They can be an incredible source of information, they can point you in directions you never considered and can even lean on you for future stories and this is valuable because…

6. Even if you get a hit, it may not be a hit – I’ve talked to many entrepreneurs and small business owners who have spent too much time pitching, who have finally received a hit.  The ensuing conversation often times goes like this:

Entrepreneur: “Hey, I finally got a hit in [Insert prestigious publication of your choice].”

Me: That’s awesome, did you get a lot of new customers?

Entrepreneur: I got a couple.

On a side note, I really think the value of hits is in how the hit becomes a promotional tool by reinforcing your credibility (so pimp the brand where you got the hit all over your site) and in the organic search value the link from the hit brings to your site.  This is important because even after you have gotten a hit, you want to think about whether the benefit justified the cost and if it didn’t, then

7. If the experiment fails then stop and try something different – The most successful entrepreneurs who do their own PR are good because they try a bunch of things, stop doing things that don’t return and focus on things that do.  It seems like a simple equation but there are complexities, mostly in the execution of the tactic, the length of time that the tactic is executed and in the framework through which return is analyzed.

In general, PR can be an extremely valuable exercise if it is performed with the right mindset.  This is just a list of observations I’ve made, based on my own experience as well as from watching others.  What do you think?

Source – New Influencer

Etiquette for Social Gatherings

Attending a social gathering requires knowing a few basic etiquette guidelines. There is proper etiquette–what attire to wear, how to RSVP and what to bring–for just about every social event. At times, all of these can seem a little overwhelming, especially when you consider that there is a whole different set of guidelines for business etiquette. Knowing a few basic etiquette principles will help you feel more comfortable during the evening. Remember to use common sense, and look for good examples of proper etiquette if you don’t know what to do.

Toasting

Understand the proper etiquette for toasting at a social gathering. Traditionally, the host offers the first toast, especially at formal occasions. Guests can offer the first toast at less formal occasions, such as dinner parties, to thank the host for bringing everyone together. Stand to deliver your toast while everyone remains seated unless otherwise instructed by the toaster. After the toast, the toastee raises his glass or bows his head in acknowledgement to say thank you but does not drink. Prepare your toast in advance so you know what to say; this prevents rambling. Keep it short and focused on the toastee and the event. Speak clearly with sincerity and confidence.

Greetings

Saying hello and goodbye to your host is proper etiquette for a social gathering. Greet the host within 10 minutes of arrival. A common greeting for North Americans and Europeans is a firm handshake. For situations where people are well-acquainted, a peck on the cheek is appropriate. Refrain from kissing in business situations because it can easily be misunderstood. Use a softer grip when greeting Asians and Middle Easterners because the handshake is a newer custom in those regions. Seek out your host to say thank you and goodbye. Always say goodbye to guests you know well or talked to for an extending period of time.

Dinner Table

Sitting down at the dinner table for a social gathering can be intimidating. Use the following guidelines as a starter for dinner table etiquette (here are many more detailed guidelines). Pass food dishes to the right around the table, but use common sense if someone a few spots down on your left asks for a dish. Use silverware starting from the outside in, and indicate you are finished by placing the silverware together at the 4 o’clock position on your plate. Place the napkin on your lap as soon as you are seated. Never ask for seconds, but graciously accept them when offered. If you’re unsure about proper etiquette, watch and follow good examples around the table.

Source – Erica Green, eHow