All posts in September 2019

How To Manage A Catering Business Real Life Skills For Success

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You have a dream of starting and managing your own catering company. You have the drive and a flair for cooking delicious food that is to die for! Now you are doing research about how to run a catering business and you are thinking about if you really have what it takes to manage your own catering business.

As a small business owner, you will have more responsibility and work longer hours than you did as an employee. It’s almost impossible to truly separate your personal life from you business life. Running a small business is a lot of hard work and far more than just a full time job — it’s a lifestyle.

One part of your job will be getting clients and then the second aspect is preparing for and managing the catering job itself. Once the job is booked, there are a lot of details and organizational skills required in order to complete any catered event.

First you will need to get the event basics from your client: What type of event is it? How many people are expected? How formal or casual is the meal? Does the client have a theme in mind and know exactly what type of food they would like to have served? If not, you will be expected provide appropriate menu suggestions based on the event and the client’s budget.

For larger or more formal events, clients usually request a “tasting” to sample the items from the proposed menu. The client is expecting to not only sample the food, but to see the caterer’s presentation skills.

If you and your client are in agreement about the menu, this will be a wonderful experience for both of you. However, some times the food or menu does not match the client’s expectations or perhaps the client has simply changed their mind. Either way, having a few alternative suggestions is always a great idea, plus your client will feel secure in both your abilities as a caterer and the success of her event.

The number of people attending and the formality of an event will help you determine the amount of catering staff will be required for the event. Many catering companies use freelance staff, so it is a good idea to have a list of recommended people you are comfortable working with that you also know are professional and reliable.

For many people, when they think about how to run a catering business, they focus on the food preparation and cooking responsibilities. In fact, many people start catering businesses simply because they love to cook and do not mind doing all the cooking themselves.

As your business grows and you book larger events or multiple events in a short period of time, it is definitely much better to hire additional cooks and also servers who you have trained to make sure the level of serve offered meets your standards.

In addition to meeting with clients, food preparation and staffing, there are a few other details ever caterer must take into consideration. For example, how will you transport the food and equipment to event? Is you current vehicle large enough to handle the job or will you need to consider alternatives?

Prior to the event, you will need to order the ingredients, cooking and serving utensils. The amount of time required to shop for and prepare the food needs to be taken into consideration and you will need to create a schedule to properly manage all of these details. Most caterers are also responsible for at least minimal cleaning after an event, so keep this in mind when deciding upon your staffing requirements.

Now you have a better idea about how to run a catering business. Running a catering business is not difficult, but it does excellent organizational skills and a realistic time line for each event. Creating and managing your own catering business will give you amply opportunity to be both creative and a strong entrepreneurial manager.

The Rise Of The Private And Business Jet Charter Broker In Algarve And Portugal

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A private jet charter normally caters for between 1 and 18 passengers although private charter jets can carry up to 30 passengers comfortably. Because of this, corporate parties are today using, in ever increasing numbers, private jet charter as a cost effective business option when large numbers of staff need to move simultaneously and securely between destinations. With few limitations on the choice of departure and arrival points, as well as the choice of flight time, “increased flexibility of travel” is another key feature of the business jet charter. Flights are no longer dependant on the proximity of a major airport to the chosen venue as private jets are normally able to land at smaller, rural or private airports. Time on board a private jet can also be used more productively as business charters allow the corporate client to utilise the privacy afforded, for business purposes.

Should the private jet charter client choose to use the flight for the purpose of relaxation, then the benefits of the personalized service provided by a private flight attendant are obvious. Even the process of checking in for a private jet charter is far less stressful than the procedures applicable to a commercial jet flight, so relaxation begins well before the flight takes off.

When boarding a private jet, the first thing apparent to the passenger is the unfamiliarity of their surroundings. The spacious cabin and interior finishing of many private jets immediately puts the flier at ease and if this is not enough, the five star in-flight catering options are always conducive to an elevated mind set. For business travellers fearful of the links beween air travel and the risks imposed on it by the modern day terrorist, private jet charter is definitely the flight medium of choice. Since 911, the increased demand for private jet charter flights has created a greater supply of private charter companies, private jets and private jet pilots. The subsequent increase in competition between operators in this sector of the air travel market has seen the private jet charter become a truly affordable way to fly for a whole new business demographic: the small to medium sized company.

Additionally, and especially since the introduction of the Euro, companies situated within the European Union have begun to use the private charter jet as a means to visit clients in neighbouring member states. The business “hop” is rapidly becoming as popular as its long-haul counterpart in countries such as Portugal. Today, private and business charter flights regularly fly to and from Faro Airport in the Algarve region of Portugal as well as Lisbon and Porto Airports in the North of Portugal. Portugal’s many private and municipal airports have also added to the popularity of the private jet business charter amongst national businesses, as well as those businesses from overseas wishing to explore the opportunities afforded by the growth of the Portuguese economy.

Portugal’s tourism sector, which has significantly strengthened its infrastructure since joining the European Union, has responded to the needs of this new business traveller by evolving a new, business tourism genre. Companies have formed to broker the services required by the traveller who steps out of a private charter jet and on to Portuguese soil. Complementary business services, such as: luxury hotel reservations, event management, limousine and luxury car hire, yacht charter and corporate gift services have all experienced linear growth in parallel to the rise of the private jet charter broker. The sinergy of these business services means that the business and private jet charter traveller can now leave all of his travel arrangements in the responsible hands of one event organizer; A to B has never been so easy.

Advantages Of Forum Marketing For Your Online Home Based Business

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You’ve created your home based business website online and you’ve decided which products you’re going to promote and now you’re focus is on developing your Internet marketing strategy. One Internet marketing technique you should seriously consider is forum marketing. First of all what are forums and consequently what is forum marketing?

According to wikipedia: “An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are not shown in real-time, to see new messages the forum page must be reloaded. Also, depending on the access level of a user and/or the forum set-up, a posted message might need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes visible.”

Forum marketing is the process of using these discussion sites to promote your home based business and your merchandise by joining and posting messages to these message boards. Forum marketing is a popular Internet marketing tactic because of the popularity of these discussion websites and the potential audience you can reach. There are 5 major benefits of using forums to promote your home business including:

1. Posting to forums on a regular basis provides the opportunity to establish yourself as an expert in your particular marketing niche. For example, if your home business theme is Internet marketing and your niche is driving traffic you can target specific discussions in Internet marketing forums related to traffic generation.

You can then display your expertise by addressing different topics which are being discussed or start a discussion yourself. When you provide quality content on a regular basis your reputation within these forums will grow and people will begin to view you as an authority in your field.

2. You can create back links to your home business site by adding your link to your profile as well as your signature file. As a result every time you post a comment to these various discussion sites you will be leaving a link to your home page so people can check out your business and your merchandise.

3. The more forums you post to the more back links you will create and the more traffic you will generate to your home business website. By gaining the trust and respect of other members and by participating by adding quality content on a regular basis you will soon see the fruits of your labor in the form of increased traffic and as a result more paying customers for your enterprise. Some of these new visitors will also come from the major search engines online as they find relevant links to your website on the many forums you participate in.

4. As a result of the previous three advantages both you and your home business will become recognized online as a trusted and respected entity to do business with and forum members may begin approaching you for answers to some particular Internet marketing problem they may be having. This will also go a long way toward increasing traffic to your website and help to build your email list of potential customers on the web.

5. This increased recognition brings with it the potential for relationship building online which in and of itself can provide major benefits for your enterprise. By creating friendships with other Internet marketers you create the opportunity to establish joint ventures and other cooperative business ventures on the web. This will again increase your website traffic as well as your sales and help add to your email list.

Online Business School Seeks To Disrupt Business School Pricing And Value Proposition Model

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Tulsa, Oklahoma, February 14, 2015 /PressReleasePing/ – Thrive15.com, the online business education platform for entrepreneurs, business owners and employees looking to improve their business skills, launches out of beta, after nearly three years of development. The online education platform is already disrupting the business school pricing and value proposition model. According to Bloomberg, the least expensive business schools such as the Illinois – Urbana Champaign School of Business and William and Mary Mason start at over $34,000 per year and many business schools like Cornell University are priced at over $50,000 per year.

“We’ve worked very hard to make our business school $49,400 less per year than other business schools and much more entertaining, engaging and interactive so you will actually retain what you are learning,” says Thrive15.com Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Clay Clark.

Thrive15.com currently has subscribers in 33 countries has been attracting the attention of both non-college graduates and college graduates who are amazed at the quality and the practicality of the website’s ever growing content. One Thrive15.com subscriber and a private Ivy league Graduate from Southport, Connecticut says, “I think if you were to go to one of those websites that evaluates schools, my school would rank in the top 3 in the U.S. However, theres no training on how to be an entrepreneur and run a business. What is provided is not considered to be important by the students. They have professors who have never built a business, but are giving them critiques on their work. When go out in the real world, you enter this foreign world of entrepreneurship.

Thrive15.com’s Founder, Clay Clark says, “We think Steve Jobs (Apple co-founder and former Pixar CEO) was correct when he said, “It is absurd that American classrooms are still based on teachers standing at a board and using textbooks. All books, learning materials, and assessments should be digital and interactive, tailored to each student and providing feedback in real time.”

Thrive15.com’s business education platform offers courses in 20 areas of business mastery including leadership, capital, accounting, marketing, sales, legal, and more. Thrivers rate themselves and their current proficiency in each area and can then choose from the ever-expanding course catalog consisting of thousands of business education videos.

Even proud pillars of academia such as Harvard Professor, Clayton Christensen, see a brewing storm for America’s colleges, “Generally universities are doing very well financially, so they don’t feel from the data that their world is going to collapse, but I think even five years from now these enterprises are going to be in real trouble.”

Thrive15.com videos are taught by world-class mentors including NBA Hall of Famer turned successful entrepreneur, David Robinson, the former Executive Vice President of Operations for Walt Disney World Resort, Lee Cockerell, the New York Times bestselling author and publicist of choice for Michael Jackson, Prince, P. Diddy, Charlton Heston, and countless celebrities, Michael Levine, and countless other experts.

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Quick Facts Thrive15:

Thrive15.com provides 15-minute practical online business courses taught by millionaires, mentors, and everyday entrepreneurial success stories.

Thrive15.com features many celebrity mentors including:

David Robinson, NBA Hall of Fame Basketball Player and founder of Carver Academy charter schools and Admiral Capital Group, which currently has a valuation of over $250 million; Lee Cockerell, the Former Executive Vice President of Operations for Walt Disney World Resort who once managed 40,000 + employees; Michael Levine, the founder of Levine Communications who has been the publicist of choice for Michael Jackson, Prince, P. Diddy, Charlton Heston, Cameron Diaz, and countless other celebrities; David Nilssen, the cofounder of one of the nation’s largest small business funding solutions, Guidant Financial and; Jonathan Barnett, the founder of the 400 + OXI Fresh franchise.

Thrive15.com has teamed up David Robinson and the U.S. Chambers, Hiring Our Heroes Program, to provide free subscriptions to U.S. military families as part of the 1 for 1 HandUp Movement.

Thrive15.com has been mentioned in Forbes, Pando Daily, Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, Entrepreneur, and numerous media outlets since launching in BETA.

Thrive15.com offers best practice and practical online education in the core areas of business mastery that every entrepreneur must know including: legal, real estate, investing, execution, purpose, mindset, networking, business modeling, overcoming adversity, capital, branding, marketing, sales, customer service, product/service development, quality control, accounting, management, human resources, and leadership.

Thrive15.com was founded by Chief Operating Officer and Oklahomas former U.S. Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark.

The Chief Executive Officer of Thrive15.com is doctor, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist, Doctor Robert Zoellner.

Thrive15.com offers points instead of grades and gives its users a chance to win a business boost package of over $10,000 every six months to the Thriver with the most points.

Thrive15.coms content is created by combining entertainment, gamification, and best-practice practical business education to increase the retention of training provided on the platform.

Press Contact:

Deedra Determan

D2 Branding

1609 S. Boston Ave

918-520-8012

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Government Business Financing In Canada Canadian Govt Loans Deliver

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Government business financing in Canada – While many entrepreneurs have heard of Canadian govt loans they have not fully understood his business finance offering. Let’s ‘ unbox ‘ the program and discuss the merits and applicability of this loan to your business – and that applies to start ups, franchises… in fact any business tha is under the pre-requisite 5 Million in revenues. Let’s dig in

Established by the federal gov’t many years ago the Small Business Financing program is dedicated to helping new , young, and growing businesses access the financing they might otherwise not receive.

The uniqueness of loan is that the majority of the loan is ‘ guaranteed’ to Canadian banks which offer the financing. At the end of the day it’s the govt commitment to encourage Canadian banks to lend to new and smaller businesses. Naturally one of he benefits to the government is the overall economic stimulus in employment, taxes, etc.

In recent years upwards of 7000++ businesses access the loan annually – for billions of dollars. The accessibility of the loan is augmented by the fact that Canadian ‘ bricks and mortar’ branches are on every main street in Canada. (Truth be told the challenge is not finding the right bank, it’s finding the right banker).

The ability to get approved for a govt small business loan in Canada provides realistic access to capital for businesses who otherwise cannot qualify for ‘ traditional ‘ loans. Yet the actual offering of the program is just that – a traditional term loan at attractive rates, great amortizations, and even the ability to pre-pay without penalty.

Many businesses who utilize the loan are either new, or in some cases purchases of businesses, including the very popular ‘ franchise ‘ segment.

The requirements of the loan are pretty basic – the owner must have reasonable good personal credit history, and must be able to contribute a minimum of 10% or more of permanent capital to the financing in question. The loan can only be used to finance 3 separate asset categories – equipment, leasehold improvements, and real estate. (The latter, real estate is rarely used in our experience as commercial mtges are more suited to this type of finance need).

As important to understand what the loan does to is what it doesn’t offer. You cannot use proceeds to refinance existing loans or for working capital/line of credit needs.

Other key aspects of getting approved include a good business plan, a cash flow forecast, and basic info on your business location, previous business experience, etc.

If you’re looking to ‘ unbox ‘ government business financing in Canada seek out and speak to a trusted, credible and experienced Canadian business financing advisor who can assist in making Canadian govt loans a realistic part of your new or existing business venture.

Stan Prokop