Business

Based on an interview with local caterers (a 2 person operation)

We don’t have any “canned” or “starter” menus. Meal selection is tailored for each event. This is because each event is different and has its own meal requirements. A party catering Sydney for Kids brings to life the magic of your child’s special day through fun-themed party food.

Most of the food is prepared ahead of time. Exceptions would be if the food item has to be really fresh or if they are catering an outdoor event that is more like a giant camp-out (we then cook out of our completely furnished trailer).

The minimum number of guests is 2 and the maximum would be around 1000.

The client normally takes care of the event setup – tables, chairs, and so on. If not, we work with local company that rents such items.

Most of the food products are ordered through large vendors; however in the summertime, we try to use as much locally grown food as possible.

Our vendors need at least 7 days notice for food products, sometimes longer for specialty items.

Tastings (by the client) can done ahead of the event by cooking maybe one or two of the menu selections for them.

Food is transported in a 30 foot long trailer that has its own kitchen including range, refrigerator, freezer. Warmers, heaters, and refrigerators are used to keep food either hot or cold. After arrival at the site, food is maintained at the proper temperature using chafing dishes or ice chests.

Any left-over food is given to the client in sealed containers.

If liquor is to be served at an event, we work with a local bar who brings the alcohol and the servers to the event.

Most clients have an idea of what they want but sometimes it’s necessary to “guide” a client. Nearly all have a set food budget which we use to determine what type of meals will be prepared.

Clients are asked to place a deposit down when the contract is signed. 30 days prior to the event, client must pay ½ of the price. About 10 days before the event, a final count of the number of guests is provided by the client. If there are fewer guests than this count, client is still charged for the agreed-to number of people.

We ask clients about any special food needs – allergies, vegan, religious. It depends on how many of these there are as to what our response will be – if a lot of people have the quirkie needs, then the menu could get changed to reflect that; if only one or two people have special food requirements, then these will be noted and they will receive meals different from the rest.

We use stoneware, glasses, and real silverware for nearly all events; if an event is more casual, we will use Bamboo-based products. If the meal portion of the event is over and there are still gets around sipping beverages, we will switch out plastic glasses and cups for the real glasses so we can leave (we don’t wan to be there till all the guests leave; we do have a life).

We clean up our own food trash at an event, but any other garbage is handled by the client. We place the food trash in our trailer and bring it back to our home base for disposal there.

Staffing is flexible depending on the size of the event. Staffers are notified a couple of months in advance if they will be needed. It usually takes one server per 20 guests.

We tried advertising in the local newspaper but that wasn’t effective. We don’t have brochures or flyers; at the present time, we not taking pics of the events but plan on doing so. Our vehicles and staff outfits do not yet have a company logo on them. We have a web site but it needs to be updated. The best advertising so far has been word of mouth.

The only time a catering job is turned down is if there is not enough lead-time to do a good job or because of an experience that did not turn out well when working with a prior client.

Tips:

– expect to do heavy lifting; food products come in bulk from vendors, prepared food has to be loaded up for transit to the event site and then unloaded there.

– anticipate working long hours, especially on weekends which is when most events happen; it’s not unusual to work 14-18 hours each weekend day

– you need to possess really good listening skills to make sure you and the client are not only singing the same song but also the same verse

– If you have a partner, you both need to have the same vision for the business; if one wants it to grow in new directions but the other is happy with the way it is, then you have a fundamental business problem; it’s much better to sit down with your potential partner BEFORE forming the business to talk about how each of you sees the business 5 or 10 years down the road.

– figure on having at least 1 year’s income set aside before starting the business (or count on a working spouse).

– for a two-person operation, you can easily spend $150k getting set up with equipment, vehicles, trailer, and a location; we started out initially leasing a place that had a commercial kitchen, so that helped save money in the beginning

– whenever possible, buy good used equipment – new equipment is just so expensive

– be careful how you spend money for advertising; newspaper ads are tempting but not necessarily effective; the same goes for local radio and TV

– be prepared to deal with clients who don’t know what they want or seem to frequently change their minds; at some point, you have to get them to commit. If this seems to be a problem for them, then they may better off working with a different catering service.

Ecommerce and database specialist in the janitorial, food service, office supply, and catering industries.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Eric_Kampel/111892

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6860261

BrandMaster, a leading software- and consultancy within Brand Management and Marketing Resource Management (MRM) has partnered with ProntoTV – a leading supplier of Digital Signage solutions. We can either digitally print or supply your stickers Sydney in vinyl, the your own choice.

Multi-channel marketing made easy

– BrandMaster’s strategy is multi-channel marketing made easy. Our goal is to let our customers control their brand and marketing in every channel. We have long been strong on web-advertising and printed media, now we want to complement this effort by offering our customers the same simplicity for presence on Digital Signage solutions says Gunnar Larsen, CEO BrandMaster AS.

BrandMaster AS offers solutions and services within Brand Management and Marketing Resource Management. BrandMaster MRM is an online marketing system, developed to help you plan, gather, share, adapt and distribute your marketing material in every channel. With the new partnership, Digital Signage gets added to the solution.

– Perhaps the most interesting with BrandMaster is their multi-channel mindset. They want to deliver a solution that makes it as easy as possible for their clients to do marketing across all channels. With this partnership they take their concept one step further – that’s exciting, both for us and the customers says Ola Sæverås, CEO ProntoTV.

– Digital Signage is a new and exciting business area for us. We wanted to partner with the best provider in the market instead of starting this work ourselves, we found that partner through ProntoTV. They have both the competence and infrastructure needed to make sure our clients can feel well taken care of. The fact that we have become neighbors on Grev Wedels Plass is a great convenience, this makes cross-company collaboration easier says Gunnar.

– Close integrations against BrandMaster MRM will make it easy for clients to gather material like pictures, videos and presentations and publish this in realtime to Digital Signage. This will give customers shorter time-to-market and full control over brand in yet another channel say Gunnar.

From analog to digital marketing

Digital Signage is a growing market both all over the world and not without reason. Digital Signage is digital screen solutions used as an advertising- and/or information channel and is proven to increase both sales and publicity for products and businesses. Realtime updates makes it easy to change message quickly and always stay current.

– Clients come to us with a desire to take the leap from analog to digital marketing. It’s flexible and gives the possibility to use sound, text, animation, pictures and video. Unlike traditional posters, Digital Signage is more effective by letting you update the message from one location – quickly and efficiently. This way it’s possible to target the relevant audience at the same time reducing costs and increasing advertising revenues says Ola Sæverås, CEO ProntoTV.

ProntoTV has since the start of 1999 defined the Scandinavian Digital Signage market and today they are the leading provider on Digital Signage in Norway and have delivered solutions all over the world. They deliver both digital strategy and content creation in addition to the technology to administrate content and the screens themselves.

Technology makes fantasy reality

– The continuous development of technology enables us to think new and creative solutions constantly. With LED and now OLED it opens up to possibilities that where only possible in your imagination a few years ago. We have delivered screens in sizes from 10 inches all the way up to 61 square meters, screens only 3mm thick with to-sided message and even see-through screens! The solution is created so new technology easily can be attached and used by customers. Together with BrandMaster we are already working on some exciting projects he continues.

The partnership gives BrandMaster’s customers access to publish pictures, video and presentations directly to ProntoTV’s Digital Signage solution and gives ProntoTV’s customers the possibility for a complete Marketing Resource Management solution with access to the tools they are used to using. This will give immediate synergies for all customers and help ease their daily work while at the same time giving them more control over their brand.

Questions regarding the partnership can be addressed to Gunnar Larsen, CEO BrandMaster AD or Ola Sæverås, CEO ProntoTV.

It is a fact that many people are not able to visualise a scene for a movie, TELEVISION commercial, training video, sales video, or other type of film merely from looking over the script or a text. Being a concept artist is not easy, some will run out of ideas but a born artist will never be shorthanded in ideas.

Present those exact same people with a photo or picture of some sort and they will comprehend the concept immediately. The old saying is that “a picture tells a thousand words” and for many people that is true. Try, for instance to describe the charm of a Red Admiral butterfly to somebody in words without a picture. Unless your name is actually Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, or Colleen McCullough, you may discover it extremely difficult attempting to make clear to them precisely what it looks like. In truth, you might have a tough time attempting to visualise it for yourself as you attempt to explain it.

Nevertheless, present those very same individuals with a photograph or a painting of a Red Admiral and they will get the message instantly.

The Same With A Film Script

It is precisely the exact same with a film script or a book that you desire to develop into a film. It can be very challenging to discuss to someone how terrific your TVC or video is going to be when you just have words to explain it. In many circumstances, they literally cannot “see” it.

What you require is a way of creating an image showing your concept in a manner in which it can instantly be understood by the individual or individuals to whom you are displaying it.

Enter the freelance storyboard artist. A storyboard artist is somebody who has the capability to visualise the principle of a script or other piece of text and turn it into an image or series of images so that it can easily be understood. To puts it simply, he (or she) can see a photo in his mind’s eye and after that draw it so that anyone can understand exactly what is going on in a scene.

An Additional Step

Some individuals believe that having actually a storyboard developed prior to starting production of a movie or TVC is just an additional action which adds greater expense to the total budget plan and actually isn’t really a requirement. However, this is far from the reality. Certainly, utilizing a freelance storyboard artist adds a little additional expense, but the time and expense savings later on can far outweigh this.

Your storyboard will reveal each shot of the movie or video in the appropriate order and will have notes specifying exactly what is going on in the shot and describing any script that is being utilized in the scene. This makes it extremely easy to explain to your potential customer, your team, or certainly anybody else, how the video will proceed and what it is everything about. A lot of stakeholders discover it very hard to visualise something from a script, but your storyboard shows them exactly how the video will play out.

It Will Help Considerably When It Comes To Production

Your storyboard will likewise help significantly when it concerns production. In effect you have developed a prepare for shooting your film or video which consists of all of the numerous shots, the order where they take place, and how the script will connect with them. It enables you to consider your coverage– the numerous camera angles that you will use– and it also makes sure that you do not mistakenly leave any scenes out and need to go back to movie them later: that of itself could save a significant amount of cash if you are recording on place. It will likewise save you time invested in modifications later if you do not have a storyboard and something does not rather exercise the manner in which you prepared.

Some individuals will inform you that you can produce a storyboard by yourself, however it is a lot simpler said than done, specifically if you are not great at drawing. It’s true that you do not require to be a Picasso given that a bad drawing is much better than no illustration, however you have to portray each shot as properly as possible. You likewise need to add the script underneath each drawing with notes about what is going on in that specific shot.

Numerous people merely do not have the skills to produce their own storyboard, so it is far better to employ the services of a freelance storyboard artist such as Dean Mortensen who can visualise exactly what it is that you wish to say and after that draw the shots precisely for you.

Producing Storyboards For 30 Years

Dean Mortensen has actually been an art director of an advertising firm for 30 years, and has been producing storyboards for all 30 of them. He has actually now left the marketing business as a full time art director and is working out on his own as a freelance storyboard artist. He has the distinct ability to look at your script or text then create a storyboard revealing each shot exactly as it need to look, together with the accompanying notes and script. What’s more, due to the fact that he has been developing storyboards for many years he can produce them very rapidly when there are time restraints.

Dean has actually produced storyboards for the likes of Revlon, Y & R Group, Avis, Foxtel, Cuddly, Emirates, NSW Transport Maritime, Colgate, Tabcorp, visitnsw.com, BWM, and many more. He has actually operated in various markets including alcohol, FMCG, tourist, telecoms, retail services, home entertainment, automobile, and sport, among numerous others. He has likewise won prestigious awards including Gold & Bronze Cannes Lions, London International, D & AD, One Show, and New York Festivals.

Dean is fully setup to be assigned freelance jobs from Australia clients, and international jobs with ease. Thanks duly to Dropbox and the internet, he is able to work remotely and supply his same standard of quality and accuracy, as if he were just in the next cubicle in the next room.

Dean’s storyboards can be produced in different designs such as fast line basic, graphic pencil, line and a splash of colour, or exactly what he calls line and the entire caboodle.

So now you understand why you should have a storyboard created and why you need to utilize a freelance storyboard artist in order to acquire the very best results. You can call Dean at +61-432564690 or email him at [email protected].