Reflexology Event Checklist

For Conferences, Corporate Events and Health Fairs

When building a reflexology practice, events are a great way to hone your skills and build your client base.

Offer your wonderful reflexology skills at a Conference, a Corporate Event or a Health Fair.

There are plenty of people at the event who will want your service, but you'll be wasting time if you don't plan ahead.

Early in my career, I did lots of these events, and I still have a handful of clients who have come to see me ever since.

It took me a lot of trial and error before I came up with the checklist I'm going to share with you here. If you forget any of these items, you do so at your own peril.

I gathered all the materials I needed and kept them in a "kit" by my door.

When the phone would ring, I'd just need to know the time and location. And, then when I was about to leave for the event, I'd grab my case knowing that I hadn't forgotten anything.

First, you need to talk to the event organizers to find out what they want you to do, whether it's: 10 minute, 15 minute or 30 minute (etc.) sessions. Find out how long you'll be working that day and then divide the session minutes by the length of the day and that's the maximum number of sessions you can do.

Rest up the night before, it might be a long day.

Here's my fail-safe "event check list":

1. Fill a small pump bottle with your favorite lotion - no need to take the jumbo size - unless you're working on a small army.

2. Take a set of rubber or latex gloves - the kind you can get at the drugstore - and put as many pairs as you think you'll have sessions. You'll need the gloves if there's no hand washing facilities nearby. There will always be a bathroom, but sometimes it's so far away, you won't have time for a hand washing break between each guest.

3. Have hand sanitizer in your pack. There are times when you'll want to use it, so have a small bottle ready.

4. Bring your business cards! Oh, how many times did I go without them? Too many. And, I would kick myself all the way home. You can print your own with on "Avery Business Card" paper (you can buy at any office supply store like Staples). Or, you can go to vistaprint.com and get 250 business cards for free. Just make sure you order these at least a week in advance... rush orders costly.

5. Have a sign in sheet. This is maybe the most important thing you pack! You want people to sign in so that, with permission, you can contact them. How do you get permission? Ask them. Tell them to call you if they have any questions or tell them "I'll give you a call or send you a card with some reflexology follow up information... if that's okay?"

6. Have some tissues and/or paper towels handy. You never know when you'll need to clean up a lotion spill, or remove some "sock bunnies" from the toes, or blow your nose. You might even offer a tissue to your client if your fabulous "sinus magic" techniques produce the desired effects.

7. Have a pillow-board or a small "boogie-board" (the small version of the kind of foam board you use for floating in the swimming pool). You'll need something to put over your knees - to support the feet - unless you want to lug a big table or chair there and back.

8. Carry a clip board and some pens. Make it easy for them to give you their contact information or for you to gather notes for your memoirs.

9. Have your schedule ready for additional sessions. It's always easier to book the next session at the end of the last one, rather than wait for a call. (And remember, now's the time to tell them what your cancellation policy is).

10. Don't forget to bring some gift certificates. One year I did more business with gift certificates than with follow-ups. Mention the next significant holiday...

Reflexology at Conferences and Events opens doors of opportunity, helps you get more publicity and don't forget to bring gift certificates for people to buy for the holidays - the perfect client gift. Not to mention that you'll be bringing reflexology and holistic health further into the world.

Wendy Coad 2008.

What Exactly Does an Event Planner Do? You'd Be Surprised

I often get asked about event planning jobs and what exactly does a planner do. It's very hard to give a short answer. While it's obvious that they plan events, however, when you look at all of the tasks that are required you realize that planners have no easy job.

An Event Planner Wears Many Hats

There are different skill sets required for an event planners job. Which characteristic is required depends on which stage that they are at with their client. For example, when meeting with their client in hopes to win that piece of business, communication skills are being used. You see you only get one chance to make a first impression.

Characteristics that an event planner requires are:

Communication. As I stated above when you are trying to win a clients business, it's important that your verbal and written communications are impeccable. This is your sales pitch so to speak. You will also be required to provide a written proposal to your client.

Fiscal Management. This is when an event or party planner needs to know their math. Quite often their clients will state their budget for a particular event. The event planner's job is to create or plan an event all while working within the set budget.

Negotiation Skills. An event planner works with many suppliers. And quite often they are required to negotiate on their client's behalf. Anyone who's been involved with negotiations knows that this is an art. Negotiation isn't a "my way or highway" attitude (some of our politicians could take note here). Rather negotiation is the ability to reach a compromise where both sides feel that they accomplish some of what they had set out to achieve.

Decision-Making Skills. The job is not for those who cannot make decisions. Event planners are called upon often to make on the spot decisions that can have a dramatic affect on the event itself.

Leadership. Again a "my way or the highway" approach does not work well here. Leadership is a quality that, when displayed properly, makes people want to work for you. A good leader knows how to correctly motivate their teams to achieve the desired results. In my experiences, I have found that the leadership trait is one of the hardest to develop in someone.

Organizational Skills. Boy does an event planner need to be organized. Think of them as you would a director in a movie. It's their responsibility to make sure that all of the suppliers are doing their specific roles so that the overall event is running seamlessly. The words "organized chaos" would be a good way of describing what's going on for an event planner during the event itself.

Event Planning Certification Is Very Instrumental for Career Development

PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association) recently published a study showing that an event planner that was certified makes considerable amount more than someone that was not certified. And, judging by the characteristics required above, it's no wonder that certification is the way to go. An event planners job requires a variety of characteristics. It always amazes me that they are doing all of this as part of their day-to-day routine and so many do it with a huge smile. For those I say their job is really their passion.

Visit my blog, PlanAnEvent, for more event planning articles.

Three Rules for Planning a Great Company Picnic

Although not all companies celebrate their employees' hard work, a few companies take the time and often the thanks will take the form of an annual company picnic. And while larger companies may hire somebody outside of the office to plan and essentially put on the picnic, many smaller companies will plan their picnics in-house to save on costs. Saving money is all well and good, but planning a large company picnic based on the schedules of a large number of employees is not necessarily easy. So you will want to use whatever tips available to get it done right and throw a great picnic.

Of course, the easy way out would be to hire an outside service to do most of the work. But planning a picnic can actually be quite fun and you do not want to miss out on that. And as long as you follow three simple rules, you will have no trouble planning a great company picnic that everyone will truly enjoy.

1. Plan Early - As with any sort of social event of this magnitude, it is extremely important to begin planning early for a number of reasons. For one thing, you want to be sure you can book the place where you want to have your company picnic. If there are only a few choices, they may fill up fast. In addition, you want to be sure your employees have enough time to make plans to go to the company picnic and with busy lifestyles this can be difficult.

Setting the date, booking the venue, and getting the ball rolling early in the planning process will mean less stress in the end. And less stress will mean you may actually get to enjoy the picnic too.

2. Be Diverse - The picnic you plan should be as diverse as the people who work for you. There is a fairly good possibility your employees enjoy a wide range of activities, food, and entertainment. So you should take this into consideration when planning your picnic. After all, your company picnic is a way to show your employees your appreciation. So you do not want to leave anyone out.

You may want to have people give you suggestions directly or even send around a survey to find out what kinds of things people like. Whatever you do, be sure to have a little something for everyone and nothing that will offend anyone and you should be fine.

3. Use Conferencing - It may be beneficial if you put together a sort of focus group to help you plan, and you can easily communicate with those individuals with a conference calling program. Your focus group can help you iron out all the details for the picnic and can discuss them with you through conferencing.

The best part is conferencing programs can be downloaded from the internet at no cost to you, not something you can say about the rest of the plans for your company picnic. Download your conference calling program in advance, and you will be ready to go with a conference call at the drop of a hat.

Company picnics are supposed to be fun, but only after all the planning is taken care of. But if you plan early, plan right, and communicate with others through conferencing, you will be able to enjoy your company picnic and so will your employees.

Event Planner Career: How to Become an Event Coordinator

What does it really mean to be an event planner? If you thrive on organization, are proficient at multi-tasking, and enjoy a creative work environment, perhaps event coordination is the profession for you. In our interview with event planner Jessica Alpert, she discusses the wide range of opportunities in managing events, offers career advice, explains how she broke into the industry through informational interviewing, and stresses the importance of an event planning internship.

Diversity is the Watchword

The world of event planning is an extremely diverse industry. You can represent a piece of real estate such as a hotel ballroom, a convention center, a private room in a restaurant, or independent event space. Alternatively, you can work at an event management company that consults with clients to plan special events, or work in-house at a company that holds many events and needs someone to plan and manage them.

Fortunately, you do not need a degree in event management to start a career in the industry. Jessica, who majored in psychology at UC Davis, explains that a variety of educational backgrounds can prepare you to become an event coordinator. She says, "a major is a major and I feel like I could have focused on anything from communications to fine arts and I would have been fine." While a college degree is not necessarily required she emphasizes that it helps in being taken seriously when job hunting.

Network, Network, Network

Jessica also stresses the importance of the informational interview, noting this type of networking is what led to her first job. She recalls, "in meeting with all these people I learned what I did and did not want in a job...I was interviewing them just as much as they were interviewing me." This networking definitely paid off, because when one person did not have an opening they would say, "'I don't have anything available, but I have a friend who works [here] who might know somebody.'"

Jessica also recommends an event planning internship to help you understand the industry. Even though these may not be the most glamorous jobs, the behind-the-scenes experience is invaluable..."I truly believe that in order to understand how to hire a caterer you need to work for a catering company, and you need to see the behind-the-scenes look of it." Not only will you gain a better understanding of the different aspects of managing events, you are able to make an impression with vendors so they think of you when hearing about job openings.

Top 6 Advantages of Using Secure Online Payment Management Solution for Your Events

Whether you are running a "Fortune 500 Company" or a small business, the online payment management solution lets you collect payments, settle transactions, handle refunds, and manage chargeback in the most effective way. Besides, this online solution offers easy credit card processing for any type of events (conferences, meetings, seminars, business dinners, and more). Thus, the online payment management software makes it easy for you to collect money for your fundraisers or similar other programs.

The top 6 advantages of adhering to a web-based payment management solution are given below:

No Hidden Cost Involved

Managing your monetary transactions with payment management software is an extremely cost-effective procedure. To use this online payment management solution, you don't need to pay any extra money!

Accept Different Forms of Payment

This Cloud-based solution enables you to accept payments via credit cards, such as MasterCard, Visa, Discover, American Express, and so on. You can even allow your attendees to send you cash via different popular payment gateways, such as VeriSign, PayPal Payflow Pro, PayPal Express, CyberSource, and Authorize.net.

Easy Credit Card Processing

Credit card processing can be made easy by using the Cloud-based payment management solution. Your event attendees can send you donations as well as registration fees in real time by simply using their credit cards. Easy credit card processing benefits both the parties - event planners can quickly receive money, while the registrants can easily send you ticket prices, registration fees, and donations.

Offers Easy and Secure Ways to Send and Receive Money

This PCI-compliant solution is highly secure, as it eliminates the chance of any form of financial fraud. Hence, your hard-earned money gets transferred to the organizer quite safely. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is formed to make sure all organizations that "process, store, or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment."

Offers Merchant Accounting Service

Event organizers can utilize "Use Your Own Merchant Account" (UYOMA) service for gathering online credit card payments through their own online merchant account. The UYOMA service lets you effortlessly generate, activate, and uphold your own merchant accounts. When an event organizer uses this service, it means potential participants can deposit the required fees to the user's account at their convenience. The UYOMA service also allows organizers to easily process cancellations and refunds, when needed.

Manages All Back-end Administrative Payment Functions

The payment management software will help you make changes to your different events ticket price, category, and such other features. You can also easily prepare a range of online reports concerning ticket sales, total amount of registration fees collected, payments reconciliation, and so on.

Ten Reasons to Choose Horse Racing for Your Corporate Hospitality Event

Horse Racing is a fabulous sport to take your clients to, and we are pleased to include the top ten reasons why you should take your clients to these events instead of any others. These are as follows;

1. Takes the Pressure of you as the host: Horse Racing is a more relaxed way to entertain your clients. If you go to the football or rugby, you are with your client for three hours solid before kick off and however entertaining they are, conversation can dry up! With races taking place every half hour, clients are constantly up and around, putting bets on and watching the racing from different vantage points, which makes entertaining so much smoother and more enjoyable.


2. Dressing Up: Horse Racing is generally a smart event and allows clients to wear their best clothes, including giving the ladies a chance to buy a new dress and hat! With football and rugby becoming more relaxed these days, in that many corporate areas allow jeans, it is refreshing for clients to see a really smart, formal event.


3. Ladies Involvement: Horse Racing is a great event for both genders. Football and rugby are very male orientated, where as horse racing is enjoyed by both sexes. This is therefore a great opportunity for clients to entertain their female customers and also customers and their wives. For some clients, they have more chance to attend an event if their wife or girlfriend is invited as well!


4. Locations: There are racecourses located all around the UK from Newton Abbot in Devon, to Folkestone in Kent and up to Perth in Scotland. With 60 racecourses around the UK, there is always going to be one in close proximity to your business or clients.


5. Every Day of the Week: If you need to choose a race meeting for a particular date, perhaps you have a client coming from a far, or you need to combine it with an important business meeting, you will generally find a race meeting happening on most days of the year.


6. All Year Round: Most sports are seasonally based, with football and rugby in the winter and cricket and tennis in the summer. Horse Racing is fantastic for corporate hospitality in that it runs all year round, from January to December.


7. Meetings Beforehand: With most horse racing meetings starting at around 2pm, this is a superb time to allow for a business meeting beforehand. The majority of racecourses have corporate boxes where you can stage a business meeting or seminar in the morning around 10am, before having lunch at 12.30pm, before enjoying a full race meeting in the afternoon.


8. Betting: All courses have licensed betting facilities on site, where your clients can enjoy a flutter on their favourite horse. All corporate facilities generally have betting facilities within them, meaning that you don't have to queue up with the masses to put on a bet.


9. Offerings to Clients on Day: You can choose a corporate package that will best suit your clients on the day. For the high end clients, you can choose a more formal three course meal, where as for middle to lower corporate clients, you can choose a fork or a finger buffet. You can choose the option that will best suit your budget and clients.


10. Add on options: There are a variety of additional options at race meetings that you can choose to enhance your day or impress your client further. These could be as follows;


• Present a trophy to the winning trainer


• Present a trophy for the best kept horse


• View a race from the commentary box


• A racing tipster to come to your box and inform your clients about the racing line up


• A sporting celebrity to join your party for the day

Ideas to Organize Corporate Events

A special day of course needs special arrangement which includes perfect decoration, delicious menu and provision of entertainment. It requires proper planning to make each thing perfect such that the guests in the party can have moments to cherish forever.

If you are planning to throw a corporate party, then you must be thinking about the best possible ways to make a fantastic party. Besides offering fun-filled atmosphere to employees, corporate events are a way to symbolize the position of the company. By organizing events, you can break the monotony of daily working routine and also can strengthen business relationships with business partners.

Are you thinking of various ways to make your event successful? Here's a short list that won't disappoint you for organizing corporate events:

• Party Venue: For organizing a corporate party, you can consider choosing a venue that has separate sitting arrangement, a platform for live performance, a dining area and other areas for entertaining activities. Along with that, you must leave some space to move around as everyone doesn't like to occupy one seat for the whole party.

• Decoration: After making a selection of the venue, the next thing to consider is the decoration. In order to give elegant look to the corporate event, you can consider decorating the venue with flowers, ribbons and candles. Besides these, lighting arrangement is the major thing to concern. For flawless lighting, you can seek assistance from companies which provide high-quality electronic lighting equipment on rent.

• Food: Be sure to have quality catering services that have provision of variety of cuisines including soft and hard drinks. You can try the food before you finalize the caterer for your event.

• Entertainment: To make the corporate party interesting, you can think about entertainment activities such as discotheque, magic shows, orchestra, dance floor etc. The entertaining aura in the party will help your employees to experience a change from the routine life.

Organizing corporate events need lots of planning. In order to have your party arranged in a comfortable manner, you can think about contacting professional event planners of your area as they have experience in organizing parties for business, wedding &special events in the best manner. They can also suggest you variety of ideas to make the event an extra-ordinary one. So, get in touch with reliable and experienced party organizers located near your area and start planning to make the event special for everyone.