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How to Choose the Right Event Planner

You’ve been given charge over a big day ahead – the company’s annual summer barbecue, the founder’s retirement party, hosting those “big wigs” from the corporate headquarters – and you know you can’t handle this all your own. Your trusty assistant, who threw together last year’s office holiday party in less than three weeks on a shoestring budget, says you can’t pay her enough to ever do something like that again. You need professional help and you need it now! A party planner is the person for you!

The first thing you need to consider is whether or not your occasion is actually an event. Party planning has become so specialized in recent years that not all events are, well, events. The more business-like events – training seminars, merger deals, and new product development sessions – where food and drink are either kept at a minimum or served offsite are now considered “meetings” and have their own special meeting planners to handle their particular specifics. Most other events, with food, drink, entertainment and a theme or festive purpose, are just that – events. Professional event planners deal with the myriad of details that such occasions warrant.

Now that you know which type of planner you need to consult, your next decision should be just how much control over the planning you intend to give to the planner, and how much that planner charges for those services. Some planners like to “do it all” – you basically give them the date, number of expected guests, theme or purpose of event and they do the rest. They’ll find you the venue, the caterer, the entertainment, the decorations, flowers, and everything right down to the party favors. You’ll have final say, of course, but other than that, you can sit back and let them do the work for you. Your only worry is whether your tux or gown will come back from the cleaners on time. Other planners will merely suggest, or “paper plan” the event, giving you lists of caterers, venues and whatnot suitable for an event such as yours. Then, you have to check each one out, make the reservations, make the decisions, do the leg work. And then there is the majority of planners who prefer to fall somewhere in between those two extremes.

Each planner has charges or fees for each type of service they do. Your budget is going to become a great factor in just how much involvement your planner has in your event. Be sure to ask for proposals. Don’t automatically go with the lowest bidder, though. As we will see, there are other factors and qualities to choosing the perfect planner for your next event than the bottom line. Asking your prospective planner a few questions can help determine which is the right person or service for you.

What are the nature of your business, and the projected tone of the event? Are you a high profile law firm? Then a more subdued atmosphere to your holiday party is probably in better keeping with your clientele and personnel. Does your business specialize in creative web development? If so, then a masquerade dinner party to honor the year’s top employees may be greatly anticipated and highly attended. Your event planner needs to understand the nature of your business and the overall personality of your people. This is never more important when asking the planner to handle decorations, venues and other details that will set the style and mood of the party.

Is your planner flexible? Is your planner experienced? If your supervisor suddenly decides to add the guys from R & D to the product launch festivities, how will your planner deal with the change in plans? Can your planner manage several types of events, or do they prefer to deal with just one or two kinds? There are great party planners that wouldn’t know how to cope with the media rich atmosphere of a product launch. And on the flip side, there are great planners who wouldn’t bat an eye at something like a launch, but wouldn’t dream of doing a sedate and subdued cocktail party. As we stated earlier, party planning has become very specialized, and while not every planner has chosen a specific niche, you want to make sure that your planner has had experience in the style of event you’re planning.

Lastly, try and discern your planner’s availability and communication style before hiring. A planner that only works in the evening may not be suitable for your business, unless you like making business calls from home. Likewise, a planner who is never available for calls, or prefers text messaging or emails, may not be as reachable as you’d desire or require them to be. All business people are busy. All of us become unavailable at times. But a part planner who is never around when you need them is not the type you need.

In any case, before hiring a planner, you should ask for references. Your business will be spending hard-earned money on both the event and the planner. You can’t afford to hire the lowest bidder if they are someone not experienced enough, not available enough or not trustworthy enough. Your event is special to your business and its people. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be worried about it enough to want to hire a party planner. Just make sure that the planner you hire is as special as the event you’re planning.

Jinhua City, Camellia has a new

Wucheng Thuringia Camellia Camellia Institute of Botany, Jinhua assumed new varieties of Colorful Red Lucy Jane molecular biological characteristics and RAPD technology research project, chaired by Provincial Science and Technology Department of the identification.

Experts believe that Lucy Jane Colorful red foliage and flower as a combination of new varieties of camellias, with the shape the United States, the characteristics of strong resistance. The project camellia foliage species breeding industry, content, technology and outcomes has reached domestic leading level. Coleus breeding success of Red Lucy Jane, for the ornamental Camellia provides the basis for industrial development. Recommend further testing of the regional varieties, as the garden variety.

According to reports, camellia and flower, foliage, fruit, today’s world of international camellia camellia cultivation of new varieties of three types, and research camellia foliage and ornamental fruit varieties and new technology. Camellia foliage varieties, the United States, Britain, Japan and other countries have, China was also the camellia foliage in the study, but the officially approved the first of its kind in the country.

Wucheng Thuringia Camellia Camellia Institute of Botany, Jinhua assumed new varieties of Colorful Red Lucy Jane molecular biological characteristics and RAPD technology research project, chaired by Provincial Science and Technology Department of the identification.

Experts believe that Lucy Jane Colorful red foliage and flower as a combination of new varieties of camellias, with the shape the United States, the characteristics of strong resistance. The project camellia foliage species breeding industry, content, technology and outcomes has reached domestic leading level. Coleus breeding success of Red Lucy Jane, for the ornamental Camellia provides the basis for industrial development. Recommend further testing of the regional varieties, as the garden variety.

According to reports, camellia and flower, foliage, fruit, today’s world of international camellia camellia cultivation of new varieties of three types, and research camellia foliage and ornamental fruit varieties and new technology. Camellia foliage varieties, the United States, Britain, Japan and other countries have, China was also the camellia foliage in the study, but the officially approved the first of its kind in the country.

How to Raise Your Income Level

How often do you sit around and wonder how to make more money and get more people to buy more from your company? It’s one of the most basic problems every company faces.

The answer is astonishingly simple. Too simple maybe. But I’ve seen it work over and over again with our customers in every line of business you can imagine.

You have to promote. Your income is determined by how much marketing you do.  There are many effective marketing methods and you shouldn’t do just one.  Even those whose products are strictly sold on-line, you still need to utilize those other methods of promotion.  Your income is definitely 100% affected by how much promotion you do.

So raising your income is simply a matter of keeping in touch with your existing customer base, reminding them you are there, offering them goods or services they might be interested in, in such a way that they
want to buy more and more often from you. And increasing the size of your customer base by finding and contacting potential customers and persuading them to buy your products or services and then adding them to your customer base and keeping in touch with them in the same way.

If you have a good service or product and you make sure you service your customers well, you cannot fail to raise your income.

How rapidly you raise your income depends on how rapidly you do these actions, how much you promote.  Handling the quantity or volume of promotion is definitely the most obvious thing you can do on an immediate basis.  Believe it or not, if you send out crappy, crappy promotion, your income will go up.  You may not be happy with the Return on your Investment (ROI) for that marketing effort, but definitely it will raise your income.  Once quantity is handled and you are sending out loads of promotion, you want to tweak it and raise the quality of your promotion.  And here are some things you can do.

Use Offers to Improve Your Response.

One of the barriers to buying which you work hard to overcome is «no hurry.» Why buy it now when I can think about it for a few weeks, shop around a little and get back to you, maybe?  Familiar with that «I’m
interested. I’ll get back to you.» Or the card you have designed and mailed out gets put in a drawer somewhere for possible follow up, maybe next year some time.

One way to deal with this is to reward those who buy now and penalize those who don’t. How? With some special offer and one that is attractive and one which has a time element attached to it. «Order your new
lawnmower now and we’ll give you a free edger. Offer good until the end of May.» (Or whatever, you get the idea). Obviously the offer must be financially feasible for you so you’ll have to do some number crunching before you make the offer.

You can tie these special offers in to some particular event or season (like jewelry for Valentine’s Day or flowers or chocolates or just about anything for Christmas) but you don’t have to.

Special Offers help you maximize on your direct mail marketing and keep your customers ordering from you when you want them to.  It’s just one more way to be in control of your promotion.

You can control how much and how fast your company grows.

Hydroponic Nutrients Help Your Plants Grow Big And Strong

Without proper nutrition, all living things eventually will die. This is certainly true of plants grown indoors, that rely on fertilizers for food. If you practice hydroponics or aeroponics as a form of indoor gardening, then you know that the plant food appropriate for this type of gardening system is called nutrient.

There are a wide variety of hydroponic nutrients available, and they are suited to the type of plants you are growing as well as the plant’s stage in their life cycle. Advanced Nutrients and Bcuzz offer several good varieties of hydroponics nutrients. Advanced Nutrients offers a range of hydroponic nutrients suitable for different plant performance needs. They make base fertilizers which are suitable for use as plant nutrition.

The Advanced Nutrients called Sensi Bloom encourage your plants to produce a wealth of flowers, which is important if you are growing plants for their flowers, or if you are growing plants that require many flowers to produce a better yield of produce, such as tomatoes. Advanced Nutrients also offers an organic product called Iguana Juice hydroponic nutrients. This plant fertilizer helps to produce plants with strong branches and a large root system. Advanced also offers fertilizer additives for specific purposes to enhance certain aspects of your plants. Big Bud is one of the most popular additives, and as the name suggests it focuses on the flowers of your plants, increasing the size and number of flowers they produce. Bcuzz is another hydroponics nutrients provider that offers a complete line of plant food. Bcuzz comes in several different varieties. One popular one is their Bloom Stimulant. This nutrient helps increase the flower cell production in your plants, and it helps to increase the sugar molecules in flowers.

This is important if you are growing fruiting vegetables such as tomatoes, or fruits like strawberries, both of which taste better when they are sweeter. Bcuzz also makes a wonderful Foliar Boost, which is an organic product. This fertilizer is used to increase and improve the leaves and root zone of your plants, which is important if you are growing vegetables such as lettuce or ornamental plants such as hostas, where the focus is on the leaves. A Growth Stimulant is also available from this same company. It provides a proprietary mix of proteins, amino acids, aqua-bacterias and micro-nutrients that bring your plants to the peak of perfection in size. These are just a sampling of the superior hydroponics nutrients that are available to help your plants reach staggering proportions quickly.

Landscaping, Tips, Tricks and the Pros?

The landscape industry is on the rise. So should you hire a landscaper or do it yourself. This article will present a couple good landscaping tips as well pro-industry news.

In a recent issue of Lanscape Management, Ron Hall says, «that the industry is set for growth due to demographics, dual-wage-families, and disposable income.» He also suggests that «landscape contractors should think of other avenues for profit to cope with the crisis in the housing market.»

So what does this mean? One thing is for sure, people who are homeowners love to add curb appeal. It adds beauty as well as value. Landscapers need to think of more creative ways to keep and add new business that won`t break the banks of their customers, yet at the same time add the elegance the client`s desires.

For inspiration and ideas on the different types of turfs and grasses, The 2007 Pocket Seed Guide is an easy-to-reference summary of the latest results from the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP). It lists the latest top-rated varieties of turfgrass at most testing locations. NTEP is one of the most widely known turfgrass research programs in the world.

Here is a tip now that autumn is here. In the same issue of Landscape Management, tips on improving the appearance of a fall mum display. It suggests the purchase of quality mum plants. Mum plants should have flowers from the top of the plant to the ground level. They should also, be planted when they are 10% to 25% in color because they are easier to move.

Yet, to a landscaper, its more than just lawns and flowers. Don Dale reports in the April issue of Landscape Management, that mole control of landscapers adds to the income in the U.S.. According to Dale, «The Growing Green Lawn Care, lawn care business of Keith Fisher has seen a 40 percent increase in mole activity where his clients are clamoring for mole control. Fisher began treatments in March, as moles begin tunneling near the surface and it is easy to make an immediate application and do a follow-up whenever it is needed as the crew returns to mow the lawn.»

So the question is whether or not to do it yourself. Simply put if it is something complicated, such as controlling rodents in the garden, or an elaborate hardscape project, its best left up to the professionals. However, if you enjoy gardening and doing the landscaping, getting that «look what I just completed» feel. Then give it a go, so as long as you are willing to possiblly screw a few things up in the process.

By: Michael C. Podlesny