One of the most important things in a party is the buffet table. It’s where the food is laden to be consumed by the appreciative, hungry guests who will notice everything from your centerpiece to your serving dishes. In fact, everything on the buffet table gets noticed except the table itself.

But you as a party caterer should pay attention to the table. You can’t use a make shift one, dress it up to hide the frame and call it good. Remember, all your best dishes will be on there, including the food that your clients paid 75% of the fee for.

While inexpensive makeshift tables are out of the question, you should definitely consider the ones that you can dismantle and store when not in use. If you’re feeding 300 people, you’re going to need two or three of these long ones to accommodate your chafing dishes and bulky centerpieces.

Then, of course, one more aspect of buffet table setting you have to keep a close eye on is the way you dress the table. Usually it’s a couple of white table cloths arranged neatly and pleated to hide the ends (where they meet across the table), but for simple home parties, you can use your dinner table if the width allows one large centerpiece and a couple of dessert trays arranged around it.

You can have one custom made for parties, but make sure to check the materials. Most go for the hard plastic tables that are hardy enough to withstand he elements (you can use these for outdoor parties during the summer). Some people who dislike the thought of washing sauce-smeared tablecloths simply invest on the materials used for the surface of the table, such as ceramic tiles, lacquered wood, marble and glass.

A party planner or an events manager needs a hub inside her home where she can brainstorm, store her portfolio, stack some brochures and keep her folders of projects and client details. Because you need to conserve as much space as you can, you may want to consider what kind of personal computer you’re going to buy, and if you really need a set up that will require a large computer table.

Before you set up your home office, here are some things to consider…

1. The notebook option

If you’re going to be mobile, or if you plan on meeting clients in another place besides your home, a notebook is a better investment than a PC. However, file storage becomes a problem after a while. Wouldn’t you hate it if your notebook bogs down because of the huge amount of files you have in there. You can always get external hard drives to solve this dilemma.

2. Scanner and Printer

To some party entrepreneurs, a computer is good only for editing images, downloading email details and logging into social networks. If you use your computer the same way, your priority must be a good printer and a scanner. In the long run, you can always trade in your PC, but these two things are your bread and butter.

If you’re a party planner, I can pretty much guess what you have in your computer right now: a few drafts for invitation templates, a few documents that can be printed (including invoices and the like), a portfolio of past clients and projects, and a lot of photos that can be uploaded to your page.

Before you know it, your whole business and planning history will be inside your computer, so when it starts showing signs of breaking down, you panic.

It’s not a secret that most of use are technophobes and would rather file everything in cabinets and folders, but what if space becomes an issue and you realize that your clients and prospective clients are more often online than browsing through the classifieds? Simple. You adapt!

You may use computers every day – it’s hard to avoid them – but your computer purchase anxiety may be related to your fear of feeling ignorant. If you’re in this boat, here are some tips for you.

1. Trust a System

Whether it’s Microsoft, Apple or an antivirus software system that your friends swear by, you should learn to trust the brand. The tech part of your business is dependent on systems, which means you should not only understand them and how they work, but also trust that they will function as described.

The antivirus system you purchase is particularly important because older versions consume too much space in your computer or laptop. Think of it as a bulky cabinet that’s taking up half the space you allotted for your home office at home. It’s useful to have around but as your business progresses, you find yourself slowing down whenever you try to walk around your space without bumping into that bulky thing.

2. Don’t be Afraid to Outsource Work

We WISH we can be everything to our businesses, but the reality is that we can only be good at several things. If, for instance, your old business logo looks horrid when scanned and uploaded in a hosting server, it’s time to hire someone to create a more updated version of the thing.

Get a freelance designer who knows how to use a good photo editing software and simply sit back and wait for the finished product. I know you can always learn photoshop (and you’ve been meaning to, for a time now), but there’s a steep learning curve involved in it and THAT requires a huge chunk of your time.

The start of the year is the best time to promote your gym, and here’s why…

First of all, think of all the people who listed “get fit” as one of their new year resolutions. It’s still very early in the year so you can count on people still gung-ho over keeping their new year resolution.

Secondly, we only have a few months to go before spring break, summer vacations and beach season. Most diet and fitness books recommend trying a diet for a few months before obtaining visible results so you can bet those who want quick trim advice and a program to make them fit would want to sign up.

If you’re a gym owner or a marketing representative, planning ahead includes preparing for a party launch that will not only inform your market about your services but also give them a taste of how fun it is to enrol in your gym.

Your market wants to be able to meet the gym instructors and personal trainers they will be working with. This means that during your party, your personal trainers can be the ushers and guest relations officers. This way, they can mingle freely and get to know their prospective clients on a more personal level.

Next, food. Preparing food for a bunch of diet enthusiasts is tricky. So my suggestion is to serve food that won’t violate any diet laws. For instance, you can serve fruit, salads (with ‘lite’ dressing) and whole wheat bread. The key is to present the food you’re serving in a quaint but appetizing way. This means lots of garnishing and cute serving trays.

As an event coordinator for a gym party, you must prepare the program yourself. Of course, the best personal trainer around can emcee for you, but the flow of the mini-program should be up to you. If you can multitask, great! Also, remember that guests will probably arrive at different times so you have to adjust the program to accommodate latecomers.