Team Building Games and Ice Breakers

Team Building Games can be crucial for making parties and meetings successful. Especially at cocktail parties and networking meetings.  The main point of these events is to encourage guests to create and enjoy their person-to-person relationships. In a party or meeting, particularly where some guests haven’t met the others before, these team building games are often called […]

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Marketing Tips for Wedding Planners

Marketing Tips for Wedding Planners or Catering Directors or Party Professionals amount to a few solid pieces of advice. And then lots of details. I work with wedding planners all the time.  I watch them, and all these event pros, coordinate hundreds of details in their work.  Often helping to plan wedding music or party music. […]

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Task Management. “You Got Something Better To Do?”

Planning music for a wedding or a party?  You’ll find that sharpening your task management skills will help you plan.  Anything. We all know something about Task Management:  Getting Organized, Prioritizing, Taking Action, and Following Up. Don’t you just love jargon, too?  Well, we’re all expert at managing something.  Getting dinner on the table.  Getting the […]

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San Francisco Jazz Bands

San Francisco Jazz Bands?  The Magnolia Jazz Band stands proudly in a long tradition of popular San Francisco Jazz Bands. The lineage stretches back to the early 1900’s and includes hundreds of interesting stories.  Here are a few of them. . Many books and articles (see Wikipedia and another good example) trace the history of […]

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Booking a Band for a San Francisco Wedding or Party

Booking a Band for a San Francisco Bay Area wedding or party? It’s easier than you might think. Just ask yourself a few simple questions (the right ones — see my list below), and follow up carefully on all the details they generate. I recently wrote about being systematic when you plan any project.  That’s […]

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Loyalty Program for a Jazz Band

Loyalty Program?  Jazz Band?  Sure, that little plastic card works well for an airline, hotel, or auto rental company, but can I market my company — or you market yours — with an organized incentive effort? What shall I call it?  “Frequent Wedding Discount”?  Shall we tell everyone “Please join our Loyalty Program.  Use our […]

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Planning an Event

Planning music for a wedding or a party?  Think about planning the entire event. You won’t do the entire event, of course, but thinking systematically about planning an event will help you focus down to one aspect at a time.  Like the music, and how it will fit in with everything else. Now, what are […]

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Networking for Business

Networking for business makes life easy.  Whoever you are, and whatever you do, actively cultivate a network of friends.  Collaborating with them will make everything more successful.  It’s so simple, and so true. I recently wrote about the benefits of seeking friends of friends.  Today’s message is more general.  Collaborate with friends.  Knowing with confidence […]

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How to Grow my Business

“How to grow my business” is a question we all ask, whether by “business” we mean what we do and how we make a living, or who we are and how we conduct our lives. Me, I usually mean both.  I’ve found four reliable sources of good advice for both refining my ambition as well […]

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Mothers Day Presents

Mothers Day presents occupy our thoughts these days.  Or soon will. Mother’s Day is just a few weeks away, right?  Are you ready for Mom’s festivities?  Still considering your Mothers Day presents? What!  Haven’t even begun yet? Well, there’s the familiar bouquet of flowers or a lovely potted plant.  Or a selection of luxury beauty […]

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