Delivery service for pizza lunch on Fridays at high tech firms is one kind of catered meal, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about attractive catered meals for business customers. We’re thinking of coffee and pastries for a breakfast meeting; croissant sandwiches and gourmet cookies for a working lunch, or your choice of three salads with French bread; and hot and chilled hors d’oeuvres for an early evening reception.

A nicely catered meal, with an attractive display, makes a simple meal an event. It inspires people, lifts the mood, gets people excited and talking about it, and changes the spirit in the room. When you want to make a good impression on your customers, your caterer can carry the day.

How are businesses affording catering these days? Flexibility.

Businesses are working with smaller budgets. If you’re flexible in working with them during these times, they’ll keep bringing their business back.

Talk to your caterer about your budget, generally they can customize a menu that will fit within your budget.

Here are some of the alternatives that people are asking for.

• Having the main part of the meal catered, while the employees bring desserts to share. (This is fine in one’s own business setting, but may not work in public venues)
• Having employees set up the event, decorations, tables, chairs, table cloths and place settings. The caterer brings the food and displays it, and then employees help with serving.
• Ordering less food.
• Ordering less expensive food.
• Not serving alcohol.

In business people say “you only get one chance to make a good first impression.”

Experienced people used to coach young people out of college to dress up and dress for their next promotion. Creating a good first impression is worth the extra effort.

At 7:30 one morning, a business man walked into a local cafe in Cary and picked up an elegant tray of gourmet pastries, wrapped in see-through wrapping with a bow. Someone asked him what the tray was for, so elegant at 7:30 in the morning.

“Whenever I invite a group of potential clients to my office for a presentation, I order a gourmet tray so I can make a very positive first impression with them. When it looks this good, they know I’m serious about valuing their time and their business.”

Marketing and event planners recommend making your clients’ experience of your business an event. Make it memorable. Make it distinct from other experiences.

A fancy lady’s boutique at Southpoint serves cold bottled water and fresh chocolate chip cookies to customers during the summer. A Chocolatier at Crabtree Mall offers a free chocolate. Grocery stores give away balloons to children. 

Quality catering is like a gift, it looks good, smells good and tastes good, leaving your clients with the impression that you care to treat them well. It doesn’t have to be expensive to give everyone a great experience.

Many businesses are eager to reduce un-necessary expenses in these times, and while they could bring in home cooked hors d’oeuvres or brownies, the impression that an attractive presentation by a caterer makes is much more professional. Maybe it’s no longer shrimp from the Gulf that is served, maybe it’s a fresh quiche with seasonal fruit.

Talk with your caterer about your budget and the kind of experience you’d like to give your clients, and see what suggestions they may have.