PROGRAMS

A Night at the Round Table: Contracting and Consulting

Presented at the STC-SAZ program meeting, March 9, 2006

Description:

On <<date>>, the <<organizers>> will host our "Night at the Round Table" program on the theme "Contracting and Independent Consulting." This lively session will provide you with different perspectives on the business of contracting and consulting.

This program format offers several short concurrent sessions. Each speaker hosts a table that seats up to 10 people. Speakers give a brief oral presentation and moderate discussion for 15 minutes. The 20-minute sessions will be repeated three times (one hour total). You'll have an opportunity to ask questions or discuss individual issues with each of our experts. At the end of each session, you'll move on to the next table and the next topic.

Come join us for a chance to practice networking in a fun, friendly environment while you learn from speakers with a variety of backgrounds!

<<Speaker info - names and brief bios of each>>

Speakers:

We recruited three speakers:

• A local tax preparation consultant. Lesson learned: Don't try to do this during tax season!
• A local marketing consultant. We found her by requesting help from our local "sister" organizations, the IABC, PRSA, and AMA (that's American Marketing Association).
• A local high-tech recruiter. We used Yoh, which has offices all over, but any local recruiter should be happy to help!

Additional Handouts:

Although our three speakers each brought their own handouts, we wanted to make sure that everyone left with something. All the following items were free.

• We got some great packets of information from our local American Small Business Association office. Each packet included a monthly business magazine, a calendar of events, their monthly newsletter "Entrepreneurial Focus," and of course info on the benefits of joining their organization.
• The IRS offers all kinds of free support to small businesses at the Small Business and Self-Employed pages - we handed out their Small Business Resource Guide CDs (IRS Publication 3207) and a retirement options pamphlet. I wanted to get the small-business wall calendars (IRS Publication 1518) but they weren't ready in time for this event. Check out other small business freebies at the IRS site, or call them at 1-800-829-3676. Generally, you can order up to five copies of each thing for free through the web site, but you need to call them if you want more than that.
• STC Contracting and Independent Consulting Special Interest group flyers - two sided, one with info on the upcoming STC conference, the other with the chapter headings of the CIC SIG online handbook.
• Our local business weekly, called Inside Tucson Business. They're distributed free, you just have to ask for them. There's very likely something similar in other cities!

During the program:

We do a dinner meeting, so there was lots of interaction before the program event, which got people comfortable with each other. During the meeting itself, we introduced the three speakers and their topics, then got right to it. The only problem we had was getting people to move on at the designated times, they were all very interested in continuing the conversations. We did three 20-minute sessions, but it could easily have been three 30-minute sessions.

After the program:

The only complaint we heard that night was from one of the speakers, who felt a bit left out because she didn't get a chance to visit the other two tables! All in all, the "Night at the Round Table" continues to be one of our most popular program events.