A Meeting to Remember If you build it, they will come--and actually stay awake, too.
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For Pamela Crouser, co-owner of CPrint, an international franchise of printing companies, planning off-site meetings at hotels with franchise associates from around the country is an integral part of the business model. "The meetings are serious because some of the companies that attend are struggling," says Crouser, who owns CPrint with her husband, Thomas. That's why she tries to keep the overall mood as lighthearted as possible.
Those who attend her meetings at the Omni Hotel in Jacksonville, Florida, smell chocolate cookies baking while they talk. There are smooth stones on the meeting tables. "You pick them up and rub them," she says. "You'd be surprised how many people do this." With the hotel's "Sensational Meeting" program, Crouser can also get wheatgrass shots, kumquat trees and an assortment of "sun-splashed Jamaican rhythms" piped into the room.
