Entering the corporate world can be a daunting prospect. Whether you’re fresh out of education or returning to work after some time away, the social side of a job can sometimes seem like an even bigger challenge than the role itself. Client events can tell a lot about your character and professionalism, and these half-business, half-social hybrid affairs can be a tricky scene to navigate. You’ll want to feel comfortable enough with the status-quo to impress during them.

Get prepared and learn how to play the game with our handy guide on business meal etiquette, to score top points with your boss and any potential clients.

Dress for the occasion

Planning to be a high-flyer starts before you’ve left your house. As you head out for your event, check your appearance in the mirror one last time: are you dressed appropriately? Context will determine what you should wear — if it’s a sit-down dinner to kick off a financial conference, you’ll likely be expected in formal attire, whereas if you’re off to a client-bonding night at a sports bar, you’d expect to go casual. Adapt your dress based on what and where the event is.

Good grooming is also vital if you want to impress. As much as we’d all like to be judged solely for our words and actions (or at least, those of us that aren’t devastatingly beautiful would like to be), appearance is one of the most significant factors that impact how we are perceived. Business Insider reports that first impressions develop before any greetings are exchanged, with how we look significantly influencing how others will rate our character traits, including trustworthiness and intelligence. As a result, you want to turn up to any event looking clean, well presented, and dressed appropriately.

Be punctual

Once you’re out of the house, it’s your next task to arrive on time — make sure to begin that all-important outfit selection process well in advance, because being fashionably late will do you no favours. Wherever you’re heading, aim to get there five to ten minutes before the reservation time. You want to give yourself some margin for error if anything holds you up on the journey, as being late could see you being perceived as rude or disorganised — hardly ideal for a good first impression, nor conducive to positive working relationships.

However, it’s best to be communicative if you think you’re going to run late. Most people are fairly understanding, and we’ve all lost the race against the clock at one point or another. Unfortunately, accidents happen, and public transport delays have surged in recent times. Always make your host  aware, as an unexplained absence could reflect poorly on you or your company.

Choose your food wisely

You’re all dressed up, on time, and sitting down to eat. So, what do you order from the menu? Ideally, you should pick a light dish without lashings of sauce or greasy ingredients that could easily transfer to your face or clothing. As long as you wear a napkin, there’s no need to avoid your favourite Italian foods like spaghetti or pizza;  this is no slight against Italian cuisine: more so just a sensible preventative measure to keep you looking your best.

Making good food and drink pairing choices is another subtle way to demonstrate your competence. Certain ingredients are better suited to particular beverages, so you may want to scour the menu ahead of time and use a handy wine pairing guide to figure out what combination you’ll be enjoying when it comes time to order. You probably already know the basics: red for beef or cured meat, white for chicken and fish — but an in-depth understanding of flavour profiles can help you to look educated and tasteful, as well as be a great talking point.

Work the room

Now that the dining’s done and you’ve impressed your party, it’s time to fulfil the ‘business’ side of things. Remember the purpose of the meal: it might be the moment to sell your product, close a deal, or carry out general client outreach. For some events, this could be as simple as exchanging business cards, but on other occasions you may be expected to discuss projects and negotiations. If this is the case, it’s best to start by warming up the room.

Your food (and probably more significantly, your drinks orders) should have done most of this heavy lifting for you. Still, if reception is frosty, it’s best to begin with casual conversation about neutral topics, such as travel or happenings in the workweek. Then, once you’ve established rapport, move on to more pragmatic discussions about working together. When time is of the essence, it’s best to get to the agenda of the evening before everybody slips into an after-dinner food coma.

Show your manners

Lastly, you need to remember your pleases and thank yous around the dinner table. This might seem obvious, but the final step to ensuring slick proceedings at a business meal is making sure that everybody leaves with a good taste in their mouth.

Thank the host for the invitation, and let them know that you enjoyed the evening. If you’ve heard murmurs of your colleagues offering to pay their part of the bill, it’s polite to do the same — but always accept graciously if the person or party who put on the event wants to get it themselves.

Stay off your phone for the duration of the evening (unless LinkedIn connection requests start flying out) and keep elbows off the table setting. If dining somewhere especially formal, you might even want to revise your utensil etiquette before going in, so as not to embarrass yourself by tucking into a salad with a seafood fork.

If you’ve followed these steps and everything goes to plan, you should be well on your way to new business connections. However, if something goes awry, don’t panic — dust yourself off and start talking about wine pairings again. It never fails. Best of luck!

Vista Founder and Chairman Thomas Flohr recently led Vista to acquire Jet Edge and Air Hamburg. These deals make Vista among the largest private charter flight operators in the world.

“Vista’s commitment is to provide the most comprehensive range of flying solutions in private aviation,” Flohr said in a statement quoted on JustLuxe.com. “Today’s announcement brings significant value to our clients, with access to a further 100 aircraft, expanding our fleet at a time of unprecedented demand for business aviation services.”

The company reached an agreement to acquire Air Hamburg in February 2022 and Jet Edge in March 2022. Both acquisitions closed recently in June 2022.

“It has been an absolute pleasure to work closely with the leadership team to ensure both companies capitalize fully on the global opportunities within the expanding private aviation market,” Flohr said of the Air Hamburg deal as reported on AeroTime Hub.

Vista Flying High

Jet Edge is the eighth-largest charter plane operator in North America per charter flight and fractional hours. There are 100 large-cabin and super-midsize jets in its fleet, which substantially add to Vista’s inventory and operations.

Both deals include aircraft, management contracts, leases, and other assets. These deals are on the heals of many prior acquisitions Vista has done over the years, including: XOJET, JetSmarter, Red Wing Aviation, Apollo Jets and Talon Air.

Vista’s Dominance as a Global Operator

These two acquisitions will place Vista among the largest global charter flight operators. Specifically, the company will be in contention for first and second place with NetJets.

NetJets, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, has the largest market share in the United States, but is significantly behind Vista in the rest of the world.

The next two largest charter flight operators are Wheels Up (NYSE: UP) and FlexJet.

The total market share of the industry’s leading companies shows how much parity there is within the industry. The 10 largest operators have only 45.1% of the global market share, and the 30 largest hold 53.9% of the market.

We expect to see further consolidation in this industry.

Jet Edge Fuels Vista’s North American Growth

Jet Edge’s fleet and operational footprint will benefit both VistaJet and XO clients. Members can book flights on a larger global fleet either through VistaJet’s fixed-rate guaranteed availability Program or XO’s on demand membership programs. XO members also benefit from the ability  to sell or purchase unused seats on shared private jet flights, which is a disruptive innovation in the industry.

Prior to the acquisition, Jet Edge transitioned from a wholesale business model to a more retail-focused one. It started a membership program called Reserve, seeing excellent success, reaching $100 million in sales. These members will now benefit from Vista’s global fleet of over 350 aircraft worldwide.

Thomas Flohr Weighs In

In an official statement, Thomas Flohr commented on why he’s leading Vista to make this acquisition. He said, “This acquisition is the latest example of Vista’s ability to capitalize on key opportunities in the highly fragmented and fast-growing business aviation world.”

Jet Edge is the fastest-growing large and super-mid private flight operator in the United States. Its addition to the Vista portfolio will allow Vista to offer the largest fleet of Gulfstream aircraft to its members.

“Bringing Jet Edge, the fastest-growing large-cabin and super-mid on-demand company in the U.S., into the group scales up our presence in North America, giving Vista the opportunity to turbocharge growth in the most dynamic aviation market,” says Flohr in the statement to Forbes. “It also means expanding our offering and presenting our members with the chance to fly on the largest fleet of Gulfstream aircraft available.”

Growing for Increased Demand Next Year

The private charter flight industry is expected to grow throughout 2023. Demand for flights has been at record levels since June 2021, and that demand is only forecast to increase.

Vista is aggressively seeking to take advantage of the growing industry to further cement its position as one of the four most prominent operators. These two acquisitions have a pivotal role in that growth.

In addition to these two acquisitions, Vista issued a bond offering of $1 billion in unsecured notes due in 2030. These notes allowed the company to pay off bonds that were due in 2024 and thus continue investing in the growth opportunities available now.

About Vista, Jet Edge, and Thomas Flohr

Vista is one of the largest global operators of private charter flights. The company offers flights to members on fixed-rate and variable pricing around the world and is based in Dubai.

Jet Edge is the fastest-growing private charter flight operator in the United States. The company has been transitioning from wholesale to retail operations, seeing significant sales in the first year of the transition.

Thomas Flohr is the Founder and Chairman of Vista. He’s overseen the company’s growth to become one of the largest operators in the industry.

You have unique experience as a leader of your business – to make this experience on your resume stand out and open doors for you, focus on content over format, keep it concise, and use specific examples and figures to show accomplishments.

As an executive leader running your own business, your job looks quite different from those who aren’t in leadership positions. It might not be a Fortune 500, but no matter how small your business is, your job is a big one. You oversee finances, manage all the managers, and steer the course of the entire organization.

So, to land your next job, whatever that may be and whenever you decide to look for one, your business leader resume should not look like a typical professional resume.

However, while there’s plenty of resume writing advice out there, it can be hard to find resume writing tips that are specific to executives. As a result, many business leaders’ resumes are too verbose, too bland, or simply don’t sell the candidate’s skills.

That’s why we’ve put together these executive and business leader resume writing tips to help your leadership experience stand out, no matter what your next job may be.

Why do you need to work on your business leader resume to make it stand out?

Even at the executive level where networking becomes even more crucial for landing a job, your resume remains an important part of introducing your key qualifications to the employer.

Companies hiring executive-level employees expect a lot from the candidates, so only those with resumes that stand out will get interview invitations.

Here are three great tips that’ll make your executive experience stand out on your resume:

• Content over format
• Less is more
• Show, don’t tell

1. Content over format

When it comes to executive resumes, you should go for “substance over style” or “content over format.”

Many job seekers are turning to creative resume formats which feature fancy multi-column designs, abundant use of colors, fancy fonts, and infographics.

However, we don’t recommend trendy “creative formatting”, especially not for executives. While you do want your resume to be attractive, recruiters care much more about easily finding your key qualifications than how cool it looks, especially for the kind of high-level positions you’ll be applying to.

Employers don’t want to hire the person who “stands out” with their design – they want to hire the person who provides clear proof of their ability to lead a business.

When putting together your great business leader resume, stick with clean and simple resume formatting.

• Be subtle with color – only use a splash of one or two colors, as switching between too many colors can be hard to read
• Leave out the fancy infographics
• Avoid fancy fonts – stick to one font, or a maximum of two with one for your header and the other for the body

2. Less is more

Even with your long career, your business leader resume should be concise.

As a business owner and leader, you probably have a long trail of past experiences and dozens of bullet points you could write about your current executive job. Do not be tempted to pack your resume with all of the day-to-day details of every single job.

When writing your Professional Experience section, you may consider briefly stating key responsibilities in a small paragraph at the top of each job, but follow this with bullet points highlighting your key accomplishments.

Be careful not to include all of your career accomplishments, either. Focus on the last 10-15 years of your career, and only the accomplishments that are most relevant to the position you’re currently applying for. You’ll also want to keep irrelevant personal information like hobbies, interests, and volunteer organizations out.

When it comes to the length of an executive resume, you’ll probably need two pages or maybe just one, depending on how much past experience you’ve had. No matter how long your career is, you don’t need more than two pages – a recruiter won’t read all of it.

3. Show, don’t tell

Hiring decision-makers don’t just want to see what was listed in your job description. They want to see how you exercised influence and made an impact on the operations and people in your company, since that’s what you’ll be doing for their organization as well.

This means that you shouldn’t waste time on describing duties that could be found in a job description – anyone could have done those. Rather, use specific examples and metrics to show previous accomplishments. It is also important to avoid the use of overused phrases that have lost all meaning.

For example: It is true that executives should have strong skills in team leadership. However, this does not mean you should simply add a generic phrase like “strong team leader” in your business leader resume. (Again, anyone can claim that!)

Rather, in your bullet points, include a specific example of how you used your leadership, and use numbers to show what was accomplished and how it impacted the company, like this:

• Empowered HR manager and quickly reallocated budget to provide remote work accommodations for 20 employees during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing our yearly retention rate by 30%

Another effective idea you might consider is adding a “Key Achievements” section for your whole career below your Summary at the top of your resume, especially if you’ve had a long track record of leading the company. If there are a few accomplishments from your tenure that stand out as being particularly important for the job you want, this can be a great way to make sure the recruiter sees those right away.

Time to get writing your business leader resume!

Now you know how to emphasize content over format, choose only the most relevant info to include, and show instead of tell in your bullet points. With these 3 core tips in mind, you can showcase your business leadership experience in a way that will make hiring managers take notice. Now get out there and land that interview for your next job!