From the good old days people tend to wrap up a business deal over a cup of coffee or a delicious and expensive meal depending on the significance of the trade. In this modern era, corporate world having a discussion over meal has fast become a norm.As modern professionals majority of them have to dine with a client, supplier, business partner, superior or with any other business contact to finalise a business related matter.

“However in some instances we may not follow the proper etiquette and manners. There are also some occurrences where we fail to give attention to certain dining etiquetteor maintain an appropriate professional body language. As a result gradually we fail to impress the client or the contact with whom we are dining and networking” says the Founder of Epitom Training, Ragulan Tharmakulasingam.

The main problem is the lack of confidence found among professionals when it comes to fine dining and networking. As such, it is imperative to learn dining etiquette and business grooming which enables to dine with confidence regardless of the situation and mingle with others appropriately.

In order to address these critical issues hindering a successful career, Epitom Training has organised a one day workshop on Business and Dining Etiquette at HotelGaladari on 31^st May 2014.

This workshop trains the participants ondifferent kind of menus, different courses of meals, the proper way of using the cutleries and glassware, meeting etiquette, exchanging business cards, dressing for events, the art of hosting and much more. It is notable that the dining etiquette training segment will be conducted with a seven course meal served to the participants, explains Ragulan.

“Nobody will be able to learn these from a textbook or from internet without actually practicing it. The best way is to go out there and have a proper multi course meal under the supervision of theTrainer who is an expert and a specialist in etiquettes” states the Director of Epitom Training Samantha Karandagoda.

He further adds, “our workshop has been titled as ‘Professionalism through non-verbal communication and the art of wine and dine’. Through this workshop we wanted to spread the awareness that proper dining skills are an essential part of a Professional’s basic wardrobe. Simply the message that we have for the Professionals in Sri Lanka is that a business relationship can be built or lost, over a simple meal.”

Being a significant part of corporate training in Sri Lanka for several years, Epitom Training, has ventured various types of professional, technical and soft skills training to thousands of individuals. The range of corporate training provided by Epitom Training includes public workshops of 1 or 2 days training, corporate training courses for 20 to 30 hours and internal training for companies.

“It is never late to learn something than not knowing it forever. If you are a Professional who thinks it’s better to know the proper dining etiquette andthe way to handle yourself in a formal situation. Or if you are interested in grooming yourself and projecting a positive image to others, you can participate in thisworkshop and get trained to transform yourself. Better late than never” invites Ragulan and Samantha.