Convert more sales in Vendor negotiations

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hi how are you doing this morning welcome to the event industry facebook live I am the founder of the event industry Jen singer if this is your first time joining us welcome thank you for coming um this um platform I've developed to help support fellow event planners I've been managing events for over 16 years out of that time I've had my own business for the last three years and I started to create some tools or processes or just elements of like lots of years of experience over the years of planning on these events and I thought that there might be fellow event planners that want to benefit from that and and I could share some expertise so every Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time I go live and talk about a topic and answer any questions that you might have so today we are talking about contract negotiation and contract negotiation can be pretty intimidating there are some fellow event planners that I've talked to or even students who have said that this is something that like they find really challenging because they don't have a lot of the experience and they just don't know kind of how to navigate the whole process and I'm gonna outline a couple things today to consider for negotiating a contract with either like a venue or maybe a vendor say entertainment band maybe a jerk or company all of those are negotiable so just kind of take that into mind and there's a few different things to consider as you're going through the whole negotiation process so first and foremost identify your advantage okay and the most obvious advantage is you're a client and or you're representing a client and someone is running a business and they would like to get your business and that is that is your advantage and you can use that to your advantage but another thing to consider aside from like a bonus advantage is if you are someone that might book multiple events with this particular vendor or venue or if you represent an industry my business Jen senior events I do a lot of corporate events and I do a lot of social I do know weddings so sometimes the business I'm bringing can be a little bit more attractive to a particular vendor because they want to do something outside of weddings not that there's anything wrong with weddings um a lot of stuff I talk about can apply to weddings and other events it's just just not what I do but that could be my advantage sometime is that a group would or a vendor would like to actually work with more corporate clients and so they're willing to give a discount or consider that with within the thing the elements that we discuss from there's price or elements involved and we'll get to that towards the end of like price is not the only thing that you can negotiate so your Vantage could be that you're just a client or that you represent clients that are attractive or that the the company the vendor is actually new to the industry in general and they're looking to book new business so that might be your advantage as well so consider what your advantage is and this will help you in for number two and number two is be confident in assertive now don't waver you know just go into the situation going this is what we need for the event I'm bringing you business this is gonna be great but also you're representing you know a budget and then need and you need to kind of work within that and that's just gonna be a go back and forth so kind of relate it to buying a car like if you arrive at the car at the car lot and you get out and you look like a timid Mouse those salesmen are gonna eat you alive now I've inventors are definitely not as intimidating is that but the situation especially with hotels can be a little intimidating so just approach it with confidence that you are bringing the business and you are coming in the table and ready to kind of look at all the options and get the best price for for your event and as you should so just keep that in mind the third the third element is asked lots of questions now this will just help in terms of what you're able to negotiate whether that's the price or items included so say for instance you are working with a hotel we're working with a venue that has cheers that are available and the cheers that are available are usually three dollars a chair but you're trying to see if maybe you can get them for a dollar a chair and that could be something that you negotiate so asking all a lot of questions as you're going through the process of inquiry can be very helpful to kind of see what are things that you know could be negotiated whether that's a price on a chair or things that are included could be something that you add it's really easy for eventing to kind of throw in you know or discount chairs versus labor because that's time that they have to pay like an actual person so just kind of or food - it's like it's harder for them to discount food of like the menu and stuff that they have to purchase for your guests - so the other elements that are you know might come along it might just be a price it could vary are easier less for for your vendors to to consider the other element related to asking questions as you might want to visit or download our free guide 17 questions asked on a venue tour if you go to the event industry com that's the event industry com there's plenty of awesome freebies that we've created and one of them is 17 questions you should be asking on a venue tour and some of these elements are some of these questions that we put together will definitely help in this contract so you might want to download that and see if that could help you in the negotiating process okay so number four um be respectful and friendly this might sound like an obvious thing I mean I know should be assertive and be confident but also it's still I catch more bees with honey sort of philosophy that people are going to want to do business with people they actually like and you know being demanding or the squeaky wheel it may not be the best Avenue to get the best price or get the best for for you or your client so be respectful and friendly having friends in the industry or having friends that are vendors can definitely be very very helpful okay and the fifth element is kind of relate to some of the things I just talked about is that price is not the only thing that you can negotiate so say for instance a band maybe they have like a 3,000 minimum for a Saturday night like that is their going rate for the you know time frame they're giving them the one thing you could make me negotiate is equipment included or time that they're playing so maybe you start with say this is gonna be 2 hours of playing at $3,000 but you're like well they're not gonna come down in that but maybe we can offer more entertainment let's see if they'll play for two and a half hours or something so or back to the other example of about the chairs or maybe additional you know they discount I know additional tables or something there are other elements to to consider beyond just like the actual price of something that could be something that you throw in it could save you money enhance the event so consider those elements when when doing the negotiation so I hope this was helpful with your next contract if you have any questions I would happy to answer them you can also send me questions at hello at the event industry com that's th e event industry calm and thanks for tuning in and we will see you next Friday at the same time oh one more thing we are launching a digital course yes it's a very exciting in mid-july so details on that coming if you've enjoyed some of this information especially about contract negotiation and we'll go into this a bit more in depth so you want to tune in next week I will have a specific date and some elements to exciting elements to share with you so thanks for joining us have a great weekend and we'll see you next week