Want to Save Money? Negotiate!
It may seem so common sense in saving money when planning your next corporate meeting. Your boss tells you to "negotiate." But what do you negotiate?
Quite often we are so enmoured with the exotic location of the meeting, or wowed by the amenities of the hotel or resort, or even excited about the snazzy light show that was quoted by the most presigious audio-visual company. What is not practiced enough is the art of negotiating everything! The only way you are going to be effective at this "tool" for reducing costs is to plan early. How many times have you been in a time crunch planning that next event and failing to negotiate all the vendors you could have. "Woulda, coulda, shoulda" never helped anyone!
Here is what you should do to save yourself costs on your next event:
- Plan at least 6 months ahead of your event date
- Choose at least 3 possible locations for the event
- Negotiate the sleeping rooms
- If ordering meals, negotiate the rooms, meals and amenities all in a package
- Most importantly, get an outside quote on all your audio/visual. You can save literally thousands doing this!
- Negotiate with all specialty vendors. (i.e. florist, theme decor, entertainment)
- Negotiate with all outside activity vendors. (i.e. jeep tours, shopping excursions, etc.)
- Line up a meeting planner as a back up if you run out of time or cannot get your "prefered pricing"
Negotiate everything! It never hurts to ask if there is a discount, or corporate rate, or any other types of "dollars off."