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1. I am an event coordinator in a corporation. My work load has dropped dramatically (many events cancelled) how do I handle this? Do I look for a new job? I suspect my supervisors know I am not too busy but I am not given more work. What is your insight about this situation? Well, it depends! Do you like where you work? Do you see opportunities for doing other things and growing with the company? Are there areas in which you can offer more insights and help the corporation do well? This is not easy to answer. A few things you also might do: read and do the inventory for Strengths 2.0 by Tom Rath and see what your strengths are now that you’ve been doing this job! It IS likely you will discover some new areas in which you can offer other skills/strengths. Consider reading Change Your Questions!! Change Your Life by Marilee Adams and anything by Barbara Sher to look at where you are now and what you want to do. Try not to make this all situational! Look long term! 2. My CFO has cut out my budget line for F&B in the exhibit hall. I've been asked to provide refreshments for sale in the hall. What's more palatable to attendees, do you think, to sell vouchers in advance with registration or cash onsite? You know your audience! Think about what they need and want and what will draw them to the exhibit hall. Moreover, consider the exhibitors! What about F&B for them for the amount they are paying, for the privilege of being there and selling/marketing to your participants? Is this a sponsorship opportunity, and have you yet explored that? If this is a public show, vouchers or cash on-site may be acceptable. If it’s not, I’d be wary of not having anything in the hall: People will go out of the hall for beverages and things to eat! At least I know I do when nothing is served! Consider creature-comfort and talk more with your CFO after doing some research about your audience and understanding their habits. It may take this year to monitor what people do and their level of satisfaction/dissatisfaction before you can make the case. Start building it! 3. Some meetings post a "letter to your manager," which interested attendees can use to justify meeting travel to their managers. Have you seen examples? My target audience needs to get higher sign-off on their travel now. I have seen things like that and have had clients use them! Basically, it gives people the words they may not currently have to explain what they will get out of the meeting/event, and which they can then take to their managers. You might give tips, too, on how to make travel more affordable so that you are helping in all ways. Good luck! 4. Can you share a copy of your RFP? I'm tasked with our company's two incentive programs, but also handle a variety of other corporate events as fill-ins. If those who participated would like a copy of either the RFP or negotiation checklist, please e-mail me at eisenstodt@aol.com with RFP and/or Negotiations Checklist on the subject line. I will get them to you as quickly as I can. (I apologize that I cannot answer other queries.) 5. As a supplier, what is the best way I can reach out and support a planner? SO glad you asked! Thanks! You will deal with all levels of experience in the customers with whom you work. Go back to basics: Ask more questions of them! Tell them you are there to ensure that they and their meeting look good. Ask about their audience demographics, the meeting/event goals and objectives, and what they believe is the most important aspect of what they are trying to do. (In some cases, that may be to get the best rates, in which case you want to help them understand the value of what they are getting by explaining how your company makes money.) Explain everything! Tell them about all the costs they will incur (like ++ on F&B, AV, etc.) and keep the lines of communication open. It sounds so basic that it may seem, perhaps, silly, and yet, too many people try to bluff about their experience and need the encouragement to learn. AND while you are in the booking phase and after, send them links to articles they might find useful and also to ensure the person/s to whom you hand them off to (CSM, etc.) will be as helpful. 6. If you don't work for a large company with a law department to "have your back,” what options are available to ensure that contracts are equitable to both parties? Keep participating in webinars and reading industry information. Use www.google.com/alerts for to push information on topics such as hotel contracts and hotels to you, and find out what’s going on. See if you can work into your budget money to hire an outside attorney who is a member of the Academy of Hospitality Industry Attorneys (www.ahiattorneys.org/index2006.html), and check with other planners to see who they recommend. 7. Any thoughts on inexpensive table decorations? Who would you check with regarding donating centerpieces? I think I mentioned doing something that can be donated, like a basket or bucket with school supplies, tall, colorful pencils can be fun, or flowers from another event at the property. Check with your convention services manager for some ideas, and also with someone in catering. They often have seen and done some great things on limited budgets. Re: donating, ditto, and ask local agencies like United Way what may be needed and where. 8. How would you handle the situation whereby an officer of your company or exec with an association charges things in a hotel to the master account. When you start checking your bill you see charges that are not familiar to you. You can cover that first in the contract about who may and may not sign to the master account, who will and will not be recognized as authorized signatories, and what back-up you require. Then you can put it in your Event Services Guide (aka “resume”) and reiterate it at the pre-con(vention) meeting. Finally, schedule time late each day to meet with accounting to review the charges posted daily and again first thing the next morning to check what may have been posted overnight. Further, set some rules and ensure your CEO (unless she/he is the one doing so!) discusses them prior to the meeting and follows through on holding people accountable for what they spend that is not theirs to spend! 9. The hotel we are working with for our annual conference seems to nickel and dime us. For example, we need a room for a maximum of four hours one day for a board meeting (came up unexpectedly) and they want to charge us $500 for room rental or add $1,000 to the F&B guarantee. In the meantime, we are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars overall. Why do some suppliers not want to cooperate in this economy? This is complicated and it does depend on so many things. The best thing to do at this point in this or a like situation is to sit down first with the convention services manager assigned to your account and ask about the other business in house and find out if they hotel is booked solid or anticipates competition for the business for the time you need the meeting. (Is there, for example, a group that has the space just after that and the hotel will have to add extra labor to re-set the room?) Then find out what it costs to operate the room for the set up, meeting time and tear down, and try to negotiate a different arrangement. Because I don’t know the extent of the set-up for your meeting or the other circumstances, it is tough to give an absolute on this. Find out more and then negotiate with an understanding to what the hotel needs as well. 10. Our CEO read a book about sponsorship that said hotels should be paying the company bringing the meeting because of all the business and publicity they are giving the hotel. He said our organization will not sign contracts with penalties anymore (attrition, etc.). Have you ever heard of properties doing this? I am a voracious reader and sometimes think reading is dangerous if one is getting only one point of view! First, regarding contracts: They are there for all the protection of all parties. If there is a negotiated arrangement for attrition, etc., it is far better than if there is nothing. Law takes precedence and if there is a contract without a negotiated attrition clause, for example, the group is responsible, by law, for ALL that is booked. More, I am a believer in fair and smart business dealings. I do not know if the company for whom you work provides a service or a product. I wonder if your CEO believes that in tough times for his company, it should pay the customers vs. the customers paying them! I’m not sure of the kind of publicity your meeting will generate and how it will benefit the hotel. If there is what both parties consider a substantial benefit, it may be a negotiating point. It should not, however, in my opinion, take the place of a smart contract with all information spelled out; rather it can be part of a contract. (PR, however, is a bit tough to quantify.) Hotels are in business to make money, if they don’t, we will continue to see service suffer and hotels go into foreclosure. Maybe do a bit of research to find out what hotels think about this kind of arrangement and e-mail the author of the book read by your CEO to ask specifically what she/he had in mind regarding contracts! BONUS QUESTIONS! 11. I believe rate caps/provisions are important in the contract. They ensure that the conference sleeping room rates offered to you by the hotel will not be greater than the lowest rate offered through any other promotional packages during the conference dates, and they ensure the rates will not increase. What are Joan's thoughts. Re-quoting my friend and colleague, attorney Barbara Dunn, it depends! It’s a provision I might have used years ago until I understood more about where and how the discounted rates played in. 12. How can a planner handle the fact that a hotel has a lower room rate on their website than was negotiated in the contract? Is there any statement that can be added to a contract to prevent this from happening? I'm more concerned with the lower rate on a website and not so much with Expedia or Cheap Tickets, etc., listing it. Is it the lower rate or whether or not your group will get credit toward the block for those rooms? I would be more concerned about the latter. I have had to deal with (negotiate during the process) situations in which one person got a better rate and then told others. There is not that much that can be done to prevent this from happening. (See response to another question about lowest available rate.) There are ways to open up the lines of communication to discuss and ensure that there is an equitable solution. (An equitable solution is one that is good for all parties!) |
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