Too many cooks spoil the broth? Not so much for event organising. In fact, so many facets and much toil are involved behind the scenes to culminate everything into the few hours or days that an event attendee experiences.
From acquiring a venue, to getting caterers, to setting up an ambience, to media coverage, to hiring photographers or videographers, and so on – the event organiser’s checklist is endless.
Many event organisers we know are not in it full-time! Most organise events out of a passion for the topic or genre. Working on a tight schedule and budget, time and money is of the essence.
If that describes you, here are 3 reasons why you should look into establishing key vendor partnerships to help make your event planning life better!
Partnerships with Vendors
Cost saving
Vendors usually supply goods and services to more than one client so they benefit from greater economies of scale. In other words, the cost advantages obtained with an increased volume could potentially be passed on to you by way of lower prices! Or at least, we’d hope vendors would be nice enough to do that.
Identifying key vendor partners for the long haul makes economical sense. You establish an awesome working relationship – you like them and they like you – and they might just provide some leeway for negotiation. Bingo!
Resource saving
Leverage upon the vendor’s expertise instead of attempting to climb the steep learning curve (unless you’d like to, of course). For instance, what could take a photographer a few minutes to do, could take us eons to learn (and yes, great photography involves more than just a click of the button).
Establishing good working relationships builds a sense of trust and familiarity over time. Both parties understand each other’s nuances and things could be achieved more efficiently. So whilst you leave the job to the expert, your event planning team could focus on the core activities, that is, to plan a fantastic event!
New opportunities
Vendors tend not to work in a vacuum and have great links to other relevant ones. So having good vendor partnerships could extend your reach to other opportunities to partner. For example, hoteliers could possess contacts with good caterers or the media that you could tap into. Who knows, they might introduce you to other event organisers that you could collaborate with as well. Bring on the synergistic value!
There you go, three reasons enough to get you started in establishing long-term vendor partnerships. You seek the expertise, they seek a strong client base – a win-win situation, it’s time to build an ecosystem of partners.
