Suppliers are essential to events planning and you need to make sure you have good working relationship with the suppliers you use, this can be tricky if you are also negotiating costs and services with them so it’s important to get the balance right.

How to approach suppliers?

Whether this is initially when requesting a quote or once you have confirmed their services for the event, it’s important to make sure you give them a good overview of the event and how their services fit it, it will be more difficult and expensive for them to quote if they don’t have all the facts and can lead to confusion further down the line.

Be realistic with budgets

Sometimes things cost what they costs, especially when you consider how much work goes into events. With that in mind you need be realistic about what your budget is for different suppliers and how much you realistically will be charged for certain services. If the suppliers product or services is going over your budget then how can you reduce the service or change the event to fit with the budget

Work together to create the event you want

Communication is really important when planning an event, along with making sure you fully understand what you need to send to the supplier, when you need to send it and how you need to send the assets or information to them so that they are able to fulfil their side of the agreement, make sure you have any supplier deadlines included in your plan for the event.

Seriously consider whether you should change from a good supplier

Sometimes it can be beneficial if you have worked with a good supplier and they know the event, when looking at new suppliers it is worth consider what could go wrong if you are planning to change the suppliers or if you wanted to make changes to the event, bear in mind when keeping on the same supplier they will have insight into the previous event setup, meaning it might be worth talking to them first as they may be able to accommodate the new event.

Tips for negotiating contracts, some people are more comfortable negotiation contracts than others and when you want to get the best prices from an supplier it is always worth being realistic on negotiations, setting realistic expectations before you negotiation and looking at other similar suppliers and how much they charge before you start negotiating