The art of negotiation

If you read about brand awareness then experts claim there are three categories of people, those who will only buy brands, those who can be convinced of buying brands and those who refuse to buy brands. It has to do with how people wish to be perceived by their peers. Don’t ask any further, I’m already teetering out of my depth.

relating this to marquee hire you’re going to face some potential bookings where they just keep wanting to negotiate the price down, it may even just seem a point of principal (see the recent apprentice contestant getting 1p off a £365 top hat!).

Just speaking from my experience this isn’t about the customer saving money, it’s generally about them being able to say to their guests what a good deal they’ve got.

For that reason I found it much more successful offering people something for free rather than giving them money off. For example say you’ve got someone trying to negotiate over a booking for £1500. It’s much better for you giving them an entrance tent say worth £200 rather than knocking off £150 off the price. It’s only adding a bit of time for you rather than taking money out of your pocket. The customer (I’d say 9 times out of 10) is just as happy, they can say to their guests that they’ve got a £1700 marquee for £1500 even though originally they didn’t even want the £200 extra you added in.

One last frustrating point, if you ever forget something for that job it will always always be a component for the thing you’ve thrown in free of charge!

Thanks for reading

Spencer