YOUR ROLE WHEN IT COMES TO VENDOR CONTRACTS

When a client hires you, they’re doing so because they obviously want an expert. While we certainly aren’t lawyers, we should know our way around a vendor contract. One of the biggest mistakes I see planners make is they believe it’s their job to just double check the date, time and names and don’t think to dive deeper. As a planner it’s your job to go through the contract and ask questions the client wouldn’t know to ask. When you see the band asking to provide their own A/V, your immediate response should be: “What will the A/V cost?” or “May I understand what your A/V needs are so I can get a comparison quote?” and so on. When you see the catering saying “Servers are included,” you should ask: “How many servers are included?” or “How many hours will the servers stay at the rate quoted?” Your client will not know to look for these things and if you don’t look for them either, you’ll find yourself telling the client later that they’re $5000 over budget because you didn’t realize the band didn’t include the A/V in the original quote. Or handing them a bill for staffing overtime after the event because enough questions weren’t ask. It’s a learning curve and it’s hard to know everything immediately, but asking more questions than not enough can save you so many headaches in the future.

In effort to make your life a whole lot easier, I’ve created a master checklist for the details I look for in every vendor contract. While I personally use and love all of our templates, this is probably my favorite tool released to date because it will truly shorten your learning curve, save you a lot of grief and save your client’s money. I hope you’ll check it out!