How to Cultivate Rewarding Vendor Relationships

Behind every excellent event planner stands a team of reliable, experienced vendors. The right vendor relationships can make or break an event planning company, especially in today’s climate of economic competition. As an event planner, it is crucial that you understand how to cultivate the right relationships with your vendors in order to launch your business into new realms of success.

The Importance of the Right Vendors

Orchestrating any event, especially a large and important event, is a very careful balancing act. Vendors supply just about everything except the guests, which means that even one less-than-stellar vendor can cause the entire event to lose its balance. Whether the food is only lukewarm or the flowers look sad and wilted, guest experience will be impacted by vendor errors.

Vendors include the art director, caterer, bartender, calligrapher, decorator, florist, graphic artist, photographer, videographer, performer, transportation personnel, and more. Those are no small tasks!

Begin with Research

Looking at a vendor’s website is an important first step, but you need to move far beyond that to ensure you are choosing a trustworthy vendor you will want to keep around long term. Talk to other people in the industry who might have experience with that vendor, look at Internet reviews, and then give each potential vendor a call. By combining your gut instinct with the information you collected, you’re bound to pick the best choice.

Communicate

As the event planner you are the ringleader, but all of your vendors are also working very hard to make your event a success. They need to receive information from you in a timely manner and know that they can come to you for problem-solving if needed. For example, if you discover that a client has a wheat allergy, you need to communicate that to your caterer and brainstorm the best solutions. Each vendor relationship will require this type of cooperation in order to flourish into a trusting and lasting relationship.

Become a Master at Follow Up

Just like a bride needs to send thank you cards after her big day, you also need to maintain strong vendor relationships by making your appreciation and gratitude clear. Send a thank you card of your own, make a call, or even send a small gift. Even the smallest gestures will remind your vendors that they enjoy working with you and want to do everything possible to help make your events a success.