"I don’t think she likes me." That’s what a car salesman told my stepdad after my mom slammed her hand on his desk and said, "Just tell me the price of the car. I don’t need a friend."
My mom is a very non-confrontational person, but who hasn’t been pushed to the brink negotiating at a car dealership? I once stormed out after retrieving my golf clubs from my "new car" after the financing process went sideways. My wife was once told the car she had just traded in couldn’t be returned after the deal ultimately fell through because the keys were on the roof of the dealership (they found someone with roof access to retrieve the magically traveling keys).
For law enforcement officers, negotiating is often a matter of life and death. I know this because I watch movies. In 1993’s action thriller "The Fugitive," Deputy U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard shoots and kills a fugitive. When a colleague says he believes Gerard should have bargained with the man, Gerard leans in to whisper one of the film’s most iconic lines: "I. Don’t. Bargain."
In the world of meetings and events, you do, in fact, bargain. Much like the car lot, pretty much everything is negotiable. And though these stressful situations can sometimes seem particularly intense, contract expert Therese Jardin wants you to remember that—unlike in the movies—meeting and event negotiations are not high-stakes situations.
"So, everybody, calm down just a little bit—don’t feel like if you make a mistake, it’s going to be the end of the world because it won’t be," says Jardin, instructor of MPI’s Contract & Negotiation Specialist Certificate course.
Having said that, the intersection of money and meetings is no joke. And we’re here to help with The Money Issue.
Jardin offers additional insights in "Contracts: Remember What’s at Stake—and What’s Not" (Page 50). Alongside cost-management tips from many of your industry peers (Page 46), we also address the rise of event registration fees (Page 46), the health of planner and supplier businesses (Page 48), the importance of transparency with veteran independent planner Mozelle Goodwin (Page 52) and more.
As always, I leave you with a quote from someone smarter than me. In this case, it’s former U.S. President John F. Kennedy: "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."
