31 Silver Linings – A Writing Challenge {Day 29}

My day job is conference planning.  I’ve spent the good part of a few days now trying to renegotiate a hotel contract that, simply put, was the pits this year.  I did everything within my power to avoid going back to this property but I knew that it would be for naught.  So, instead, I worked hard to get some concessions from the hotel to make our experience this time around a better one.  After MUCH back and forth, I’m at least satisfied that we won’t be in quite the same situation for next year’s go around.

The topic of concessions is an interesting to me.  This whole process was a great deal of back and forth and give and take, on both our part and that of the hotel.  What can you give me to make up for that which you refuse?  What can I get to make this more appealing to me to rebook?  What do we need to do to make this work for both of us, successfully?  If either party simply stood their ground and refused to budge, the deal would be off.  Our image of each other might be tainted, which could impact future partnerships.  Moreover, we would have lost the potential program dates and been back to square one in our search for a venue;  they would have lost potential revenue and the respect of an event planner, who knows a lot of other event planners.

I’ve got a late meeting coming up this evening.  I work with healthcare professionals, so sometimes it’s simply easier to do an early or late meeting.  Yes, it is outside of “normal” business hours.  Yes, it is inconvenient for me in a million ways.  But I’m making a concession – one that, hopefully, will make this program run more smoothly in the long run.