I’ve put together a few tips of how to make things easier, resulting in you not have to search through loads of emails to find information, or looking through your notes for an answer or a price etc.
The planning period between your agency and the local DMC is usually hectic. Keep an open and effective information flow during the planning period. With everyone having several other projects going on, having to manage clients, a delayed decision making process and shorter timescales for new projects, the planning period is an intense time.
1) Create an overall project skeletal/ plan.
Create an overall project skeletal/plan in Microsoft Excel from the very beginning. Project management tools like Google Docs, Trello or Dropbox allow for real time updates for multiply users. Also, Slack is a great system for updates and chat for a group connected in a project.
If you do not want any of the above alternatives and prefer to use Microsoft Excel, make sure you update your file whenever something is agreed or amended, using a change of time & date as the reference point for latest version control along with your initials.
2) Use the financial quote as a start, or if you have a set program, have the DMC provide an exact quote for that program. That way you have the services in the same order as the program with both documents following the same operation.
3) Make sure you have columns for “day, date and time start, time finish, service description, notes, number of delegates, number of units, price per unit, total, vat of total, and space to write notes”. Contact us at info@accomplish.gr or go to our programs follow the instructions and download your template.
4) The first note column is to describe services and rates in detail, the second note column is to put in the clients wishes and what things are important to remember.
5) When the project or event is close to starting you can also create other sheets in the same file, such as delegate lists and menus etc. This way this file will become a finished technical book for you.
6) Last but not least, as DMCs like to deliver correct information on time, together create a timeline with deadlines for the project, that way everyone knows what has to be finished and done by what date. This also applies to financial agreements, such as 1st deposit, 2nd deposit etc.
Hope this can ease your planning period and help you to from spending unnecessary time trawling through emails with long threads for answers and information.
Good luck with your forth-coming planning periods!
-Annie Kathrine Vangsnes- CEO Accomplish Conference & Events.
