 Meeting planners, have you started to look ahead to your future programs and thought, yeah, maybe I'll attend to those in January? Well, I'm here to tell you that maybe doing them now here in December, this is the time to strike. Today I'm going to show you five benefits for submitting your RFPs before year-end. Stick around. Hey friends, it's Leanne and the close of the year is seemingly a good time to take your foot off the gas pedal a little bit, get some rest and start to gear up for the year ahead. But what if I told you that this is the time of year to submit RFPs and maybe actualize some cost savings and additional concessions because of the time we're in? This could result in money back to your organization and I'm gonna share with you today five reasons that this happens. Now, before we launch into the benefits of submitting a year-end RFP, I encourage you to subscribe to my YouTube channel and make sure you click the little bell to be notified of when I have new content coming out. Okay, so let's look at those benefits for submitting year-end RFPs to hotels and venues. Benefit number one, current year rooms and rentals pricing. By submitting your RFP here in December, there's a chance that you can lock in pricing for the current year versus waiting until January and seeing some of those costs potentially go up. So look to put your RFP in before year-end and save some money on both your meeting room rentals and your guest room rates. Benefit number two, additional incentives and concessions. This is the time of year that hotels and hotel sales teams really wanna close out business and get a fresh start in Q1. So they're willing to provide additional incentives and additional concessions to allow you to close your business. These are things that you can even potentially negotiate to carry over into Q1. But if you've got some time this month to close some business, this could be a good time to capitalize on some concessions for your team. Benefit number three, current year food and beverage pricing. So similar to benefit number one, you can negotiate the current year's food and beverage pricing into your contract for your program that's going to happen years down the line. So look at that as one of the concessions and maybe look into locking in that cost savings that you can put towards your bottom line. Benefit number four, flexibility and contract negotiations. So similar to everything else, the hotel sales teams really wanna close this business and start the year off fresh and clean. So they may have a little bit more flexibility around some of those contract clauses that could have potentially been stickier in months prior. Now I did do a blog post and vlog not too long ago about some contract negotiations and why us meeting planners just can't do that. And you can check out the vlog at the YouTube link that appears up here if you're watching this on YouTube. You can also find that blog post in the description for this video as well. But again, if there are things that are important to your organization, this might be the time to discuss those with the hotel and see if they can't be worked into those year-end contracts. Benefit number five and my favorite one is you get it off your plate. I do not like procrastination. So if there's something that I can do this month instead of waiting until next month, I'm gonna do it today. And so getting that RFP off of your plate so you as well can start the year fresh and ahead of the game because now you have those hotel proposals in hand, you're way ahead of your goals already. So if you have some time this month to get that RFP off the corner of your desk, you're setting your clean desk out for success when you come back to the office after the holidays. But if you're still looking to grab a gingerbread latte and maybe find some time to do some holiday shopping, I encourage you to check out the services that Steven and I offer our clients in the areas of site selection, contract negotiation and proposal management. We're happy to take that RFP off your hands, ask the right questions of the hotel to ensure that when you come back from holidays, you have the proposals at hand and you're ready to make some informed decisions. Reach out to Steven and I today. We are working throughout the month of December to ensure that your RFPs are well in hand. Thanks for watching and happy holidays everyone. Bye for now.