 Cultivating a good relationship with third-party planners and site selection professionals can lead to a bevy of business. And while there are a lot of things in common with these planners, with other planners, there are some subtle differences that you can do in your communications to grab their attention and get more business. So keep watching. Hey friends, it's Leanne from leancolderwood.com and third-party meeting planners as well as site selection professionals can work on multiple programs throughout the year. And although sometimes they're not the final decision maker, their recommendation on venues, on speakers, on AV firms, it can go a long way with that end user. Cultivating a relationship, a strong working relationship with these types of planners can lead to a multitude of clients behind the scenes that they're working with. So we're going to go through today some differences in how you communicate with these types of planners as opposed to potentially a corporate meeting planner or an association meeting planner. Now I did a post in a video not too long ago about working with corporate planners and you can access that video here. And a lot of things that you do with corporate planners can also be transferred over to third-party planners and site selection professionals. But let's talk about those subtle differences. Let's dive in. Firstly, let's talk about three differences that differentiate a corporate or association planner from a third-party planner. First and foremost, and I alluded to this already, is that third-party planners tend to work on multiple, multiple programs throughout the year. Some site selection professionals probably contract over 100 or even 200 contracts a year. So there's a lot of clients behind those contracts that you would have access to. So that's the biggest difference, is just the sheer volume of meetings that they are working on year over year. The second difference is that they have made the meetings and events industry their career. There are no other tasks on their plate except for ones that pertain to meetings and events growing their businesses as professionals in the industry. Oftentimes with corporate planners, they also wear a number of different hats as well, but not with these third-party planners. And the third difference in my opinion is that third-party planners are very, very keen on keeping their certifications up to date. They will build time and money into their business to stay certified, stay up to speed on meetings and events, trends that are happening in their area, and you often see them at all the different conferences. So it's a great opportunity to network with them because these planners, more so than some corporate planners, will tend to put time and money into investing and growing their career and their skill set. Now let's talk about some tips on how to work with these third-party and site selection professional planners. First and foremost, when you're emailing them, please reference the program that you are working on together. Like I said, they work on multiple programs. And so a frame of reference is really important for that third-party planner to catch up and figure out what program that the two of you are communicating about. Now if you need tips on how to frame your emails, I've done a few videos on email correspondence with all meeting planners. You can check out one of those email videos up in the corner here as well as I'll put the links below this video and you can go straight to those blog posts. But putting the frame of reference of the program that you are working on is critical when communicating with third-party planners via email. Second tip when working with these types of planners is having patience. They do work on a multitude of programs and sometimes of years for them are extremely busy. They also tend to travel a lot because they do get out to conferences and networking events and of course are on site for all of these programs that they plan. So having patience when you do a follow-up with them is critical for building that relationship and cultivating a strong respectful working relationship. The third tip is to read the RFP very thoroughly before creating a list of questions back to the planner. Now I confess planners do a terrible job of filling out RFPs and I am certainly one of them and we miss a lot of information and you need to add information in order to fill out the RFP properly. But I think one of the biggest pet peeves that third-party planners have and site selection professionals have is questions that have been answered in the RFP. So I vow to do you a solid and do a better job of filling out my RFPs if you can do the same and limit the questions to the ones that are not answered in the RFP and do a great job of reading that RFP before reaching out with your list of questions. Are we good on that one? Perfect, thanks. Fourth tip when working with site selection professionals especially is to limit the follow-up. Now often these professionals are dealing with dozens of programs at a time which means there are dozens of proposals maybe for each individual program. Getting emails every single week from every single hotel can become an email flood and so in order for us to respond in a timely manner and in an accurate manner limit your follow-up and give us a little bit of time to get back to you. The other thing is often the final decision is out of our control so we are also waiting for an update and we stage our updates accordingly with our end user client so we will get you that information but sometimes it just takes some time. Now if you need more tips on following up on proposals there is yet another video that you can find up here and a blog post below about doing a follow-up with meeting planners. The fifth tip and this is more something just to keep in mind is in the end we are the client's advocate and often we need to educate the client on what are some do's and don'ts when working with suppliers in the meetings industry. Sometimes that information doesn't get through and we need to request information on behalf of our client that may or may not be a reasonable request but in the end we are their advocate and it's up to us what least ask the question and then provide the answer that you have for us back to the client. So please just give us a little patience and a little bit of leeway with that because in the end we are the client's advocate. And the sixth and final tip is to also remember that we are your advocate so if there is something that's going to set you apart in my client's eyes please let me know that because those are the things that I can use to put your proposal potentially up and above all the other proposals that I've received for a particular program so we are your advocate and we want you to win the business. We are here to fight for you give us the information that we need in order to do that and we will do our very best. Now that you have a few more tips on how to work with busy third party planners remember that the relationship is only as good as the cultivation. Stay in touch with them find them on LinkedIn approach them at networking events and conferences and start working on building a trust-filled and respectful working relationship. If you enjoyed this video I invite you to share it with your colleagues especially those who are new to the industry and haven't worked with busy third party professionals before. Share this video with them comment on this video and don't forget to subscribe to my channel as I have videos that come out every week. Thanks for watching and we will see you next time bye for now.