Posted by Rick on February 27, 1998 at 22:04:21 :
In Reply to: What would you do? posted by Carl Jones on February 17, 1998 at 07:25:15 :
: the biggest problem i am up against in my city are
the restaurants
: who try to help their ailing businesses by
catering.... they underbid
: me, get the job, screw up, then stop catering....
meanwhile, i have
: to wait a year to get the annual banquet... by
then, there is a
: new committee without knowledge and another new
caterer underbidding
: again.... it is a vicious cycle... fortunately, we
prevail as many
: groups (especially corporate) refuse to work with
anyone except
: my company....
: last year i lost 3 large events to restaurants who
under
: priced the events to get them... each event (and i
attended them)
: was a disappointment to the guests and an
embarrassment
: to the client.... it was so humerous watching them
panic
: i am well known in my city and the "restaurateur"
would
: see me and turn red, knowing that i know how bad he
is
: screwing this up... and they know they under cut me
and
: they KNOW we would have done a great job, and they
KNOW
: that they look like the village idiot at this
point...
:
: ANYWAYS, as fun as that sounds, i am crying as i
pass the
: bank.... we need to be proactive!.... come on, what
do
: you think???
: what would you do to proactively market against
this
Carl,
I have run into the same problem recently. I was bidding on an annual fashion show luncheon that we had catered in previous years. But as is usually the case with this type of event, the committee planning the event was a different group of volunteers from the previous years. When, they collected the proposals, we were one of the more expensive ones, and the committee was only concerned with price. I explained to the committee chairwoman that we were committed to them having a succesful and flawless event and that we had done their event in year's past and we knew how important the event is to them. I then convinced h