[Lnc-business] Informal Poll LNC December Meeting

[Scott L.]

I strongly agree with what the Secretary wrote below.

 

Ms.  Mattson did a spectacular job of creating spreadsheets comparing the
competing hotels for 2012 and 2014, but needless to say it took her a lot of
time to create those spreadsheets.

 

I think it would be a very good idea to use Helms-Briscoe to help us select
the 2018 Convention site.


  Scott Lieberman

 

  _____  

 

"Helms Briscoe helps scout out options for meeting sites within whatever
parameters we give them.  They solicit the bids for us from the hotels.  We
can tell them what data we want to know about each property, and they'll
collect it for us.

The committee we appoint to oversee the process will narrow the field down
based on data comparisons, and Helms Briscoe will further negotiate the
offers with the finalists.

Helms Briscoe does not have any authority to commit us to anything on their
own.  We have the final say.  In the end, after all the data assembly is
done, if we don't like any of the offers on the table, we can walk away and
can do it a different way if needed.

During the LNC meeting at which we were going to vote on the 2016 site,
there were two Helms Briscoe agents on site.  While we were debating other
business, they were in the hallway on the phones with the finalists
leveraging the offers against each other to get additional last-minute
concessions.  At the time of the vote, they came in and told us which items
on our spreadsheets they had improved in the meantime - this one dropped
their guest room rate by $10/night, that one lowered their food/beverage
requirement, the other one is offering new perks, etc.

 

The LNC is billed nothing for this service.  If we accept one of the
contracts Helms Briscoe negotiated for us, then they get paid by the
hotel...kind of like how a realtor gets paid out of the seller's revenues.

Speaking as a person who did a lot of work for the 2012 and 2014 site
scouting processes, using Helms Briscoe for 2016 saved me an incredible
amount of time so I could do other projects instead.  

Their people have a lot of experience in event planning and negotiating
these types of contracts.  We can have experts on our side even if the LNC
members aren't experts in the subject.

If circumstances change and something goes sour with the contract after it
is signed, Helms Briscoe agents will step back in to assist us while we
navigate the problem with the hotel.

I was very pleased with the experience with them last time.

We should decide early on whether or not to use them for 2018, before we
solicit any formal bids from hotels.  If we use them, Helms Briscoe should
submit our RFP, collect the bids, and take the ball from there.

 

  Alicia"

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