Exercises: Vendor Management

Several of these require talking to real vendors. Those are the ones that build the asset.

Difficulty guide: ⭐ Foundational (5–10 min) · ⭐⭐ Intermediate (10–20 min) · ⭐⭐⭐ Challenging (20–40 min) · ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Advanced (40+ min)

Part A: Conceptual Understanding ⭐

A.1. Explain "you are assembling a temporary company." Where does a planner's authority actually come from, and what is the practical test of whether you have any?

A.2. Why does searching produce worse vendors than asking? Rank the sourcing channels and explain the top and bottom.

A.3. Why is "if you were getting married, who would you use?" better than "who would you recommend?"

A.4. Name the four columns in the vendor matrix that feed a document in another chapter, and say which chapter each feeds.

A.5. Explain why "what did you have to manage?" produces better information than "what went wrong?"

A.6. What are you actually learning from the failure question?

A.7. Define without looking back: portfolio consistency, scope of supply, comparable proposals, the risk sheet, reciprocity of the network.

A.8. Why is "paid on time" first on the list of what vendors value, ahead of communication and respect?

Part B: Applied Analysis ⭐⭐

B.1. Build a matrix from a walk. Take a 140-guest wedding at a raw site. Walk the day from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. and list every business that appears. Compare your list to a list of vendors you would name from memory. How many did the walk find that memory did not?

B.2. Write the reference call. Script all four questions plus your openers and follow-ups. Then write the four answers you would consider red flags, and the four you would consider excellent.

B.3. Compare three proposals. Build the full three-section sheet for these caterers at 130 guests, 8% tax:

Compute loaded rates. Adjust for inclusions (china/glass ≈ $14/guest). Rank on cost, on scope, and on risk. Which do you recommend, and what changes if the client's ranking has food first?

B.4. Write an RFP. All seven sections, for floral, at a raw site in October, from a vision document specifying "loose, unstructured, not shiny," a $2,500 allocation, and a veto on baby's breath.

B.5. Rewrite the discount ask. Here are four bad negotiation openings. Rewrite each using target-and-constraint:

• (a) "Can you do anything on the price?"
• (b) "We've got another quote that's cheaper."
• (c) "What's your best price?"
• (d) "The budget is what it is, unfortunately."

B.6. Interrogate a preferred list. A venue supplies a required list of four caterers. Write the questions you ask the venue, and then the questions you ask the caterers about each other.

B.7. The exclusions audit. Take any real vendor proposal and list everything it does not include. Price each omission. What is the true cost?

Part C: Real-World Application ⭐⭐–⭐⭐⭐

C.1. Ask the sourcing question. ⭐⭐⭐ Ask five real vendors in your market: "If you were getting married, who would you use for [a category outside their own]?" Record the names and the reasons. Then ask "and who would you avoid?" and record what happens.

Add every name to your vendor file. This exercise alone will produce better vendors than a year of searching.

C.2. Build the vendor matrix template. ⭐⭐ Every column from §12.3. Make it something you can populate in twenty minutes for a real engagement.

C.3. Run a real reference call. ⭐⭐⭐ Find someone who has worked with a vendor you do not know, and run the four questions. Write up what you learned that you could not have learned from a portfolio.

C.4. Shadow an event. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Get onto an event where you can watch vendors work — any capacity. Observe one vendor's crew for two hours. Write 500 words on what you could not have known any other way.

C.5. Ask a vendor what planners get wrong. ⭐⭐ Ask three vendors in different categories: "What do planners do that makes your job harder?" and "What does a good one do?" Compare their answers to §12.8's list. Where does your market differ?

C.6. Feed a crew. ⭐ If you get onto any event, find out how the crew was fed, when, and where. Note who noticed.

Part D: Synthesis and Critical Thinking ⭐⭐⭐

D.1. Cross-chapter integration. The vendor matrix feeds the certificate table (Ch.9), the contact sheet (Ch.26), the power budget (Ch.18), the timeline (Ch.25), and the vendor-meal count (Ch.14). Build the single master document and show which columns feed which downstream view. Where would a change propagate incorrectly?

D.2. Critique the threshold concept. "You are assembling a temporary company" is presented as clarifying. Construct the case that it overstates the planner's role — that vendors are professionals who do this every weekend, mostly without planners, and that the coordination a planner performs is largely ceremonial. Then respond. What is the strongest evidence either way?

D.3. The reciprocity problem. The network runs on reciprocity, which means a planner who recommends a vendor is partly transacting rather than advising. Chapter 1 argued against commissions on exactly this reasoning. Is an unpaid reciprocal recommendation different in kind, or only in degree? Where would you disclose it?

D.4. Transfer. Compare vendor management here with a field that has mature supplier management: construction subcontracting, film production, or manufacturing procurement. What do they do that events cannot, and why? Import one practice that would work.

D.5. Design the vetting shortcut. A month-of coordinator (Ch.2) inherits eleven vendors they did not select, eight weeks out. Design the fastest useful vetting pass — what you check, in what order, and what you do with a red flag at that stage.

Part M: Mixed Practice (Interleaved) ⭐⭐–⭐⭐⭐

M.1. (Ch.9 + Ch.12) A vendor cannot produce a certificate after three weeks. Chapter 8 called this the engagement-stopping signal. Write what you say to the vendor and what you say to the client.

M.2. (Ch.6) A caterer's proposal is $12/head cheaper than the next. Give the four most likely explanations and say which you check first.

M.3. (Ch.8) A florist refuses to add a substitution clause. Is this a red flag, a template artifact, or reasonable? What do you do?

M.4. (Looks like one thing, is another) A vendor's references are all glowing and none mention anything going wrong. What does this most likely mean, and what do you ask next?

M.5. (Ch.4 + Ch.12) The RFP includes an extract of the vision document. Which sections do you send to a caterer, a florist, and a DJ — and which section do all three receive?

Part E: Research and Extension ⭐⭐⭐⭐

E.1. Map your market's network. Interview six vendors and ask each the sourcing question about three categories. Build the graph — who recommends whom. Which names recur? Write 700 words on what the structure tells you.

E.2. Investigate how vendor commissions and referral arrangements actually work in your market. Ask three vendors directly whether they pay for referrals and what is normal. Report honestly, including where you could not get a straight answer. (Chapter 1 §1.5, Chapter 37.)

E.3. Compare vendor selection practice across event types. Interview a corporate meeting planner and a nonprofit gala organizer about how they select suppliers. What is formalized there that is informal in weddings, and why? (Chapters 31 and 32.)

Solutions

Selected solutions: appendices/answers-to-selected.md. Templates: appendices/appendix-a-templates-and-worksheets.md. Rubrics: instructor-guide/additional-assessments/all-assessments.md.