Whether it is a talent buyer like GigRoster.com selling an act to a client or the act themselves trying to get a booking, if the price is not on the table, up front, then the client is stuck and simply cannot consider booking. It is as simple as that.

Does this mean the price has to be low? Certainly not! Many factors go into determining a fair price, but that’s a different discussion. What does matter though is that you give your client prices for all the options you are offering them. Seems obvious, right? Well apparently not to everyone!

You would be surprised how many times as a talent buyer at GigRoster we ask an act to give us their price and availability for a specific event with date, time and location and, even having clearly asked for a price, they tell us yes they can do it but never say how much it will cost (and sometimes want to know, if this is a confirmed booking!). Wait… how can we hire you if we don’t know the charge?

Likewise sometimes we will see talent buyers send options to a client, already knowing the specifics of the gig but without getting the prices from the act or acts they represent. Maybe one of the acts that didn’t answer the question or maybe the talent buyer hasn’t even reached out to the acts yet. It doesn’t matter. The result will be the same.

Not Giving A Client Prices?

It Is A Waste Of Time!

Even worse, if you don’t get prices to the client pretty soon, you will lose a pretty good percentage of those clients because of it. They will walk away if you are not clear. No client can ever book entertainment without first knowing the price. Period. If you are sending promo to anyone for a specific gig, without pricing, why bother?

We have been told, in any kind of sales, clients can and will object to many things that you must overcome before they are ready to make a buying decision. No matter what you are selling though, far and away the largest objection, the literal bottom line, will be price.

To make it a bit more difficult, many times a client will not be comfortable to ask the price. Very few people enjoy negotiating anything in our culture. Even more true with booking talent in our business. This is a service which often involves potential clients who have no experience ever booking talent before. Have you experienced the case where clients that you were in contact with have become unresponsive after you reach out to them? It’s probably because you are not reaching their comfort level in letting them know what the act is going to cost. In many cases they will just feel uncomfortable. In the worst case they will feel played and manipulated like they’ve just encountered the worst caricature of a used car salesman you can imagine. So they go dark. “How much is it going to cost? ...How much you got!!” Let’s not be that person!

It is understandable that you don’t want to shock the client and scare them away with price. You might even be holding back on price because you really don’t want to get a rejection. Well nobody likes rejection, but let’s face it: They need to know. If they are thinking $300 and the price is $2500, don’t you want to know that sooner rather than later? Maybe it’s a little more typical though that you are not nearly so far apart on the price. Get it out on the table so the pain, if any, is over and you can start selling the wonderful benefits of booking this great professional act! As we all know from booking talent for many years that sometimes the price is actually no problem at all. Yay! The client may be more than willing to pay the asking price. Just remember, in no case can the client pay the asking price if you don’t ask.

Providing great service to your clients starts with getting them good information on what will work best for them and the easiest and most important information that must be included? Price.

Price Matters When You Are Booking Entertainment?

Without the price, nothing else matters!