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Commission: greed, bribe or part of business

In the marquee hire business commission rears its head from many places. People see you taking £1k for erecting a marquee? They want a part of it. Some are deserved, some aren’t and some fall in between where you have to judge if it’s a sound business idea or not.

There are some sites like National trust properties where part of the agreement in being on the ‘recommended suppliers list’ is paying 10% commission. Whether you increase your normal charges by 10% or pay it out of your normal prices is up to you in all of these cases.

Some caterers ask for commission for any work you pass across and offer in back for return business. Personally I’m not keen on this. Recommendations between people in the industry should be based on a genuine recommendation otherwise it could reflect badly on both parties. Would you choose to recommend someone so you can take commission over someone you knew could do a great job?

Wedding suppliers, wedding coordinators, wedding directories all promise to bring you a whole host of new marquee business in return for commission. To me this is a step too far but hey it’s up to you.

Remember after paying all this commission you have to be still making money.

Thanks for reading

Spencer