We Make Events Easy to Plan & Enjoyable to Attend

Negotiation Expertise for Event & Conference Planners

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We bring ease, transparency, and fairness to the event procurement and planning process.

Removing guesswork from planning 


Eliminating hidden costs and fees


Negotiating fair and transparent contracts


Building strong relationships with suppliers


Get More for Your Money  |    Unleash Your Creativity   |  Create a “Wow” Event!



Great events never happen by chance. Rushed decisions made without enough information are just too risky. Planning for success begins with early evaluation and thorough vetting of every vendor BEFORE the venue is booked or a contract is signed.



We can do it for you.

WHO WE SERVE

CORPORATE

ASSOCIATION

SPORTS

Testimonials


Meet Your Event Negotiator


Magdalena Bonnelly, MSc.,VEMM,

Founder of Procurement Strategy Group


Lena is an industry veteran with 20+ years of experience working as a procurement specialist and meeting planner in Dallas, TX. She has planned meetings and events globally from Europe to Canada to South America and beyond. Today, she focuses on helping other meeting planners make the most of every dollar.


She earned 2021 Smart Women in Meetings Award by Smart Meetings.

Industry publications seek her advice and opinion:

It’s a Small (Meetings) World After All

How to 10X your conference by Magdalena Bonnelly

Is the Event Industry Facing a Brain Drain?

Third-Party Event Planners Are Taking Charge to Protect Their Contracts — Will It Last?

Rising Production Costs and Labor Shortages Are Holding Back Live Events Recovery


The most recent article in VoyageDallas magazine features Magdalena Bonnelly in their Local Stories - Community Highlights: Meet Magdalena Bonnelly of Event Strategies, LLC dba Procurement Strategy Group


Services We Offer

We offer a comprehensive suite of services that can be tailored to your needs. Some of those services are:

  • relaxing at rewards trip, incentive trip, luxury trip planning, incentive travel planning, employee rewards
  • Introducing Event Forensics


    How would it feel to KNOW your numbers 100% of the time? 


    What if you were able to spend each dollar with purpose?


    What if you could show improved ROI every year for every event?


    Let’s do a deep dive and find ALL the ways you can save.


    Learn more

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    Hotel attrition can be a nasty surprise in your contract with costly consequences. Learn how to mitigate your risk HERE!


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    Don’t Let This Unexpected Fee Hurt You


    Blog

    view of clouds from airplane window, incentive trip flights, incentive trip travel
    By Magdalena Bonnelly October 30, 2024
    Discover the pros and cons of including meetings in an incentive travel itinerary. Should reward travel for employees remain purely about relaxation, or can a few strategic hours of meetings add value? This guide explores both sides to help companies make the best choice for their next corporate incentive trip. Perfect for anyone interested in incentive trip planning, maximizing ROI, and creating rewarding experiences that motivate and inspire teams. Read on to find out what’s best for your team!
    plan profitable conferences, successful conference, strategic meetings management
    By Magdalena Bonnelly July 30, 2024
    Conferences are a fantastic way to bring people together, share knowledge, and build a community. However, if you've ever been involved in organizing a conference, you'll know that they can be expensive to run. Most conferences struggle to break even, let alone turn a profit. But what if I told you that it's possible to plan a conference that not only breaks even but actually turns a profit? In this blog post, we'll explore one key strategy for planning profitable conferences and moving beyond breaking even. Today, we're delving into the world of profitable conferences and how to make them not just successful, but truly memorable and lucrative. And to add a touch of intrigue to our event planning arsenal, we introduce the cutting-edge service of Event Forensics. Planning a conference that not only meets but exceeds your financial goals is a daunting task. With so many moving parts, it's easy to get lost in the sea of different charges, quotes, and contracts. But fear not, dear event planners, for we're here to guide you through the maze and help you emerge victorious. So, what is the secret sauce to planning a profitable conference? Should you CUT cost on decor or activations? Maybe on food and beverage at the hotel? Or maybe you should forgo a 4 piece band during awards dinner and just use the good ole' Spotify list on your iPad? What if I told you that you do not have to cut costs on anything? What if I told you that the only thing you need to do, is put your analytical hat on? Or even better, hire us to do it for you! Let's shine the spotlight on Event Forensics. This innovative service is like having a detective at your side, uncovering valuable insights and data that can significantly boost the profitability of your conference. By analyzing financial info from past conferences, Event Forensics unveils a hidden road to profitability! Imagine being able to identify what drains your budget year after year, because ... inflation.. cost of doing business... leap year... election year.. you get what we are saying! With Event Forensics, every invoice and contract from past conferences is analyzed to identify three things: Your conference's economic impact on the destination Your buying power Opportunities for savings Imagine a store that doesn't do inventory every few months. It loses leverage with its vendors and negotiating better deals looks like "throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks". There is no meaningful strategic conversation possible. And while our competitors will tell you about relying on their negotiating and buying power, we want you to build and rely on your own. Here is what one of the clients said about the Event Forensics service: "It's a guiding tool to help you see whether you are staying within the budget, but it also helps you see whether you have room to play with. And what you helped me do was to get everything together, compare it year to year, to the sponsorship allocation..." Are you curious about the Event Forensics service? Contact us today to get more info!
    A group of people are having a conference budget meeting.
    By Magdalena Bonnelly April 24, 2024
    Do you ever feel like you are not getting the best deal from suppliers? Do you have the feeling that not all fees are being disclosed to you upfront? And then, on top of it, you need to provide updated numbers for budget meetings and show a forecast of the spending to the annual budget for conferences. We can feel the stress building up just by asking the questions! But it's you, who is affected the most by those circumstances. To help you, we created a special service called Event Forensics. When you look at the term “forensics”, it has few meanings, but when we created the service, we focused on this one especially: "scientific analysis of physical evidence (as from a crime scene)" (source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forensic). How this service helps meeting planners is it analyzes "physical evidence" from past conferences, for discussion or debate. And in our world, negotiations with suppliers. After all, negotiations are a discussion or a debate, right? Our sourcing and contract negotiation services, always start with event forensics. Schedule your free consultation here. Let us tell you how this service works . When we start working with you, we will ask you to upload all necessary contracts and invoices from the last three conferences you held. For every $ that you have spent during the conference, we will assign it a category and input it into our proprietary tool. We will compare your contracted room block to the actual number of rooms occupied. If you ended up with an overflow hotel or two, we will input that data as well. We will compare your contracted food and beverage minimum to your actual spending. We will track every meal and f&b function you have had in the hotel and off-site. If you had separate meals for staff, we would track them in a separate column. Production, AV, labor, set up fees, corkage fees, bartender fees, transportation, entertainment, shipping, security, etc. we will input all of those and compare those for you year after year, so you have data from at least the last three years in front of you. If this sounds like a service you need, click here to schedule a free consultation. At the end of our Event Forensics service, you will be provided with a customized "dashboard" where you will be able to gain high-level insights of trends, with recommended customized strategies for future programs. You will know EXACTLY what your conference's economic impact on the destination is. As a final attribute, this service will help with creating the most accurate RFP needs and be ready at any point of the year for budget meetings and updates. One of our clients, with the help of Event Forensics, got rid of overflow hotels for their conference, started sourcing larger hotels for all attendees to stay in the conference hosting hotel, revised the contracted f&b minimum to leverage more concessions, and was ready for budget meetings with CEO, COO and Finance Committee. We would love to help you create unmissable events. Schedule a call TODAY!
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