A different sort of payment plan
A musician is selling her work in a way that made me think meetings—at least, some meetings—might be able to profit from. Jane Siberry lets people download her music from her site, then choose to either take it for free, pay what they think it’s worth now, or listen for a while and later pay what they decide it’s worth. In a very smart move, she also posts
% Accepting gift from Jane: 17% (freebie)
% Paid by determining price: 37%
% Paying Later:46%
Avg Price Per Track: $1.14
% Paid Below Suggested: 8%
% Paid At Suggested: 79%
% Paid Above Suggested: 14%
Could a meeting planner let the market decide what the going rate would be for a conference? It’s a scary thought, until you look at those numbers. Only 8 percent paid below the suggested price, while 14 percent paid more. If your meeting is compelling enough, this could work. For a meeting this spring that had a fairly low pricetag, I actually paid double what they were asking for (and then ended up not going, but that’s another story), because what they were doing is that important to me. Could an honor system work for your event? It might be worth thinking about.
Thanks to Freakonomics for the pointer.
Related Topics: Business stuff, Strange but true, Meetings and conventions
May 7th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Hmmm… either you’re running out of material or this idea is starting to get traction…
Deja vu?
May 8th, 2006 at 9:54 am
Thanks for the reminder–I had forgotten all about that post! While I have yet to hear of a meeting doing this, I just got an e-mail this morning from someone who is proposing that his national association give it a whirl for setting affiliation fees from state and local chapters, even though he doubts they’ll be willing to take the risk.
I think the idea is getting traction, even if the practice isn’t. Once we get a few more examples of it working successfully, though, we may see more willing to take the risk. Or not. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.
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