No greeting. No occasion. No context.
"How much for 50 people on the 14th?"
Sales teams read this as a tire-kicker and respond accordingly, either with a stall ("happy to discuss, when can we hop on a call?") or with a wall of pricing that answers nothing.
Both responses lose the booking.
The person sending that message is usually an office manager, an executive assistant, or someone who got handed this task on top of their actual job. They have been told to find a place, they have four venues to check, and they need a number to put in a spreadsheet.
They are not trying to negotiate. They are trying to finish a task.
Treating that person as a low-quality lead is a category error. They are frequently the fastest-closing buyer you will talk to all week, because there is no emotion in the decision and no committee.
The instinct to withhold price until you can "add value on a call" comes from sales training that predates the internet.
A buyer with four venues to check will get a number from at least two of them today. If you are not one of those two, you are not in the consideration set when the spreadsheet gets filled in. You did not lose on price. You lost on not being there.
The other failure is sending everything. Every package, every tier, every seasonal variation, every minimum, in a PDF.
Now the busy person has to do work to find their answer, and they will do that work at the venue that just told them.
The right answer is a real, honest, useful number for their specific date and headcount, plus exactly one question that could change it.
"For 50 on Saturday the 14th, our food and beverage minimum in that room is X, which typically lands around Y per person with our standard package. Quick question so I can be accurate: is this a seated dinner or a reception?"
You gave them the spreadsheet number. You stayed in the conversation. You asked a question that is obviously in their interest to answer.
Mia gives the honest number when the number is knowable from your rules, because a price you have published is not a secret. When the answer genuinely depends on judgment, or when the request falls outside your standard terms, she says so plainly and brings in a person rather than inventing a figure.
The rule is simple. Never quote what you cannot honor. Never withhold what you have already published.
Price is not a trap to be avoided. It is the first question a busy person asks, and answering it fast is a form of respect.
