I'm probably being very simplistic here. However, I'd have thought it was a given that having a tourist agency selling your tickets was pretty crucial in winning the task as selling cold on the streets (although some of them were great at it *cough* Liz *cough*) is pretty tough. Now looking at percentages, if you sell £1000 altogether and the agency sells £650 and you sell £350 but also make £200 in extras (now sound like a porn movie), the figures run thus:
At 35% of the agency's sales (the going rate) - £227.50
At 20% of everything - £240
It's not that much of a difference. The big question is, how much confidence did they have in their own sales technique? Liz seemed to sell very well on her own but still, the agency sales counted more. If the agency sells much more than the team, then obviously, the team have made a good deal but if the team sell brilliantly it's less good. Personally, I'd still go all out to secure the agency deal. Stuart's mistake was thinking he could seriously undercut the going rate but Chris wouldn't have known that. With the figures they were talking about, 20% of the total isn't that much more than 35% of the agency's total sales and if it's going to secure them the deal it could well be worth it. Whether Chris thought about any of this or whether he just plucked a figure out of the air is, of course, open to question - but he was still obviously far more committed to securing the most important deal of the day than anyone on the other team.
