So you need your pool fixed, want to build an addition to your house, or you need a new engine for your 1967 Corvette. Or perhaps you want to put in central air or need your driveway paved. Or what about a need to conduct some market research?
What do all these things have in common?
Yes there is a buyer and a seller. But that’s not what I am referring to. All of those things involve a proposal. Someone needs to understand the requirements of the buyer and prepare a proposal. As we all know, preparing a proposal can take a while and in some ways costs money. Yes it is at times mostly labor but it does cost money.
Let me know if this sounds familiar:
You have a great discussion with a client or prospect, you take down all of the specifications and you know in your heart that you could do a great job. You prepare the proposal and include what you think is a fair price. What happens next? You wait, sometimes for weeks, months or longer and you never hear anything. Not one word.
- How do you feel?
- Do you wonder what happened?
- Was the project awarded?
- Do you wonder why your company didn’t win the business?
I am sure all of us have experienced those feelings and questions.
The question is, what is the responsibility of the person receiving the proposal?
- Shouldn’t they get back to you in a timely fashion with some feedback?
- Do you get back to your vendors when they send you a proposal?
- How frustrating is this process in today’s economy?
- Any ideas on how to make the process better?
I look forward to reading your comments.
Michele Zwillinger says:
Were you a fly on the wall at the QRCA Conference where I did a workshop on the qualitative research consultant’s response to receiving a request for a proposal? I won’t go through the whole talk, but to directly address some of your questions:
1. Yes, QRCs are quite frustrated by the lack of resonse to proposals they labor over.
2. Yes, QRCs generally keep their vendors apprised of the process, letting them know immediately if they have been awarded the project or not. Many of us tend to communicate during the process to show our respect and appreciation for their bid to us.
3. What can we do? Pre-qualify the client to decide if we even want them as a client. Then, negotiate for communication during the preparation of the proposal, and for after it is awarded.
In my experience, clients are less likely to ignore someone with whom they already have or are developing a relationship with and to whom they have made a commitment to communicate the decision, regardless of whether it is positive or not. We need to follow-up with the client (especially if we were not awarded the project) to find out why we did or didn’t get it and whether or not it will be worthwhile for us to respond to a future RFP.
FYI, not all business is worth getting and that is part of what the pre-qualification call is about.!
John Castellano says:
Writing proposals takes time, certainly its the cost of doing business however its unfair if they end up in a black hole. We all should do a better job following up on proposals, asking questions like:
Did you include our numbers in your proposal?
If you win it do we win it?
If we lost it, why? Who did you go with? (sometimes very hard to get at-why a big secret is always a mystery).
Lance Hoffman says:
Good one, Merrill – and great seeing you in sunny SD!
John’s right on the money here. If you and your staff are not actively soliciting feedback, then as far as I am concerned you are not doing your job. This is not to say it’s easy – certainly one of the last people I would want to talk to is the guy I DIDN’T select to redo my pool or something, but if they were persistent, I would let them know why they didn’t get my business. Why? Because hopefully in the future it would benefit ME the next time I needed something. Unfortunately, not all clients/prospects feel this same way, but many do.
While traveling recently, I was involved in an in-depth ONLINE RFP process, where the end client held a one-hour conference call as a tutorial on how to use the online response system to reply to the RFP. I made sure to dial in early, and was literally the first person on the call. I heard 25 other BEEP-IN’s come into the call – that’s a potential of (minus the two people I knew were on the call from the client side) 23 other bidders!!!! While I don’t believe with such a process like this that I will ever get the feedback I would want if we are not awarded the study, you can be sure that I will be doing all I can to solicit whatever feedback I can, if for nothing else to simply try and find out what may need to be different next time in order to win the business.
By the same token, I have recently had discussions with a few prospects (one in particular comes to mind) that had sent me an RFP and I told them I would not be responding. When asked why, I simply stated that about a year ago I had mentioned to them how we had bid no less than 35 opportunities over as 2-year period, and had received neither a project award or any feedback on why we did not win the project. I told them unless something were to change, I didn’t see the point in continuing to bid their RFP’s, which tend to be quite complex. Sometimes, you need to determine that a client is not the right client for you if they are not equally vested in the process of moving the relationship along, and things like feedback on why you may not have been chosen are good tell-tale signs of where the relationship might or might not go.
Ian Kiernan says:
Interesting topic.
I 100% agree with Michele’s point about pre-qualifying the client before you respond to the proposal. Is the client relationship oriented? Who is the incumbent? What is the decision making criteria? How many competitors are we bidding against? Who are the decision makers (very important!). The answers to these questions help us size up the potential.
It is a two way street and I think you can build both rapport and respect from the client by asking the right questions about the process, setting your expectations as well as theirs, etc.
It usually only takes a few minutes to figure out that your probability of winning is high or low.
There are many opportunities that we politely decline to bid on because the probability of winning is too low or they are not a fit for us. This allows us to focus our time on the right opportunities.