Proposal War Stories

Every marketer has stories of their worst proposal disasters.  Here's a couple that I hope you find amusing.

In the early 90’s, wanting to keep pace with the quality of our competitors’ proposals, our firm bought one of the first color printers. It used specially coated paper and colored cellophane on three cylinders. It was a thrill to have the ability to produce color documents in-house.

A short time later, I was working on a particularly large document. I decided to use three-ring binders, because of the size of the document, and because I thought the client would be so impressed by our proposal that they would want to keep it on their bookshelf (really!?!).

After we reproduced the sets, we used a drill press in the repro room to bore holes in them for the three-ring binding. By the time we bored through the sixth stack of paper, the drill bit was getting quite hot. Suddenly, we began to smell an odor that you never want to encounter during production of your proposal: smoke!

Smoke equals fire. The proposal was on fire. The hot drill bit had ignited the chemical coating on the color pages. Cut to the end; the proposals arrived on time to the client, but they were a little charred around the binding and smelled a little smoky.

And if you think you’re out of the woods when your proposal is successfully printed, bound, and boxed for delivery, an awful lot can happen between your office and your client’s office. There was another proposal for a project that we had been chasing for over a year. We worked in an office across the street from the City’s contracts department, so when the proposal was finished early, I figured it would be no sweat to deliver; all I had to do was carry the box across the street. I thought to myself, “What could possibly happen?” I’ll tell you what can happen, you can get hit by a car, while crossing the street.

Again, the proposal was delivered on time, a little blood on the box, but still intact.

For every proposal, there’s a story. That’s what makes them memorable and what makes the life of a marketer an adventure. You learn from every one.

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When should you pursue a project that you did not know about?

I just spent a day writing a proposal for a project that we did not know existed two weeks ago. “The client loves us," said the client manager. "They want us to submit." I find myself in this situation often.

Will we win? Who knows. Should we have submitted? We are asked every day to support pursuits that we did not anticipate. It's always a hard decision.

In general, we are opposed to submitting proposals for unanticipated RFPs, because we know we would not be positioned to win. However, in reality, most professional services firms chase RFPs more often than they admit. And so do we. So, when should it be considered?

1. Someone in the client’s organization coaches you. Or you have a superior relationship with the client and you’re asked to submit a proposal.

2. You are truly uniquely qualified. This may include having a terrific idea for a solution to the client’s problem or expertise only your firm possesses or, better yet, both.

3. You and the competition are all caught by surprise, and the playing field is truly level.

The presence of all of these conditions improves your chances of being successful. But you must be ultra-critical of your strengths to overcome the severe weakness of not knowing the RFP would show up in the mail.  Rationalization is an inherent weakness of technical professionals, so you must be ruthlessly objective about your chances of winning.

 

How often would we chase a "flier?"  If it were up to us, we would allow our staff one “get-out-of-jail free” card per year.  That’s all.

Client Service

Most technical professionals believe that getting to the right answer on an assignment constitutes having done a “good job.” unfortunately, delivering a correct technical answer became the expected norm in the business long ago.

The right answer is necessary, but often insufficient for satisfying a client. How you treat a client can be as important – if not more important – than what you do for them.

Achieving sales and developing technical skills are critical to success, but superior client service is what makes a business long-lived.

Client Service

“Too many people think only of their own profit. But business opportunity seldom knocks on the door of self-centered people. No customer ever goes to a store merely to please the storekeeper.”

-Kazuo Inamori, entrepreneur and founder of Kyocera Corp

How much do you cost your firm?

Your company makes a significant investment in you every day. 

First, there’s your salary.  Assuming you have used your sales skills to negotiate a decent wage, you’re likely making more than the average member of the American workforce (never forget that).

 

In addition to your salary, your benefits are a direct cost to the company.  The value of your benefits is generally equivalent to 25 percent of your base salary.  On top of that, add the tools you are provided to perform your job (e.g. a computer, software, office, cell phone, copiers), which comprise the operating overhead of your firm. The amount of this overhead is roughly equal to 75-150 percent of your salary.  So, in round numbers, with direct salary, benefits, and overhead, your cost is essentially double your salary. 

Next, your company needs to make a profit, doesn’t it?  That’s an important concept.  The ability to improve people’s lives by providing them an income is contingent on a company’s sustainability.  And for a company that strives to stay in business, it needs to grow and invest in itself, or it will stagnate, lag behind its competitors, and eventually falter and fail. So, in addition to the costs you incur as an employee, your company would like to make, let’s say, a 10-20% profit.  

That’s a lot of coin.  The question you should ask is, am I providing the equivalent return on that investment?

Are you in the Food Chain?

The focus of our careers has been on competing for and winning new work. Responsibility for the cost of those activities always fell on our bosses. Often, in sales and marketing, the last thing on your mind is controlling costs. The natural instinct for business developers is, “We need to win the contract, whatever the cost.” 

But then you reach a level in your career at which it becomes your job to monitor, manage, control, and squeeze usefulness from every penny of overhead. You also understand that every dollar not spent is a dollar added to the bottom line, of which you hopefully share a greater part.

It’s an eye opener to learn the importance of prudent spending and to develop a strong compass for guiding decisions. For young marketing staff, it is imperative to always remember that we are a direct cost to our companies. As overhead, we walk a fine line between being imperative to the success of the firm and being a costly burden.

In our opinion, that’s actually a great place to be; it provides clarity in our careers and in our daily decision-making. It forces us to constantly ask ourselves:

“Am I providing value to the company today?"

“Am I in the food chain - that direct connection between the people who need service and the people who provide service?”

And when we say “between” we mean a valuable link, rather than a hurdle. The constant reminder of measuring your financial value is one of the more exhilarating aspects of the sales profession.