Just like everyone else, I get a big kick out of validation -- it's true! Especially when a book or an article by a respected expert in my field says something I tell my clients all the time. This morning, the validation came from Weld Coxe, the ultimate guru of A/E services marketing.
So what is the great advice I give my clients that I found this morning on page 77 of Coxe's "Marketing Architectural and Engineering Services"?
"...the energy that is spent putting together long-shot proposals... detracts from the kind of maximum energy that should be applied toward the ones you really can win."
I have had a number of clients who subscribed to the theory, "shoot at everything that moves!" This philosophy helped them justify submitting on every RFQ and RFP they found, even if:
- they've never heard of the client and the client never heard of them;
- they don't have any similar projects in their portfolio, but they think the project would be "interesting" or "fun" to work on;
- they don't have any real capabilities in the required technical discipline(s);
- they don't have a viable project manager to propose;
- they know they have absolutely no chance of being short-listed, much less selected; and finally
- spending time on this submittal jeopardizes the success of one or more other submittals which they are currently preparing.
In an informal SMPS Listserve post a few years back, I asked anyone whose firm had a hit rate of 60% or higher to drop me a line and tell me why. Frankly, I didn't expect that there would be a lot of firms with hit rates this high, so I wasn't worried about the time it would take to read and digest the information.
I received 13 responses, and they all said basically the same thing:
"We have a hit rate greater than 60% because we NEVER submit on something we know we're going to lose unless there is a strategic reason to do so."
One of the most logical "hit rates" to track is projects won vs. competitive submittals. Just keep in mind that every time you submit on an opportunity for which you have no real qualifications or relationship, you drop your hit rate. So if your marketing staff's performance evaluation is going to be based on its "hit rate" for competitive proposals, does it make sense to assign staff and resources to something you know you can't win?
(Here comes my soapbox!) This is why you need to have a strong "Go/No Go" evaluation process to help take the "ego" out of "Go/No Go" decisions, along with strong and loud support from your firm's top leaders that make use of such a process an absolute requirement for every pursuit.
I am convinced that strong decision-making processes and equally strong senior-level support for their use are important keys to allocating scarce human resources (marketing and technical staff hours) to pursuit efforts and, ultimately, to successful A/E marketing. And I was really happy this morning to find that Coxe spoke much the same way I do on this subject.
"Batsy at Twilight"
(Austin downtown art-cow collection)