In the last 7½ weeks, I have received five referrals—all of them from the same person. It's really great to have people who know my work, who respect my work, who value my work, and who recommend my work to others who need the kind of assistance I can provide.
I sent my current Statement of Qualifications (SOQ) document to each of the five within 24 hours of the referral hitting my inbox, with a brief introduction of my experience with A/E firms and my desire to assist. Then the waiting began.
Of the five A/E firms referred to me, the first resulted immediately in a project—assistance with the development of an SF330 submittal for a US Army Corps of Engineers Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract that was due in 2 weeks.
The second was looking for help developing proposals—and possibly for help developing process starting with the Go/No Go evaluation and going through a debriefing after the selection was announced.
The third was looking for training in a variety of marketing topics, for both marketing staff and technical staff who had a role in the marketing process.
The fourth was looking for what I call a "marketing audit"—an evaluation of their standard, off-the-shelf marketing pieces (brochures, project sheets, service area sheets), their favorite proposals and SOQs, and their marketing-related processes, as well as discussions with those staff members having marketing and/or business development responsibilities to make sure of their relevant attitudes and knowledge of the firm.
The fifth was looking for proposal process assistance, including opening the eyes of the firm's two partners to some of the downside of rash Go/No Go decisions made for the wrong reasons.
The first project was completed and invoiced before the end of April. The others—with initial contacts between April 15 and April 30, have yet to pan out into projects. In addition to the initial email, there have been one or two conversations with parties from each firm, but no actual projects identified yet. The last was initiated 5 days ago, with a first phone call this morning, so I wouldn't expect anything to happen yet.
The discussions each lasted 30-45 minutes and covered a wide range of A/E marketing-related issues and needs, and I believe I would enjoy working with all of the people with whom I spoke. But the details of our conversations now have to make their way up the chain of supervisors to the person who can make the decision to retain me. And so, the next round of waiting.
In each case, I let a week go by and then emailed my contact to repeat my desire to work with them and to ask if there was any additional information I could provide that would help with their evaluation and decision. Then I waited again. I know people are busy, and I didn't want to make a nuisance of myself.
When someone recommends me, I feel a double responsibility to do my best work because, in addition to providing an excellent product to the new client, I don't want to jeopardize the reputation of the person who made the recommendation.
As a freelancer, I can definitely tell you that, in some ways, the waiting for a "go-ahead" can be the hardest part of any project pursuit or scope and fee negotiation process.