Perfection Can Often Get In Your Way

By Jim Whelan, The Joan Randall Agency

Thursday, August 2, 2007

I ran into this situation the other day in my office.We got an RFP (request for proposal) from a verylarge and prestigious company. Their letter camewith all sorts of bells and whistles, when all it reallyhad to have was the name of the company on theenvelope. Everybody already knows who they are,how big they are, and what doing business withthem means.

We had a jam session over lunch about how toreply. Most everybody wanted to do a fancy packagereply, responding to all the bells and whistles thatwere sent to us.

I was in the minority, meaning that I was the onlyone who disagreed. I felt that we should fax them areply immediately, saying we could complete theproject by such and such a date, for such and sucha price, and tell them where to send the money. Workon the project would begin immediately upon receiptof the money.

There were shrieks and howls all around. You can'tdo that to a company like so and so. They will justthrow that straight in the trash.

So I told them they could craft a reply.

But what I didn't tell them is that I was going tofax a reply, while they were working on a reply. I didthis five minutes after returning to the office. I receiveda reply two hours later, with a couple of things thatwere additional, and I faxed back with a revised dollaramount.

The contract came thirty minutes later. I signed it,and sent it back. It was a very nice deal, and I decidedto take a bike ride, so I left.

The next day the staff was still crafting a response.I didn't mind and let them work. At four that afternoonthey came to me, and they were having a problemwith the wording of the letter. They had three differentvariations, and the letters weren't bad, they just didn'tget to the point.

I gave them thirty minutes to decide, and they were stillhaggling when I went in the room.

I got the contract out with the correspondence andshowed it to them. They could not believe that what Idid worked. They believed that there had to be somethingelse involved, something I wasn't telling them.

There wasn't. The decision makers at this business aremen. Men don't care about bells and whistles. They wantyou to be brief and get to the point, which is what I did here.

Would that have worked with a woman in charge?

Maybe not, but it worked here. Perfection is overrated.

It's necessary for some things, like cutting a diamond, ormaking seals on booster rocket.

But on a proposal? Send the relevant details and do it fast.

Tell them when the job is to be completed and what the costis.

Get a check.

Then get a move on.

From the big saddle,
Jim Whelan

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Business, Proposals, Contracts, Money

Perfection Can Often Get In Your Way