This column strives to achieve some insight into “best practices” through some of Mike’s own worst practices. Every Tuesday he offers up the biggest mistakes, oversights, blunders and bonehead moves he commits in the fast-paced world of software-as-a-service, where he’s a Marketing Manager moonlighting as a Sales Account Executive (at the same company.) Perhaps, in the process, we may learn a thing or two.
I’m actually stunned to admit being guilty of this; usually I’m a pretty Do-it-Yourself (DIY) guy. In college, I co-founded a literary magazine in response to the dull school-run rag. At my first job, I initiated and completed a project to go paperless, eliminating two binders worth of unnecessary rainforest byproduct. In my current position, 99% of the time I take the position of “If you want something done right, you’ve got to Do It Yourself!”
It’s that other 1% that really screwed me this time.
I’m sure many of you in Sales can commiserate with me on the pains of RFP responses. For those of you out of the loop, a “Request For Proposal” is a lengthy document distributed to vendors by a company in the market for your product. The vendors respond to detailed questions and requirements by the due date to be considered as a finalist and continue to compete for the business.
This can be unbelievably time consuming for the vendor for little to no return on the investment; it feels a bit like filling out a really complicated Powerball lottery ticket in the business arena.
Typically, I do not work on RFP responses. Now that I’m devoting part of my time to Sales, a certain number of my prospective accounts have associated RFPs. For the past few years, we have had one member of our team who is the designated RFP writer. Naturally, I passed my latest one, (particularly hefty- 124 pages + 50 pages of addendums) to our first responder with about 4 weeks until deadline.
Unfortunately, he sat on it for 2 and a half weeks, and after said period of time, returned it to me with zero percent completed, and informed me that he had no intention of completing it. Awesome!
Having promised our channel partner a timely response, I couldn’t just abandon the project. There were people depending on me! So what did I do? I turned to the next-most qualified individual in the organization to write a response. This person even has a revenue quota that would benefit from participating in the deal. So, scheduling a 2 hour block with him, of course a very busy professional, put our timeline out another week, dangerously close to the deadline.
Upon the first 15 minutes of collaboration, somehow, don’t ask me how, but somehow it was determined that the completion of the RFP was back on me, and the 2 hour meeting was ended before it began.
And now I’m at square one, with 2 days to author a response I’m nowhere close to qualified to complete with accuracy or subject matter expertise. Now I have to rush, work extra hours beyond the workday, and harass colleagues for every additional question I need answers to.
It’s moments like these when I’m reminded why 99% of the time I just do it myself in the first place; not to be pessimistic, but my personal success and reputation is too valuable to place in the hands of people I cannot 100% trust with it.
I’m left wondering if that level of trust can exist; if that is somehow the strongest bond you can have between colleagues and the sign of a great work environment, or if self-interest will always win out in the professional arena?
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. My fragile optimism is at stake!
Photo credit: emily august
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