In the RFP, is it really necessary to know my mother’s hat size?

Lately all my proposal writing and "professional" friends want to talk about is how difficult RFPs are and how many are coming across their desk. I even got a call from one of our folks who had a client that wanted to talk to me about how best they should issue their RFP. (Yes, I bit my tongue and simply said, "Sure, I'd love to chat.")

Larry Schubert at the Cummings Group (up in the 815!) wrote a great piece a while back on multi-agency pitches. Multi-agency pitch is a term they use in the sexy world of marketing / advertising / branding / communication firms. However, if you have ever answered an RFP, you know the term too: A document sent to 10, 20, 30 or more firms selected, by the looks of things, by putting a finger to the yellow pages or doing a Google search for [insert type] firm.

Larry is spot on! Paraphrasing, he suggests that issuers of RFPs:

• Take a quick look at as many firms as fits their comfort zone then narrow the search to less than ten.
• Have a long discussion with the contenders before issuing the RFP. Doing this will save a lot of time, and get to the “short list” much more quickly. Why? Because you can find out things like do your personalities mesh or are they too small or too large or do they really have experience with your type of business.
• Only ask for the information they really want/need and do not make the document unnecessarily cumbersome.
• Give the finalists a reasonable time frame for putting together their presentation.
  Many times (most times) we get a very short time frame to respond and a short time frame for preparing a presentation with the stipulation that the decision would be made and new firm in place very quickly. We then do everything as instructed, but months go by and no decision is made.

Read the full Cattle Call Mania here.

The problem with having a topic specific blog...

Is that you need to be careful about putting things on that have no relation to the topic. Copyblogger figured a way around this and sends out notes under the subject line "Link Karma Story Time."

Apparently, Link Karma Story Time this time was a series of links that "lead to articles that tell a story about Copyblogger. So, I guess this post is just paying the karma forward.

This graphic below (from Wired) explains the lasting influence of one of my favorite bands, Joy Division. With a couple of new movies (Grant Gee’s documentary Joy Division and Anton Corbijn’s Control) , you'll be seeming the name quite a bit. Couple these two with About a Son and you'll have quite the triple feature!

For further reading, begin here The End Times.

Meeting people is easy

If you have been rejected many times in your life, then one more rejection isn't going to make much difference. If you're rejected, don't automatically assume it's your fault. The other person may have several reasons for not doing what you are asking her to do: none of it may have anything to do with you. Perhaps the person is busy or not feeling well or genuinely not interested in spending time with you. Rejections are part of everyday life. Don't let them bother you. Keep reaching out to others. Keep reaching out to others. When you begin to receive positive responses then you are on the right track. It's all a matter of numbers. Count the positive responses and forget about the rejections
Meeting people is easy, 1999

Like many people, I started blogging out of an urgent need to procrastinate.

Yet a nagging sense of possibility also drew me in.
Lines from an article, The Well-Tempered Web, that is totally unrelated to proposals in the New Yorker by Alex Ross. His blog is here.

Readers are leaders – Recent Reading Roundup 1

As the saying goes, Reading Is Fundamental. To be a good proposal writer, business person, parent…err…human being, you need to read a lot. Some thoughts on a recent read:

Beyond the Brief, Communication Strategies for Lawyers and Legal Marketers by Stephanie Solakian Goldstein

My co-worker underlined the following two passages in Beyond the Brief:

1. As you read through this book, you will realize that legal marketing and communications is not rocket science, it is common sense – page 5
   
2. Lawyers are the “products” that clients buy – page 142

She underlined more but those two pretty much sum up what you need to know about legal or professional services marketing. Professional services marketing is very simple, very straightforward. Yet organizations (not mine, of course!) make it difficult. They make it 100 times harder than it really is by not following on from the strategy and continually reinventing the well at the regional, local and practice levels. (Again, not my firm!). Stephanie Solakian Goldstein provides a text that can begin to help, at least with your communications.

Written for the legal marketer (but great for marketers of any professional service), Beyond the Brief walks through a general discussion of law firm marketing then defines what public (media) relations is, the difference between PR and advertising (see the chart below), how to get your message heard in the crowded marketplace we know today, how to develop a communications plan and the tactics to effectively get your message heard.

Media relations	Advertising
Earned	Paid for
Credible	Audience may challenge or dispute
Contact editorial staff	Contact advertising staff
Takes time	Instant gratification

Chapter 5: Developing a Communications Plan is worth the price of the book. It gives direction about what is needed to produce an effective communications plan and also offers various sample communications plans which you can use to begin your own plans.

Chapters and sections also help you deal with journalists, pitch story ideas to journalists, maximize speaking opportunities and how to build briefing documents for your professionals. There is also a list of books to help with your writing and a list of proofreading tips. More on editing and proofreading soon.

One of the features of the book is the inclusion of articles by “experts” on various topics such as brand positioning, the impact of PR on sales and other topics. These articles are OK but some feel like they were written for other venues (and some are noted as such) and come in abruptly. The article by Julia Brady at the VIA Group is helpful (think of it as a mini Brand Gap and ZAG) but others are not so lucky.

Beyond the Brief does a great job of explaining the different media avenues available and how to build a successful communications strategy – both internal and external. It is the most comprehensive book of its type that I have come across and should be read by every professional services marketer! No, really. If you are in professional services marketing you need to read this book!

One curious thing about this book: it is missing most of its –‘s (en dashes). It is the oddest thing. It seems like someone did a find/replace and forgot to put something in the replace box. There are just big blanks where the en dash should be like, “…a very strong percentage of attorneys…” Odd. I wonder if they caught this later? It does not get in the way of the text.

Required reading for every professional services marketer.

There is a (better?) review of this on the Law Marketing Portal. Click here.

A proposal writers take on Craig’s List meets Wall Street (aka "What am I doing wrong?" aka "Craigslist fun)

By now you’ve been sent (multiple times) the infamous “Craig’s List” posting from “a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl… looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year,” and the reply from a “banker” which said, among other things, that the "offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a cr@ppy business deal.” There have been a couple of articles in the New York Times, New York Magazine and many other places about it. Read it if you have not already.

You can’t fault her for trying. Can you? You can fault her for the way she put her “proposal” together. Here’s how she could have done it to say some grief:

Spectacularly beautiful 25 year old girl looking to get married

I'm an articulate, classy and spectacularly beautiful 25 year-old girl. I am tired of dating and am ready to get married. Ideally my spouse will be a nice guy with upper bracket income.

You’ll get my spectacularly looks as well as an exceptional level of culture and sophistication – which means you’ll have beauty AND brains - and a wife who has what so many girls lack today: an old fashioned ability to keep a nice home and hearth.

In lieu of a person, I am also looking for tips on how I can find my ideal mate. Where do men looking for marriage to a woman like me hang out? Are there specific bars, restaurants or gyms I should be going to? Can you help me understand what it is they are looking for in a mate?

Could my career be hampering my ability to find my ideal mate? Your help and honesty will be greatly appreciated. I'm putting myself out there in an honest way and I am searching for the one that is searching for me.

*******************

You can’t really fix the rebuttal. It’s hard to fix something near perfection. (minus the sexism, of course.) I wonder how Tom would rewrite it?

Watch your back

Brand Strategy Insider had a great post about General Motors being overtaken by Toyota that should serve as a warning for companies everywhere:

What is happening to General Motors should be a lesson to all companies no matter how big and powerful they are. You cannot be everything for everybody, and the more you try, the more you risk sinking the ship.

They conclude the article by saying senior executives, as a reminder of what can happen, should put a simple sign on the wall that reads: Remember the Titanic. For a more recent and vivid example, they can use this video from yesterday's Chicago Marathon:



Always, always watch your back.

God is...

A White Sox fan!



It's NOT gonna happen.

Why aren't there...

More books like this?




101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick
New from MIT Press

53 Books to Get Rich By

I glanced through the Forbes 400 issue while waiting for a conference call to start today. (Too bad we do not subscribe to something like Howdesign or Fast Company.) Forbes is certainly not on my list of weekly reading but it makes for good flipping. Of particular note was an article by Jeffrey Sachs (The Forbes One Billion) where he made the bold but true statement that, "If journalists spent as much time studying the lives of the poor as they do gazing at the rich, it would help us all keep our heads on straight. "

Since most of my thoughts seem to run to books lately (see here and here), I found an article by publisher Rich Karlgaard (no link to him since he and that gang are on the wrong side of things) that was interesting. Books to Get Rich By is an attempt at putting together a list of books you could use if your "goal is to raise a child who will grow up and make The Forbes 400 list someday." Since my child is not old enough to read, let's use her dad as a proxy.

I was pretty surprised (and disappointed) at how few of the 53 books (full list here) that he and some of his self-made, rich friends recommend - which Karlgaard says, "range from the theoretical to the practical, the instructional to the inspirational" - I had gotten to:

Theory of Capitalism

• none

History and Heroes

• none

Instructional Tips

• The Elements of Style--by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White
• Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind--by Al Ries and Jack Trout
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!--by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter DO NOT READ THIS!
• The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything--by Guy Kawasaki
• In Search of Excellence: Lessons From America's Best-Run Companies--by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don't--by Jim Collins

Food for the Soul

• Think and Grow Rich--by Napoleon Hill
• The Fountainhead--by Ayn Rand books on tape count right...

Useful Entertainment

• none

No wonder I am not on the list! Maybe I better buy this for the next generation.

Back to proposal talk soon. Unless I get rich...

Off to read.