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Losing Sucks

I was informed last week that we lost a bid for a multi-million dollar project. It was a proposal that I worked weekends and long nights on while managing and coordinating 40+ consultants to develop content. There were a number of things that should have led me to believe that we did not have a chance. But I had convinced myself that I should march to the orders of leadership and do the best job that I could. Let's start with my list of why things didn't pan out.

  1. We had no preexisting relationship with the target client or the company's decision makers.
  2. 9 out of 10 of these where we compete with a certain other competitor, we'll lose because of price (we knew this from Day 1)
  3. The team that put together the response was switched out with another team to do the orals presentation. The team that did orals had no idea of the effort or detailed content that went into the response.
  4. The client asked for local resources (i.e., New Jersey). We sent resource from Texas to lead it, a guy from California, and an entire team NOT from New Jersey.
The two questions that I've learned to ask before I (we) bid on anything are 1.) Why are you doing this? and 2.) How much are you willing to spend? 

We never got a response to either. This is a proposal from Day 1 where we knew we were rolling the dice - yet we were willing to place the bet. This is the one of many instances where hard work doesn't necessarily pay off. Hopefully I don't get used to it.

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