Pre-bid Discussions
May 26, 2008
A few weeks back I turned down a fairly straightforward $50/60k project. I had three candid phone conversations with the potential client, who did have the requisite budget. The requirements were right in our wheelhouse and we could have done a good job and likely more-than-satisfied the client. The problem was the client couldn’t satisfy me in our pre-bid discussions; one red flag too many. So it was easy to say no and it was the right thing to do.
Now, because it was the kind of project where we typically excel and the client had the budget to do it right, you might wonder what caused me to decline the project. After all, and easy $60k is nothing to look down your nose at, right? True, but it would have been anything but easy. In fact, it would have been a nightmare project with slim possibility for success; a fact made clear to me in our pre-bid discussions.
Pre-bid discussions with potential clients are crucial to a project’s success and they should accomplish some critical things and answer some critical questions. Surely these discussions are largely about defining the project scope, but they must reveal other things too, like if the timeline constraints fit your availability or if you have the required capabilities to successfully complete the work; and if so, can this actually be a successful project. Perhaps most importantly, you need to discover if you should accept or decline the project.
For some of you, the preceding may make prefect sense. To others, these concerns might seem ridiculous, because for some agencies and freelancers the only relevant pre-bid concerns are 1) is there a slight possibility that I can do the work? and 2) can the client pay? For these folks, nothing else is relevant to pre-bid discussion. The likely result of this foolish approach is a succession of nightmare projects with only periodic success, and a stressed-out and unhappy life and/or staff as the norm.
I suggest that you take a more professional and discriminating approach to client vetting and selection. In this article I will offer some suggestions for how to go about conducting your pre-bid discussions with potential clients so that you can better shape your clients’ and your own success.
Defining Success
Before we get to the particulars of pre-bid discussions, you may have noticed earlier that I made a distinction between having the capability to successfully complete the work and having a successful project. The first can be objectively defined by comparing your skills to the project requirements; easy to figure out on a case-by-case basis. The second is something you must define for yourself and it relates directly to your own or your agency’s core values, and does not change from project to project. Once you define what for you is a successful project, all of your potential work must be compared to this ideal. Else you operate an inconsistent and haphazard practice.
For me, the possibility for a successful project is defined by answering “yes” to all of the following questions (numbered for reference later):
- Will I or my team be allowed to bring our best work to the final result?
- Is the client prepared to engage in the project appropriately?
- Is the client prepared to begin this project?
- Is the client prepared to invest trust in my or my team’s ideas?
- Am I or is my team prepared to fulfill or exceed the project requirements?
Your list might be similar or might differ in significant ways. The point is that you have to define success for yourself and aim for nothing less than success every time. But if you don't have a definition for a successful project, how can you expect to ever have one?
If after pre-bid discussions with the potential client I believe I can safely answer “yes” to all of these questions, there is the possibility for a successful project. If I don’t believe I can answer “yes” to one or more of these questions there is a good reason to doubt the success of the project, and even reason to consider not accepting it in the first place.
Taking on a project where there is little hope of success—as defined by you or your agency’s core values—doesn’t make much sense. Doing so on a regular basis calls into question your judgment and your professionalism. I have several friends who work in environments where poor judgment and questionable professionalism rule the day. These are unhappy and unfulfilled individuals, desperate to escape. For an agency (and its clients!), this is a recipe for failure; the only question is how long until that happens.
Pre-bid discussion
In light of the preceding, initial discussions with potential clients are clearly about defining 2 things: project scope and possibility for success. Scope is easy enough to define, provided that you are diligent in finding all of the details. What remains and what takes the most work is finding all of the components that will define the possibility for project success.
I think you will find that defining and staying true to a set of strict values will allow you to avoid some of our profession’s common bear traps.
To begin, you’ve got to do something that is not explicit, but rather implicit in the whole process. You need to get to know your potential client and you’ve got to allow them to get to know you. Much can be revealed in the course of casual conversation and I suggest that you take as much time as the other person will allow for this sort of thing. Get to know how they conduct a conversation, for you will likely be doing lots of this during the project. Ask questions several different ways to be sure you get a clear picture. Get to know whether they’re short and impatient or laid back and gregarious. Reveal the same of yourself.
During the course of your conversation(s), work to learn what is important to them—not just in the project sense, but on a personal level. Reveal the same of yourself. Work to learn what their standards and expectations are. Reveal the same of yourself. Too often pre-bid discussions are regarded as a tricky negotiation, where each party is trying to learn things about the other without giving anything away. I suggest that this is exactly the wrong way to approach or conduct these conversations. If you have secrets that might compromise the project if the client knew, you’ve no business asking the client for his project.
Now that you’ve got some idea about the overall approach, let’s get specific to the things that will impact potential success. Note that perhaps not all of these questions need be covered. If you have any skill, you’ll know which are appropriate and which are not on a case-by-case basis.
1. Will I or my team be allowed to bring our best work to the final result?
This critical question is answered in all sorts of ways and you must be diligent in examining all of the factors that will contribute. Some of the things that will help you to answer this question can be discovered by asking the following sorts of questions. Some are about the client-side team:
- Who are the decisions makers on the project?
- Who will be involved in our meetings?
- Do you have an in-house designer or design team that will be involved?
And some are about the client’s brand:
- Describe your brand’s characteristics
- Who is your brand’s or site’s audience?
The first set of questions is centered around defining how many individuals will be involved in approvals and who they are in the company (and who may be involved from afar). Circumstances vary, but as a general rule the more people involved on the client-side, the harder it is to get approvals and the more reworking of your efforts will be suggested. The second set of questions is centered around the client’s knowledge of their own brand. The more they know about their own brand, the better you’ll be able to understand your mandate and how best to find the right solutions.
2. Is the client prepared to engage in the project appropriately?
You cannot rely on your own expertise to force a successful project. The project will be about collaboration, and success is possible most often with a client that understands this important fact. Finding out how well the client understands can be accomplished with questions like these. Some are about time constraints and client availability:
- Is the content ready?
- Are you available throughout the project for consultations and approvals?
- Are you prepared to stick to our strictly defined schedule, especially with your approval process?
- We’ll need to work directly with you on these (defined) days. Will you set aside the required time for these meetings/calls?
- What are your time constraints?
Others are about client preconceptions:
- Do you have any specific design ideas that you want to see articulated?
- What factors are driving this redesign?
- Whose idea was/is it to redesign your site? Why?
Answers to the first few questions can tell you just how prepared and committed the client is to the project and its requisite process. The latter section of questions are about defining what sorts of possibly problematic constraints might creep up or what stakeholders might be hidden from view. All of these factors can impact the client’s appropriate engagement in the project.
3. Is the client prepared to begin this project?
It is not uncommon for a potential client to contact me about their project when they’re nowhere near ready to start—or when they’ve got a flawed view of what needs to be done. You can learn about the client’s preparedness and perceptions by way of these questions:
- Do you have the site content ready?
- Do you know precisely what the app will do and exactly how it will do it?
- Do you need us to design the app or define the app functionality with you?
- What has been done already and what do you need us to do with you?
- Are you available during the entire project timeline?
- What is your budget?
- What is your profit model?
Answers to these questions will likely provide important information about what the client thinks needs to be done vs. what actually needs to be done. So armed, you can then respond accordingly.
4. Is the client prepared to invest trust in me or my team’s ideas?
You cannot be successful if you don’t have the client’s trust. Of course you’ve got to earn that trust in large measure, but before you choose to engage with a client it is best to know whether or not they’re prepared to trust at all. You’ll never be successful if your work is constantly second-guessed and if your ideas are regularly “committeed into shape.” Find out about your client’s trust disposition with the following sorts of questions:
- Why did you contact me/us about your project (rather than someone else)?
- What do you know about my/our past work?
- Is this your first attempt at the project?
- Do you have any specific design ideas you want to see articulated?
- Who will be evaluating the design effort?
- How should I/we find the successful solution?
- Why not use your in-house design team for the project?
- What will make for a successful design?
For these questions, there are no right/wrong answers. You’re going to have to use context and your own abilities for discrimination to decide if the answers suit your preference. For instance, when asked about what will make a successful design, an answer like, “well, that’s what I’m hoping you can tell me” is greatly encouraging.
5. Am I or is my team prepared to fulfill or exceed the project requirements?
You’re on your own here, my friend. After learning the project requirements and about the client’s disposition and character, you either are or are not prepared to fulfill or exceed the requirements. No one knows this but you. The point is you have to first learn about both the project scope AND about the client’s character in order to answer this question.
The main point
Much of what I’ve covered here relates to gaining a better grasp of the scope and potential problems. However, some of these questions and indeed the entire overall objective is concerned with exercising your values as a professional or as an agency. I think you will find that defining and staying true to a set of strict values will allow you to avoid some of our profession’s common bear traps.
If you have defined your own or your agency’s core values and you live and reflect on them regularly, you’ll find that your processes will evolve to naturally include elements that uphold your professionalism and protect the good work, well-being, and confidence of everyone involved. A responsible approach to pre-bid discussions with potential clients is an important component to having a successful practice. With better processes you’ll be able to bid projects more accurately and enjoy better results. Oh, and you’ll likely sleep better at night, too.