If you are a marketer in the AEC industry, you have undoubtedly supported a few proposal responses—if not dozens and dozens—throughout your career. And with that inevitably comes a personal list of RFP pet peeves, ranging from incorrect or missing information to excessively onerous, perplexing requirements.
In episode 40 of The Shortlist, Middle of Six Principals, Wendy Simmons and Melissa Richey, delve into some of the most confounding RFP requirements they've encountered, providing commentary (and catharsis!) from their experiences contributing to hundreds of RFP Responses.
CPSM CEU Credits: 0.5 | Domain: 4
Podcast Transcript
Welcome to The Shortlist.
We are exploring all things AEC marketing to help your firm win The Shortlist.
I'm your host, Wendy Simmons, and each episode, I'll be joined by one of my team members from Middle of Six to answer your questions.
Today, we have Melissa Richey back to share her thoughts, unofficial research, whatever you might call it, related to pet peeves for RFPs, and a few tips along the way.
Hey, Melissa.
Hi, Wendy.
Hi, everyone.
So you have collaborated with some of your AEC friends to pull together advice, tips, pet peeves, of course, related to RFPs specifically.
We're talking about like a written document that we have to follow and submit to agencies all the time.
Right?
Yes.
What inspired you to take a deep dive into this?
I've spent such a large portion of my career responding to RFPs and reading RFPs and sometimes clapping when I see a great RFP or rolling my eyes when I read one with really onerous requirements.
So it felt like a good topic.
It presented it to the American Planning Association.
So I first really dug into this topic with a colleague of mine who's a marketing manager and graphic designer, and we'd worked together for many years before.
There was also a person from an agency and that perspective was really informative.
So we'll get into some of that today.
Well, I love that you reached out just beyond sort of the AEC marketing seat yourself, your own experience to get some other perspectives, and in particular, the agency perspective.
They need to get some things out of this.
They're checking the boxes.
There's a reason why or maybe not a reason why they have some of that content.
And so having them have a voice in this too is pretty interesting.
I am very interested in this conversation, and we hope that maybe this can be useful to share with people on your team, or if you are connected to people who have power and can influence what an RFP looks like.
Maybe there's some things that you can take away here or that will you'll say, oh good, I'm not the only one who wonders why it's like this.
Maybe we can slowly but surely make some change in another generic boilerplate RFP to make our lives easier and to make the content that we put together even better.
Yeah, one of the biggest things I learned from the city staffer who was on this panel that I did before was that the purchasing department and the legal department take liberties that often the agency staff don't even have control over.
So when the RFP came out and they didn't tell you, it might be because purchasing just decided to run it three weeks sooner than they had anticipated.
Or purchasing put the points to the evaluation criteria, so that's why this particular item is rated really highly, even though it's not that important to the client you're ultimately going to work with.
So that was my biggest takeaway, is how much purchasing can affect the RFP process.
So even sometimes the agency staff are frustrated with the RFP that gets released.
Well, that's such a good reminder, or maybe just a good heads up that we can give our partners on the agency side a little bit of a break.
They may not be in control of every element of what's going out.
And also, I think a lot of this is applicable if it's the private side, private developers and their teams putting things together.
Yes, procurement, legal, different voices in the room may have a strong opinion, and it's not just all on the project manager who's going to be reviewing these responses.
So where do you want to start, Melissa?
Should we start with the tips that might be a great place?
Yeah, I think that would be a good place to start.
A lot of these tips are coming from the agency perspective from when I presented on this topic in the past.
And one of those top tips was to know your reputation and own it.
The agencies and owners that you work with talk to one another.
They may be in the same professional association.
They may be going to the same conferences.
So if you stubbed your toe on a project, don't think you can just not talk about it and the agency won't find out.
They may already know about it.
So we're human, we make mistakes, and how did you fix it?
What did you do?
What did you learn from it?
So you're not going to be able to hide from it.
So own what you've done and explain how you're going to not do that again, how you fixed it last time.
Yeah, being very upfront is important.
Also, being aware of what the perceptions are out there.
You know, Melissa, you and I were talking about this related to another client on a project where there was something out in the community about a project.
And we were helping them kind of get to the bottom of it to understand, do we need to address this in the RFP?
Or is it just one person's perspective?
So if you're in-house marketing, being aware of things that might be just perceptions you need to change or address in the RFP, that is a very thoughtful approach to owning potential issues and not coming across as glazing over something.
And I think it's a good thing to bring up with your principals and project managers in your firm that if something went sideways on a project, do you have to let marketing know?
Like, if we don't know, then we may be putting something forward, having no idea that there's a black mark on that project.
So sure, no one wants to talk about the bad things that happen, but we need to be able to be transparent within our teams and within our firms on what happened and how is that going to affect the next project that we're pursuing.
Yeah.
And then no matter what your database or the way you store your profiles for projects, whatever, you need to flag that and keep that information there, really indefinitely, but at some point you might be checking in like, is this still relevant?
Did this get resolved?
Do we need to address this anymore?
So highlighting it in peak or something so you cannot miss it the next time it comes up is a good tip for the marketing team.
That actually reminds me of a situation I got into with a client where it was a local project and this client was from another state and they suggested I use this project.
And it was something that I knew hadn't gone well, but these folks in California had no idea.
So I called the marketing director and said, Hey, you know, this is how this project is perceived in our community, so I would not recommend that we use it.
And so it was one of those situations where the marketing director was aware, but the staff I was working with on the pursuit, they didn't know what had happened after the project was built.
So they had no idea that marketing coordinator who sent me the information had no idea.
So kind of to your point, having some way to flag that in your databases is key.
Yeah, that's good.
And then, you know, if people leave the company or there are staffing changes, you want to flag that because that institutional knowledge might leave at some point.
So you don't want to accidentally omit something or just not have that detail there once someone else isn't there to check it and say, hey, wait, what about this?
So lots of reasons for marketing to be really aware of those issues or potential issues and then flag them so that it can always be checked in on.
That's a good tip.
There's a lot there, actually.
There really is.
Not just owning your reputation, but how you flag it and make sure that as you're presenting that project for years and years that you're representing it well.
What other tips do you have?
Well, it's a little bit related, but it's to prepare your references.
We are asked for references so often, and I know I'm guilty of saying, are they even going to check the reference?
Well, the agency person I presented with before said she does call the references, and the number of times the person was surprised that she was calling.
The project had been done for a few years, so it wasn't fresh in their mind.
And so she's then left with this kind of awkward conversation where she's trying to see how this consultant did, and the reference is like, gosh, I don't remember, it's been so long.
So if you're pursuing the project and think you're going to win or at least shortlist, they're probably going to call your references at some point.
So letting folks know that they might be getting a call is a best practice.
Yeah, maybe something that can help a team do that effectively is just to have a boilerplate e-mail ready.
Because there's lots of times when you need to push that out and you want to be accurate and have the project information there, you need to put enough out there for your reference to be able to respond and feel good about it.
Also, it's a touch point.
That's pretty nice.
But having that flagged in your e-mail is something that when you need to push out reference requests, you know, it's right there.
You don't have to reinvent the wheel to get that in front of your reference.
And even sometimes, they may be a fine reference, but they're just not with the same company anymore.
I know sometimes when I'm QCing or QA a proposal, I'll go on LinkedIn and just back check, like, is this person still there?
And sometimes they're not.
There are a lot of retirements, you know, that happens for sure.
And we're like, wait a second, where'd they go?
We're going to track them down.
Another tip was making sure you're picking relevant projects.
And five years, seven years, sometimes the RFP prescribes what the time period can be.
Sometimes it's a judgment call.
If it's a judgment call, five years feels like a good amount of time, unless it was something, a very noteworthy project, say, we're going to talk land use planning.
If it was a sub-area plan that was implemented and it really made a big change in the community, like an example I heard was the city of Pasadena apparently had this great plan and it really made improvements to the city.
That's the type of like legacy project that you can go outside because it is a really long-range project that the effects of that work are seen for years and years after the project's completed.
But for the most part, making sure the projects are recent and completed within the last five years.
You know, once a project is 10 years old, it feels like the stories, the innovation, they're sort of less impressive at that point, right?
We've all moved forward, so you have to be very critical about listing something that old.
One thing that I like to do on a lot of projects or when I'm kicking off a proposal is just to create that really simple project and team matrix, right?
So we list all the potential projects we want to showcase, which ones are going to be featured versus which will be a sidebar, and then mapping out, like, how does this help meet the established criteria?
Who was involved on these projects?
So you can find those overlaps, and then there's a lot that can come out of that.
So if you're not using something as simple as just an Excel table to map those elements out, that can help you select your projects as well.
Your projects and your team.
I've certainly had the experience where someone tells me how great this project was, and then I ask, well, who worked on it on this team?
Oh, nobody.
Like, well, then can we change the team or not use that project?
That empty column with no check marks, it makes it obvious that we should rethink that person or project.
All right, well, I think everyone is dying to get into the pet peeves, right?
This is what we are here for.
Where do you want to start?
What's the biggest pet peeve, or the first one that comes to mind at least?
Well, I'll start with this one because for consultants, it affects the go-no-go process, and that is not publishing the budget in the RFQ or RFP.
And there is a cost to pursuing a project, the marketing staff time, the professional staff's time, writing technical approaches, going to interviews.
So what is the opportunity cost if we say yes to this proposal?
What are you saying no to?
Business development time, billable work, family time, a vacation.
So we want to know what the budget is to understand whether the fee and the profit in this project makes sense for us to pursue it.
So if you're not letting us know that, then we're doing a lot of decision making without the information we need.
That just feels like kindness and a good business practice, right?
It does take a lot of effort.
I think when we've presented on these topics before, Melissa, the agency side was maybe a little surprised to hear how much time it can take to put together a response.
And we were talking, you know, in some cases, hundreds of hours.
Of course, it depends on the size and scale of the project, but that's a lot, right?
And if you've not gone out to a short list of contractors, if it's really open for project teams, then you're really thinking about thousands of hours that the agency is asking others to put in to that effort, just to have a chance.
And it's totally worth it, but let's start by letting us know what the fee and potential profit could be.
I had one of my colleagues through SNPS tell me this story the other day that someone at an agency he'd worked for for a long time went into consulting.
He retired and went to be a consultant, and he called and apologized for the long and onerous RFPs now that he's having to respond to them.
He's like, I had no idea how much effort it took.
I just thought this stuff was like off the shelf, and what's the big deal?
And now I see what it takes to really put a proposal together, and I see how you have to customize it.
And even if you do have the content, it's asked for in a different order.
So I got some level of satisfaction out of hearing that.
Oh, that's so nice.
I love that.
Okay.
Well, speaking of onerous information requests, there's a long list of these.
Let's go through them.
Oh, man, I feel like we could talk about this forever.
But the one that's been getting under my skin lately is asking for addresses, street addresses, for the references.
Are you going to write them a letter?
Why do you need the address for the person?
You're going to call them or email them.
Why do you need the address?
Yeah, I know.
We're going to try to not be too snarky, but it's totally going to come out for sure.
But you're right.
And also with addresses, people are working remotely.
Is this just meaning their company address, which makes sense, but things have changed.
The world is different.
You need an email address, and that should suffice.
And I think that really is what it boils down to, is that these RFPs have been around for a long time and no one has looked at them very critically in a long time.
And so things like addresses are still on there.
But this is our our try to have people review their RFPs and take out those types of things.
That's a very relevant pet peeve.
What's next?
One we see sometimes is redundant information requests.
They may ask for the same information in multiple places.
And I don't know, it seems like it always is when there's a really tight page limit.
So then you have to say, well, am I going to look flippant if I say see section 5.5, or am I going to spend the time to rewrite this entire section so that it sounds different?
So that's one that just is a burden that doesn't need to be there.
I work on a lot of GCCM proposals, and I'm not sure where this came from, but it still shows up, and I think it's been there for at least 15 years, and the subcontractor procurement is asked three different ways in three different places.
And I've racked my brain a million times to figure out how to say that differently.
Now, there might be slight nuances to how that question was asked, but it is one of those things where certain RFPs, I know I'm going to have to answer that three times and feel like I'm adding something to the conversation rather than just wasting the reviewers' time.
So that's one of my personal experiences.
Have you ever put C, section 5.5?
I mean, I have, and I usually don't feel bad about it.
If it is a really kind of tight page limit, that's a place where that makes sense.
And maybe I'll just kind of rephrase a little bit about like, we have provided detailed blah, blah, blah here and now with digital submittals, you can hyperlink to it.
I feel like it's the nicest way to set them in the right direction.
It's the question, do you ask the question?
Do you make the client look like they messed up by saying, you asked for this in three different places?
So I think that's a little reason why it keeps happening is because no one wants to be the one to point out that there's kind of an error in their RFP.
Yeah, I would save that feedback for later, you know, not during the process.
I'm, I don't know, I'm a little bit old school and I don't ask a ton of questions in the process.
I try to, you know, use my lessons learned and just past experience to do the best I can.
Others I know are just like, hey, let's ask questions.
I think that's fine.
I just, I was trained a little differently, so I'm a more conservative in that way.
Yeah, there's definitely a cultural aspect to the questioning in the RFP period versus just staying silent.
If you direct someone to a different area in the proposal, make sure that that area completely answers the question, you know, because often the same question or a very similar question is asked in two places, but there might be an additional element, so you cannot direct someone back in the proposal if the answer is not fully there.
The next one I have that seems kind of silly is asking for copies of business licenses and professional licenses, like, please provide evidence of the ability to do business in the state of Washington.
And I can understand there's a compliance aspect to that, but is the RFQ or RFP stage the point where that really needs to happen?
Was there a big run on unlicensed and unregistered people pursuing work?
Like, where did that one come from?
That feels like maybe something legal had to put in there.
Right.
Is the RFQ or the RFP, is that the right place to be looking for that?
Is there a pre-submittal option, you know, as all this documentation uploaded, you know, as a subcontractor form?
I mean, I don't know, there's just got to be another way, but it ends up taking up a lot of space, and with proposals getting shorter and shorter, now you've got endless attachments, and endless ways to be disqualified, which is our scariest thing.
Right, yeah, and then they're not as pretty, so then you make it really small, and then there's just like this weird kind of almost not quite legible photo of your Washington State business license and your UBI number and your insurance certificate.
Yeah.
So that's one that just seems unnecessary.
Well, we've been talking a lot about the tighter page limits, and that's another pet peeve, is that the page limits have gotten tighter, but there's no fewer prompts to answer.
Oh, yes.
I feel like we run into this every week, you know, if not more often.
I was recently responding to an RFP that had five pages of questions, and we needed to answer our response in four pages.
That's super common.
You know, I can't even restate all of your questions or, you know, to do a proper answer.
They're not just one sentence answers.
So I don't know.
I would love it for someone to take a closer look at their RFP in general and confirm, can we actually respond to this in the page limit that we have required, or are we going to allow some things like an appendix for resumes and such?
Yeah, and I've noticed it where it seems like there are contracts that get advertised year over year, like an on-call contract, where clearly people want to spend less time reviewing these, they're getting more submittals.
So I understand the thought process, but then there's got to go another step further from just changing it from 20 pages to 10 pages, but what else can we remove from the submission requirements if we're going to give less space to answer?
And then the kicker is less space, but still 11-point font.
And you know, I mean, it's like, okay, if I'm going to show a table, because that's an efficient way to show data and information, but it has to be 11-point font, like, man, you're just really stuck, it feels like.
In fact, I would just love to ask, can we just not have the font requirement?
I understand for accessibility and legibility, you know, all of that, it needs to be of a certain size, but with digital submittals, there's a lot of zooming that can be done.
And also for charts and tables and graphics, sometimes actually readability is improved by being able to have a hierarchy of font sizes.
So that's my graphic designer's pitch for please let us decide how big the font should be.
And don't tell us we have to use Times New Roman.
Oh, we're just going to keep going.
Becky, we need to get our designer in here.
Start telling us all of your font, Peppy.
So another one that has been coming up lately is an A3 response.
And an A3, if you're not familiar, is an 11 x 17 sheet.
Not quite because A3 is a European size and it's in centimeters.
So it's the closest thing we have in America.
And if you're not familiar where the A3 concept comes from, it's a lean principle, which you probably hear about lean if you work in construction.
But lean is it started at Toyota about how to be really efficient.
And so it's the idea that a problem, the analysis and the action plan should be able to be communicated on one big sheet of paper.
So that's where it came from.
So I've appreciated this movement towards trying to do lean practices on RFPs and having an A3 response.
It does definitely create some challenges of writing super tight copy and having a design that really works.
But the thing that got me when I first saw that was that the RFP where I first saw the request for an A3 was 20 pages long.
Oh, geez.
So it felt really incongruent that we only have an 11 by 17 page to answer this.
Yet you had 20 pages to talk about the project, to talk about the submission requirements, the evaluation criteria, the schedule, which I get, of course, there's going to be a little bit more information.
But I must applaud our friends at the University of Washington.
They have transitioned to an A3 for their RFP.
So I was so happy when I saw that because it felt like they got it, that if we're asking the consultant to do that, we need to be able to do the same thing as the owner.
And following the A3, the RFQ that's in that format is also so refreshing and easy.
You can see everything.
It's on one sheet.
You're not looking for all of these secret requests buried in other attachments.
I think it makes everyone be more specific and concise.
And hopefully on the reviewing side makes it just really easy just as for us to look at an RFP in that format.
So please adopt that.
Anyone who wants to try it, I encourage it.
So this next one is really tough.
It's when the submittal requirements and the evaluation criteria don't match.
So you've read the RFQ.
You're kind of getting your plan in your mind of what this is going to look like.
And it all seems pretty straightforward.
And then you get to the evaluation criteria.
And there's points allocated to things like an approach.
But the submittal requirements didn't ask for an approach.
And this is an RFQ, not an RFP.
So then you're left with, okay, do I answer the submission requirements?
Go through those and then do a response to the evaluation criteria.
Do I figure out one of the submission requirements where that evaluate Christian criteria kind of relates and add it in there?
So it then creates this judgment call that you have to make as the marketing professional.
And I have seen that one so many times.
Oh, so many.
Yeah, you think that you understand the RFQ.
You've allotted the pages, you've gone through the whole thing, who's going to answer what?
And then that last page of it, it's like, here's what we're going to be scoring on.
You're like, well, where do we shoehorn this part in?
That's like, what about these two items that weren't captured above?
How do you do it?
And maybe some of that is just our job of being aware of those things and looking for this kind of hidden booby traps in any RFP, you know, find out where those are so you don't miss anything.
But at the same time, it feels like we could be more clear.
Everyone could be more clear.
Let's just make it a little more consistent so you can get a better response.
Yeah, and I guess that does translate to a tip.
Make sure you've read the entire RFP before you start outlining your response, because you might have a hidden hidden item to address on the evaluation criteria that you maybe forgot to read because it was at the last page.
I don't know.
Oh yeah, I mean, classically, there can be on the last page or just in the attachments, like here's the appendix of items related to the RFP.
There is an insurance certificate requirement and the bonding letter, whatever.
I mean, that's fine.
We're either tuned to look for that, but it may not be obvious in the questions themselves.
So take a look.
And then for, I love an RFP that up at the top has the checklist.
Here's everything you need to submit for this proposal.
I'm like, thank you.
Did someone from Marketing help with this?
Because then you feel very confident on that day when you're submitting by email and you're sending your hard copies or whatever, that you've got that checklist.
You're like, here are all the things.
I am good.
And I do feel like the agencies where I've seen that are the more complex RFQs where there's things requested in a few different places.
So someone was thinking, and thank you.
We won't just gripe the whole time.
That's so true.
Something that we haven't talked about is the really tight turnarounds for RFQs.
I think there can be, I don't know what it's like on the inside, but I am assuming that there's a planned schedule of when they want to release the RFQ and something gets delayed.
I think this happens on the private side, you know, on our developer side that a decision hasn't been quite made and they release the RFQ late or often just like one week later than anticipated, but the deadline doesn't change.
And so then you may have, you know, in a worst case scenario, it comes out on a Monday and it's due Friday.
Or sometimes what you see is like it comes out on Friday and the team can't really do their go no go very well while people are, you know, wrapping up for the weekend.
And then it might be due on Wednesday or Thursday the next week.
You're like, oh my gosh, we have four working days.
You know, those are the most extreme circumstances.
It doesn't happen all the time, but I think I've noticed that the RFQ will be late, but the due date doesn't change.
That's so stressful.
It's really hard.
You know, project teams are working on current projects.
Of course, they need to have a little flexibility to build out and to respond to these.
But just given, if you think of your own schedule, any given week, you may have a day that's just totally useless.
Booked cannot change.
And that's what those internal teams are doing with a lot.
Yeah, that was one that the agency person I presented with in the past, she did glean a little bit on that, that it is a little bit of that situation where there's things that are happening internally within the city or the county, and it didn't get out as soon as they wanted.
And this particular person wasn't so surprised that consultants take that to mean that maybe the project is wired.
If you have a one week turnaround, this isn't really an open process.
But I have talked to other agency staff that were surprised to hear that that's what the consulting community took that to mean.
If you only give us a week to respond, we take that to mean you know who you want and you're making this a really tight deadline so you won't get many submissions.
I'd actually had an old colleague of mine call and ask me, he was going to have to do a RFP for community engagement services and ask like, what's the standard response time?
How much time should I give?
And I'm like, when are you advertising this?
I'm like, is it within the next few weeks?
And he said, yes.
And I said, well, then you should give four weeks because there's a lot of proposals out.
I was like, unless you don't want that many submissions, then you might do a two week turnaround.
Yeah, that's such a good point and perspective.
And I forgot about that when we're coaching or guiding a team, you know, in the go, no go process, it will very easily be a question on our mind.
Like, do they already have their team selected?
Do we need to score this differently or what have we missed?
Why didn't we get enough time?
So, yeah, that's a that's a really good insight to what it feels like when you're going to respond.
Like, should we even go for this?
So we do a lot of proposals for specialty subcontractors, our MEP partners.
They are doing way more proposal submittals rather than just lump some hard bid work.
And so they're preparing responses to general contractors.
So this is a message out to any general contractors that are listening.
Something that I've noticed are just generally sloppy RFPs that are put together, and the scope doesn't align with the questions, or you're asking for things, it's just mismatched.
It's maybe a little too cut and paste, or just, again, knowing what a general contractor's life is like, you are so busy that maybe you haven't had enough time to slow down and really look at what you're asking for.
So I'm not going to name names and I'm not going to call out specific things, but it is not uncommon to see that the scope of work that's listed is actually contradicted later on in the proposal.
So it's like, how do you respond to that when they've asked for one thing, but then they've said something completely different later on in the questions?
It's like, the scope of work up front is probably correct.
The latter part is not correct.
And then you have to make that decision.
Are we clarifying this?
Are we going off of the intel that we know so that to not lose our competitive advantage?
I mean, it's a real problem.
And I think those specialty trade partners are super busy, and they usually have some of the shortest turnaround times for these responses.
Yeah, I've definitely experienced that as well, like a one week turnaround.
And, you know, if they haven't gone after ECCM or MCCM or design build, electrical, mechanical, and they're starting from scratch, that's a lot of content to pull together for someone who's not used to doing that.
And then if they need to get help doing it, you only have a week.
That doesn't give you much time to get resources to do the rehearsal.
Yeah, and then put on top of it, you're reading it, the RFP, like the letter of the law.
Okay, we have to respond to this.
And then you're like, but this doesn't make sense.
This is not right.
You know, like, what am I missing here?
Or the nuances, and I don't get too much into like the fee component of it.
But, you know, they may be asking for a certain type of deliverable, but then asking for a fee that doesn't align with how you would price it out, right?
Like whether they want a lump sum dollar fee or the percentage.
It's like, I think that the project managers and project engineers on the GC side need to just take a step for QCing and make sure like, are you going to get what you want out of this?
Are you going to get proposals from your subcontractors that are all speaking the same language, like apples to apples, instead of having you have to go back and calculate because your questions were a little bit off and then you made your subcontractor team like, jump through all these hoops to provide a response.
Another piece of information that is really useful to have is the schedule, not only the schedule for the project, but the schedule for the selection process.
If it's a multi-phase process where there's an RFQ and an RFP and an interview and a proprietary meeting, outlining those dates even like within a few days or the week is super helpful so you can prepare your project team, you can start calendaring out when those announcements are going to come out and get your team prepared and just be aware of people's PTO and plan for all of that.
And then also the schedule for the project because often there's questions around your availability.
So if you want us to be able to tell you what our availability is for the project, then we need to know what the schedule is for the project.
And sometimes it's super quick.
Where it's starting in the next month, I'm working on a proposal right now that the project's not even going to start till August.
So that information is super helpful.
And that kind of is related to how we're presenting information, whether it's percentages of time for the team on the project or if we're listing their current commitments, having that schedule is helpful.
And man, I would love to know what the perfect answer is for availability.
I was just going to say, I think we've hit on another pet peeve availability.
It's so hard, right?
Because there's so many ways to think about it.
And actually a really detailed staffing plan, which is like, here's how many hours the team would spend.
Usually, we're not even getting into it in the RFQ, RFP stage per phase.
If you're really thinking out and pricing your team, that's one thing.
But when you're answering just like, my percentage of time on the project and pre-con or whatever, what is 15%?
Is it 100%?
It's such a hard question to know.
What do you want to hear?
Yeah, and obviously we work with a lot of different clients that submit on a lot of different types of work.
So we're hearing it.
I mean, I've heard, oh, we keep hearing our percentages are too low, so we're amping them up.
And then the next owner is like, oh, in the debrief, you had way too much time on the project.
That was going to be too expensive.
Your point about hours, that is one way that I helped a client kind of dissect that.
They had something super low.
And so when I did the math, I was like, so you're only going to spend two hours per week on this project?
They're like, oh, no, more than that.
I was like, well, then we got to make the percentage higher.
Yeah, that is a good way to think about like, how many days, you know, how much is your time?
And sometimes when we're just brainstorming, what is the right answer?
It feels like we'll think that the owner wants 100 percent of your attention, but doesn't want to pay for that, right?
Obviously.
So what's that perfect amount?
Maybe this goes to being well pre-positioned and knowing enough about the project and the client to respond accurately based on what you think the project needs are, but then also just that fine tuning of it so that it meets the expectation on the owner side.
Yeah, it's definitely one of my least favorite questions to answer because it's never clear what's wanted.
Is anyone going after work that they don't really think they could accomplish?
You know, there's just so many things that go along with that question and then if everyone's answering it differently, then we're not comparing apples to apples and how is that helping the owner make a decision?
It should really be in a separate Excel document, fill in your team, their rates, their hours, separate from the proposal we're putting together because then you could compare apples to apples across the different teams.
But that very rarely happens in that way.
Most of the time, it's just like, let's make another graphic to just show this capacity off.
And this is very clear.
I don't know.
Another pet peeve is kind of related to the availability, but it's the backlog question.
And I used to work at a firm that had five different disciplines and worked on a ton of projects.
So it would say, provide the backlog for the entire firm.
And then that would literally be like so many projects because there was five different departments, whereas we were like, well, can we just answer it for this particular division or this just group of people?
So that's another one where that can become onerous amounts of information.
Like I remember one where we asked for clarification and they still said it was for the firm.
It was pages and pages of information because there were a hundred some projects going across five different departments.
So how valuable is that information?
It's taking up space.
Is that really what you're going to use to make your decision?
So the marketing team needs to craft that upfront message that sort of summarizes.
Our firm works on this number of projects every year.
We actively have this going on.
You're kind of like reminding people, like this is how your business is set up.
This is where this is how we need to be so we can staff things appropriately.
Yeah.
And then by the way, here's five pages of projects to look through and see all of our work.
I was working on a proposal the other day and I thought that this agency did a really nice way about asking about backlog.
And what they did was, in addition to annual revenue and kind of seeing how much capacity you would have on a monthly basis, which is a good summary instead of having five pages of content, they also asked for a list of current projects contracted that were on that campus.
This was a university project, so I thought that was really thoughtful.
Like, oh, you just want to see what else we're working on on that campus.
I think it would tell an interesting story if you had zero.
It might also tell an interesting story if you had 10, and that will let the owner decide what they think is the right mix.
But are you on too many projects?
Does this feel like too much or is it just right?
But you can't mess with that data very well.
So I felt like that was really a nice way to show it.
I think the other great thing about that approach is it also helps the owner understand what your company was working on across different departments.
And then it's almost like a sneaky way to get a reference to it was like, oh, what else are they doing?
Oh, I'm going to go talk to the person in that other department that I don't normally work with and see how this firm is performing.
So I haven't seen that before and I like it.
Yeah, I liked it too.
I thought it was good.
Can we talk about org charts?
Sure.
I hate them.
I don't know if there's anything more to say than org charts annoy me.
Let's talk about org charts, Melissa.
They're the bane of every marketer's existence, right?
What is the right answer to an org chart?
Impossible.
Yes.
I mean, and then how can we design it differently?
Can we make them overlapping somehow?
And then when we start getting into alternative delivery projects like progressive design build, then how do you show the different phases?
How deep do you go with the team?
They're just one of my least favorite things.
I think I've heard every amount of feedback on org charts.
Also, in kickoff meetings, we spend so much time talking about what's this org chart going to be like.
But I've heard the feedback on we don't want a hierarchy.
There wasn't enough of a hierarchy.
It wasn't clear are these team members in two places or one place.
What's the difference between pre-construction design and construction?
Percentages of time, who's reporting to who?
We want it to be collaborative.
Where's the owner in the middle of all this?
I mean, your head can spin thinking about it.
And I feel like actually the more creative we get with org charts, the less effective they are.
Then it's just becoming something visually appealing that has everyone's name on it.
And then, oh, maybe can we also get those capacity percentages?
I know, right?
There's so much.
Oh, and it's 11-point font.
So everything has to be giant in the middle of that, all of that.
Yeah, I think a good, clean org chart with a traditional structure is usually the best place to start, at least.
And then maybe if you've gotten feedback or if you've proposed on this to this agency or to this group, and you know that there's a desire for something that feels a little different, more integrated, that's a time to push a little bit and see if you can check the box for them in that way.
But often org charts can be confusing.
This might be a good place to get a fresh set of eyes to look and say, like, what do you get from this new version of an org chart?
If it's confusing, I bet you that selection panel will also say we didn't get this.
Yeah, and I think it is another one where we have seen RFPs and RFQs that ask for a lot of information on one chart.
Their name, their role, I've seen name role and responsibilities.
It's like on the org chart, like how are we going to fit that in and also the availability?
And so that's another one where I've seen a lot kind of loading up of all the different things you want to see on the org chart.
So in addition to just figuring out what's the right structure and how to make this look good, now we've got to fit all of this other stuff in.
Yeah.
I don't know if any points are really being won in the new org chart battle.
Like just look at what the question is and dissect it and just think about how can we be as clear as possible.
Yes, they may have forgotten a comma in their list of things that they want on this org chart.
So just think about what's going to be the easiest way to review that and get the 10 things they've asked for in a place so that they can score and don't get too cutesy with the org chart.
I think we have to cut our deep dive into pet peeves right there.
We'll start generating a list of them for season three now that we've gotten our creative juices flowing and all the things that we've come across.
I'm sure we'll start highlighting.
Or maybe another way to look at it is we've had some experiences with some really amazing RFPs and RFQs.
We need to highlight and flag those and share them with the world.
Like, here's what a really great RFQ looks like.
So we could take it from a different perspective.
Absolutely.
But for today, this is a fun conversation.
Hopefully, either it struck a chord with some of our listeners out there and they just enjoyed and realized they're not alone.
Or maybe this will influence the folks who are creating these RFQs to be clear and kind and gentle on the teams that are putting these together.
Because man, it's a major effort.
So if we could all get a little bit better at producing good quality RFQs, then that's going to reflect in the quality of the responses you get.
So thanks for thinking about all of these pet peeves, Melissa.
Good luck on whatever number of RFQs you're working on at the minute.
A lot.
Yeah, right.
Awesome.
Thanks for being here.
See you next time.
See you guys.
The Shortlist is presented by Middle of Six and hosted by me, Wendy Simmons, Principal Marketing Strategist.
Our producer is Kyle Davis, with digital marketing and graphic design by the team at Middle of Six.
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The Shortlist is a podcast that explores all things AEC marketing. Hosted by Middle of Six Principal, Wendy Simmons, each episode features members of the MOS team, where we take a deep dive on a wide range of topics related to AEC marketing including: proposal development, strategy, team building, business development, branding, digital marketing, and more. You can listen to our full archive of episodes here.