Poor proposal documents
Discussion
I've just had a proposal document from a potential supplier. I've swapped a few emails with them, they've looked at our site and then we met and exchanged business cards at a meeting.
1. Front cover : Wrong logo for my company
2. Page 1 multiple typos and grammatical errors
I haven't even got to page 2 yet! This proposal is for a value of £7500!
1. Front cover : Wrong logo for my company
2. Page 1 multiple typos and grammatical errors
I haven't even got to page 2 yet! This proposal is for a value of £7500!
Frimley111R said:
I spent half a day writing a proposal yesterday, checking and rechecking it and yet for a project 3 times higher in value they give me this!
Maybe you need to re-evaluate the effort you put into proposals 
Joking aside, if your project you're bidding on is for £2,500 there must be a limited amount of profit in it (max £2,500!!) so if you spend half a day on the proposal, how much work is involved in the project itself?!
Slightly more O/T, you'd have thought they'd have a standard proposal which is then edited to suit each customer - I'd hope they could get that simple bit right!!
Altrezia said:
We are pretty bad at writing proposals. We are programmers not english teachers. Who cares if the product is right?
AND preparing proposals takes a huge amount of time..But we still send proposals based roughly on a template that has been honed and proof read. We do this because we care about doing a proper job.
A proposal for us is proper because it sets expectations for customers before we start a project. If multiple people work on the same job then the proposal is a valuable thing to refer back to because it sets out what equipment/configuration/software functions have been agreed. When the proposal has been supplied then you can easily go through it to get a sign off and get paid.
I would forgive a tradesman mistakes but not a potential business partner. If they can't be bothered to check their proposal it suggests they might have the same attitude about their work. You do not need to be an 'English teacher' to write decent English. 'Only one chance to make a first impression' etc.
I don't have to write proposals very often and so it does take me longer than it should but I am getting faster.
I know not everyone has a high/decent standard of written English but getting my logo wrong when it is on my site/emails was just laziness and it had clearly not been copy checked. I am sure their service is good but this was surprisingly poor and made me wonder if their reputation was not totally deserved.
I know not everyone has a high/decent standard of written English but getting my logo wrong when it is on my site/emails was just laziness and it had clearly not been copy checked. I am sure their service is good but this was surprisingly poor and made me wonder if their reputation was not totally deserved.
10 Pence Short said:
The reason you should care, is in your last sentence;
"Who cares if the product is right?"
"Who cares, if the product is right?"
Spot the difference!
Well done "Who cares if the product is right?"
"Who cares, if the product is right?"
Spot the difference!
We spend more time thinking about how the product/system/application will work, than we spend thinking about the sentence structure. Perhaps it's a failing of ours, I suppose. There is only two of us, and writing a big proposal can take weeks.
Producing proposals can be a nightmare, the requests that are unclear what is required, that contradict themselves and are expecting you to be able to drop everything to respond. We had one recently that arrived on a Wednesday and required a response by the end of the following week. Something like 300 questions to answer, no warning it was coming, they'd obviously spent forever putting it together and gave us no time at all to do a decent response.
I could go on forever about the lunacies in the documents we are asked to respond to.
I could go on forever about the lunacies in the documents we are asked to respond to.
Altrezia said:
Well done
We spend more time thinking about how the product/system/application will work, than we spend thinking about the sentence structure. Perhaps it's a failing of ours, I suppose. There is only two of us, and writing a big proposal can take weeks.
A client of mine once commented that if a developer couldn't use their native language correctly then he didn't have much confidence that they could do better with a programming language. I don't agree with the connection but it has been a useful lesson to try and put myself in the place of the client. We spend more time thinking about how the product/system/application will work, than we spend thinking about the sentence structure. Perhaps it's a failing of ours, I suppose. There is only two of us, and writing a big proposal can take weeks.
bga said:
A client of mine once commented that if a developer couldn't use their native language correctly then he didn't have much confidence that they could do better with a programming language. I don't agree with the connection but it has been a useful lesson to try and put myself in the place of the client.
I disagree massively with that statement. Programming is like maths - you get the expected result (i.e. it works) or you do not (and it doesn't work). English is too fluid and variable to be treated in the same way. A programmers mind is set up in a different way to an authors, designers etc - certainly in the case of the programmers I've worked with anyway.I do agree that effort should be put into proposal writing, and it's something I'll actively be looking to change in my own business, but it doesn't mean I'll suddenly be an expert writer - It's just not something I can do well due to various reasons.
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