The is one business commodity that’s in short supply and it’s time. Over the past few weeks I’ve come accross a number of teams that have been spending hours and days slaving over business proposals for work from potential clients in 2011.

I will admit to not having made too many business proposals for work. For the most part I seem to have been the only person in the frame and the largest discussion has been around my availability and fee so I don’t count myself as an expert in this area. However, from my point of view, the process seems to be one-sided and to the complete benefit of the recipient as opposed to the author.

The proposal details of what needs to be done, how it will be done, who will deliver the work as well as the costs and the benefits to the client and all illustrated with as many charts and graphs as the “Egyptian Book of the Dead” and can often run into many pages. When done they are then emailed out and possibly posted with a flourish, self-congratulation from the authors and often into oblivion.

There follows a period of ignored phone messages and emails to the potential client to see if the work has been received, read and what the “next step”. Often the paper is used as fodder to negotiate price or other aspects of the contract with “preferred suppliers” or as “proof” that the correct “best practice” procedures have been completed when awarding contractual work.

I wonder that as such applications are used as a “negotiation tool” by a potential clients that it is, in fact, a business benefit to them that it would  be fair to invoice for the time taken in producing them. Then they could be honestly used to negotiate prices down with other suppliers, used to justify “best practice” and so on.

In the unlikely event that the contract was awarded then the invoice could then be discounted against the eventual bill. I might try this idea out to see if it works.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 15th, 2010 at 10:51 am and is filed under productivity.