As the festival of football that is the World Cup draws ever closer, one key deadline looms over the 30 man provisional playing squads.

The first of June is D day for national team managers and their playing personnel.

It’s on this date that players will be “over the moon” or “sick as a parrot”.

It’s on this day that managers need to make tough choices as thirty into twenty three won’t go.

FIFA require a final twenty three man playing squad for the World cup, and since the season broke up thirty two groups of thirty players have been performing in their own version of the X-factor.

Spotlights have been replaced by floodlights, the pitch is their stage, and the songs of the faithful are their backing tracks.

There is no Simon Cowell and unfortunately for Ashely no Cheryl Cole.  Just a manager and his coaching staff making a decision that can reduce grown men to tears; if evidence is required ask Glenn Hoddle how Paul Gascoigne reacted to being told he hadn’t made it past the judges.

What does this have to do with agency life?

Pre qualifying questionnaires, tenders, requests for information, requests for proposal = requests for a lot of time and effort.

No matter what the discipline or what the balance sheet reads most agencies welcome new business.  Our approaches differ in how we go about acquiring this new revenue.  Some excel at networking and are well connected.  Others write fantastic documents and presentations.  Some are lucky enough to win more than their fair share by referral.  On the whole though we all are interested when the phone goes or an email drops with a request for something or other.

Therein lays the problem.

Just like the final pitch process with it’s song and dance and showing of leg, the process of getting through the provisional list to the final performers is fraught with danger.  Clients that don’t truly understand their own requirements, aren’t  willing to meet in advance, give you a high level brief yet want detailed specifications or expected results.  Each of us has our own stories to tell.

In a previous life I recall helping a client host two different stakeholder meetings so we could help them write a brief for a tender.  Problem was that before the project was awarded there were changes at the top and our response, which was word for word a perfect answer to their challenge and came in under budget and inside the timeframes ended up like Spotty from Superted; tossed aside like a piece of rubbish.

This isn’t just my sad tale of writing a losing tender.  We have all spent untold hours researching, analysing and compiling responses, often pulling technical resource to help with the finer points.  In the case of losing tenders this time is lost in a black hole and you are never able to get it back.  For the lucky winning tenders it’s fairly well assumed that it’s then up to the Account Director to get these billable hours back.

Is this the right way to work?

There are some tenders and pitches where we all know who has won before the process has started, thankfully in some cases freedom of information and accountability has seen these numbers fall.  In the private sector we all know that there are often hoops to be jumped through in order to get down to the nitty gritty.

Over the last 5 years I like to think I have learned something; I like to think that the wiser heads I have worked beside have taught me to be more cautious when confronted with a request.  Even though we are keen, we can say no to filling in what a client sends over.

Obviously there are some situations where there are hard and fast rules governing the tender process; however some warning signs for me are:

• Client has a very high level brief yet wants a very detailed specification or likely results, cost model and delivery time.
• Client will not agree to meet in advance, and in some cases won’t take calls or correspond with you at all.
• Client has taken some form of EU approved, rubber stamped pre qualifying questionnaire and shoe horned their brief into it.  Even though it’s blindingly obvious that it doesn’t fit.
• Client is a jumper. These ones are fairly easy to spot. They often have moved between agencies very frequently and believe that relationships or partnerships are a one way street.

Anyway these are just a taste of the challenges we all face when we choose to answer a request.  Next time one drops ask yourself these questions;

• How many tenders have I won?
• Did any of them make me rich?
• Did any of them make me famous?
• How many agencies are likely to be involved? (The chances of a win decrease with each contestant)
• How much effort is involved on behalf of my team and I?
• Can I actually service the client profitably?

Once you have the answer to these questions you will have a far better understanding if you are making the cut.

@davorgoldie