Redhead Design Studio

I almost hesitate to put it in writing. We’re gangbusters with work. Up to our eyeballs. It’s fantastic, and frightening. And apparently rare in Michigan. (I have some theories on the inverse proportion of the health of my industry versus the health of almost every other in our state, but I’ll save those for a different day.) 

But there is a point when you have to cry uncle. It came for us yesterday. We had a proposal due for a fairly sweet project redesigning a website. Generally not a big deal to put out a proposal. There are reasons, however, we had to let this one go the way of the cassette tape. 

The first, which is a great reason: we’re freaking busy. Six photoshoots in the last 12 days, more than 120 pages of print production alive this week alone, banners and logos and websites—all in active states. This is super-fantastically awesome. But boy, it doesn’t leave a lot of spare time. 

And this proposal? (Here comes reason number two.) It needed a lot of spare time. I mean, a lot. Like, it needed us to have hours and hours of billable time NOT being billed so we had time to write the proposal. One of those giant proposals that ask us for details, details, details on how the work will get done. And details, details, details on the staff. And I think it might have asked me to sign over guardianship of my firstborn child, but I lost track of the details somewhere on page 17 of the RFP.

Here’s my point. (I know, you’ve really got to bear with me, I ramble). The proposal was so cumbersome, so filled with minutiae, that in the end we decided it wasn’t worth our time. Which is sad, because the project, and the potential client contact, would have been uber-fun. But the bureaucratic machine behind it all added so many layers of red tape, and we just don’t have than much Bestine on hand.  

Add to it, we have gotten many, many a similar big & fancy project on reputation and talent alone.  

So, we cried uncle, and said no thank you to the proposal. I also wonder if the client will end up paying for all the hoops they asked potential bidders to go through. I’m sure the winning vendor will find a way to recoup those hours spent on proposal generation, don’t you think? And I wonder if the client will find the best fit or the most talented firm—or just the one who is really good at proposal writing.  

We think we will stick to winning new business based on reputation, portfolio, and good old fashioned face-to-face.