Are your proposals being ‘left on read’?
A question for firms following the rosy optimism of Valentine’s Day: How many of your proposals are being 'left on read’ (or 'ghosted', for the older generations)?
Global law firms can generate 1,000+ bids and proposals a year, and national firms are often producing 100+ a year.
Winning proposals (for specific matters or panels/frameworks) are required to secure a large percentage of most law firms’ revenues. And losing proposals (while never fun) can at least provide useful intel, if you gather and respond to feedback. But what about the ones you never hear back from - where you have been left on read?
Many firms don’t track this important data point, or don’t act on it even if they do know that number, because they haven't considered its importance.
A high proportion of ‘unknown outcome’ proposals - where either the relationship with the potential client isn’t strong enough to confirm a loss/cancellation, or the win/loss/cancellation information isn’t shared internally - is a strong indication that your firm is:
losing proposals it could be winning by not engaging effectively throughout the pursuit, and/or
investing valuable resources (partner, lawyer and BD/Bid team time) into phantom ‘opportunities’, and likely taking that time from otherwise winnable proposals, given resources are limited.
Improving one or both of these issues will help you win more proposals and likely also reduce the strain of this work on everyone involved.
So, if you are looking to evaluate how effectively your firm or practice is at pursuing work through proposals, I recommend you look at more than win rates, revenue won, and feedback - also look at where the gaps in your knowledge are now and how you can fill these to identify areas for improvement that will help ensure you are bidding to win wherever possible.
PS I was originally looking at this as a pre-Valentine’s Day post, but decided to give the romantics their day in peace.
PPS I am of course delighted to work with firms that would like support for improving their approach to bid and proposals.