We’ve all seen the adverts: Sexy, smoldering type dressed all in black, jumps off a cliff onto a moving yacht, fights against a hurricane whilst flying a helicopter, drives a car over collapsing bridge during horrific thunderstorm…all for what? Because the lady loves chocolate?
It’s true, most of the female population do love chocolate, but seriously, why go through all the hassle of almost killing yourself just to leave a box of chocolates on a chair….makes you wonder whether it was all worthwhile.
How many times has this happened to you at work? I’m not talking in the literal sense, but when was the last time you worked hard and put a lot of effort into something important? Like a proposal or tender… hours spent slaving over a hot keyboard, checking and rechecking the brief and the figures, getting colleagues to sanity check and proof read your work and we fire it off into the ether and get nothing back!
All that hard work, time and effort yet nothing back…it’s enough to make you wonder why you bothered in the first place.
Hang on, what if we followed up on the proposal? What if we called them and asked what they think about our efforts? What if the recipient is waiting for someone who cares enough about the project to get in touch? What if by following up by email or phone we actually land the work, or amend our proposal according to new, previously undisclosed information? Worst case scenario; we ask for feedback so the next proposal we write can be improved.
If you don’t follow up after your tenders, proposals and offers then you will never know what stopped you from winning that contract/customer. What made someone else more desirable? Yes sometimes it comes down to price, but not as often as you would think! The point is you’ll never know until you ask.
We are all striving for success, but we shouldn’t fall for that ‘just because the lady loves’ factor. Yes, it might work if you are trying to impress someone, but in the business world, we need to impress and get the results to go with it…even if you are the Milk Tray man!
The point is this, work hard, put in the effort, but make sure you get the results you want, and if you don’t, find out why and try again. The proposal might look and sound impressive, but make sure the people you are delivering it to know that and make sure you take the time to see if it is everything they wanted.
Perhaps if Mr Milk Tray had stuck around he would have been able to enjoy the chocolates with the lady…don’t you think?