Woolley Marketing: To feedback or not to feedback, what is the difference?
In his regular column for Mumbrella, Trinity P3 founder and global CEO Darren Woolley says pitch consultants like constructive criticism. But feedback increasingly appears to be a luxury, rather than the norm, when doing business.
I know for some this is hard to believe, but pitch consultants are often required to pitch for business. No, we do not have to spend hours crafting speculative creative to a wishy-washy brief. But we are often required to complete long and detailed Requests for Proposal that include things like “Please provide detailed contingency plans in the case of catastrophic systems failures”.
But no matter if we succeed or fail, we always ask for a debrief. After all, for the investment in time and intellectual property, one thing we would like is constructive criticism on how we could be better. Even when we win. But feedback increasingly appears to be a luxury, rather than the norm, when doing business.
Most recently, we received an email late on a Friday night telling us we had not been successful in a tender we had submitted. That’s fine. But it was when we asked for the opportunity to obtain feedback and advice on our submission that the response shocked us.
We were informed that the process was confidential and therefore no feedback was to be provided. Clutching the non-disclosure agreement, we had signed as part of the tender process (which is also the reason we are not naming this advertiser) we asked how advising us on where our submission underperformed and how we could improve it in future could possibly constitute a major security risk. Particularly as the email informing us of our lack of success talked about not engaging us ‘at this time’ and that they looked forward to the opportunity of working with us at ‘some time in the future’.
We had invested time and effort in meeting with this client and discussing our experience with the issues they were facing, some of the solutions we had implemented in the past for other advertisers, and the strengths and benefits of each. We had diligently read through their tender request document, ensuring we understood and complied with their expectations. We drafted and redrafted our response, organised references from a few of our many happy clients, particularly in the same category of business. And we submitted our proposal early and through the prescribed channels to ensure its compliance.
Cartoon by Dennis Flad, with permission (2022)
We were very happy to do all this because before we said yes to participating in the tender we asked a lot of questions around the process, including how many suppliers were being invited to tender. We had met the project owner, leader, and manager, and felt we had a clear understanding of their needs and expectations and a belief that they saw us as a legitimate and valued potential solution. The one thing we did not ask, with 20/20 hindsight, was if they were offering feedback, possibly because we had not even contemplated being unsuccessful, so positive were we feeling about this opportunity.
When we followed up for further clarification on the lack of opportunity for feedback, we were met with silence. So, what went wrong?
Perhaps they were taking my mother’s sage advice: “If you cannot say something positive, do not say anything at all”. In which case, we must have really bombed out, making feedback even more essential.
Or perhaps they were so overwhelmed with three potential suppliers requesting feedback (as we were told only four companies were being invited to tender) that they were unable to satisfy demand.
Or maybe they had not read our tender document at all and simply were shopping on price and so turned straight to the page on proposed fees. This is a possibility, as they were very vague on budget.
Or maybe, to save face, they wanted to avoid the awkward and potentially embarrassing discussion that would have required them to share their decision-making process. But I have managed enough tenders to know that while the process is the process, the most important thing is that it results in a decision. Right or not.
Or finally, perhaps like everyone these days they were just too busy. But isn’t everyone busy? And if you really are too busy to provide feedback to your suppliers, then perhaps you should not be requesting a tender response in the first place?
One of the things we have always done, when we manage a tender or pitch on behalf of our clients, is to ensure there is time and resource to give every agency that participates complete and thorough feedback – for credentials alone or right through to the end. We also encourage our clients to provide feedback to the successful agency as well. Nothing like starting the relationship on an honest and transparent footing.
This is often a challenge for many clients, as they can struggle with providing frank and honest feedback. We find that encouraging our clients in the practice of ‘radical candour’ can be really helpful in these cases.
And after all, as you can see, there’s actually nothing worse than to leave them guessing. Because where suppliers land in explaining your polite refusal to respond can have a very damaging impact on your reputation. Always better to take the time to provide the truth, no matter how painful, on why they were not successful.
Trinity P3 founder and global CEO Darren Woolley
