The moment you agree to design a comprehensive project brief or pitch a corporate client without a cleared budget, you are funding their development stage for free. In this video, I break down the hidden commercial pitfalls of corporate procurement, the escalation of commitment trap, and why writing proposals for unapproved budgets guarantees your firm will get ghosted.
-----
Some companies are bloody cheeky. When did it suddenly become normal to be asked to design and lay out an entire build spec so companies "can explore if there's a potential fit"?
We had an RFP come in this week. Good brief, actually. They'd thought about what they wanted, which isn't always the case, and the project was well within the sort of work we do.
They wanted us to build the programme, deliver it, then hand it over to their own academy. Fine, we license content all the time.
But they also wanted the whole thing designed as part of the proposal. Modules, durations, case studies, role plays, assessment methodology, scoring rubrics, even the reinforcement plan for three months afterwards.
By the time you've answered all of that, you've basically created the entire programme.
So we asked what budget had been approved.
They hadn't decided. They were going to look at everyone's proposals first and work it out from those.
Oh hell no.
Now, I can quite understand wanting to know what something costs before committing to it. Have a conversation with the provider. Tell them roughly what you're thinking of spending and they can tell you what's possible.
But asking several suppliers to spend two or three weeks working out the entire programme, so you can then decide whether there's a project, is taking the weewee big time.
And the temptation for you is to do it anyway, because it's a big company and it could be a substantial contract, and you don't want to rule yourself out.
Then by the time you've spent three days on it stopping feels stupid. So by the second week you're now arranging another "exploratory" call because that somehow feels more convincing and easier than accepting the fact that you, and 4 other companies are basically handing over an entire programme build for free.
You need to catch yourself before this happens.
We thanked them for thinking of us and withdrew.
I've no objection to competing for work. I do object to doing the work as part of the competition, for free.
We're a business not a charity.
Chapters:
00:00 The RFP with no budget in it
02:34 What happens when you ask for the number
03:14 Reason one: you're being asked to design it for free
04:38 Reason two: it changes who bids, not what it costs
05:25 Reason three: nobody has approved any money
06:10 When a buyer genuinely can't give you a figure
07:19 Why a range costs the buyer nothing
08:03 The same shape whatever you sell
09:59 Why people don't walk away, and escalation of commitment
10:33 The only cheap moment to stop
11:02 The question to send back before you write anything
11:36 What happens when you withdraw
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
𝗠𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗧𝘂𝗯𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹: https://www.youtube.com/@LuxuryAcademy
𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗟𝘂𝘅𝘂𝗿𝘆 𝗔𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗺𝘆: https://www.luxuryacademy.co.uk/
𝗦𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝘂𝘅𝘂𝗿𝘆 𝗔𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗺𝘆 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿: https://www.luxuryacademynewsletter.com
13 分