Overall, it’s been a good month for SJK Consultants. We’ve delivered: four writing skills workshops to teams in two of The Big Four accountancy firms in London and Geneva (average 95% satisfaction); a successful writing workshop to the PSLs (Professional Support Lawyers) of a ‘magic circle’ law firm; and four writing workshops to defence & security consultants (93% satisfaction). We also won a bid writing coaching programme with a small, innovative pensions consultancy, and helped a GP Federation get shortlisted for a London borough NHS contract.
But it’s not all been plain sailing…We worked with a professional services firm on a major bid and failed to even get shortlisted. They’d over-estimated the quality of their relationship with the buyer. It was like being slapped in the face. But what did I learn from it? That bidders must assess with brutal honesty the quality of their relationship with each buyer, and bid consultants mustn’t accept the bidder’s initial assessment at face value!
Amusing note: the other day I was looking a consultancy website that preaches the merits of personalized communication. Guess what their email address was? info@domainname.
