I spent a few hours this week doing a proposal review for a new client. I thought they might be a little upset when I told them that, in my opinion, the proposal needed significant reworking because the focus was wrong. Happily, they took it in stride. We had a conference call to discuss issues and next steps, and they immediately began to plan and schedule the work that needed to be done to transform the proposal. I liked their "can do" attitude.
Compared to my other proposal-related activities, I don't do a lot of proposal reviews and critiques. But I like doing them because I can usually fit them into my schedule and I often find them to be quite challenging. I also like doing reviews because, in most cases, my responsibility ends once I have completed the review and have given my comments (written and/or verbal) to the client. From that time on, it is the client's responsibility -- not mine -- to determine if changes to their proposal are necessary and, if so, to make those changes.
On occasion, a client will ask me to assist in making revisions to their proposal based on my comments. But most of the time, they do this work themselves. So for me, these types of assignments are short and sweet.
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