The Unspoken RFP Criterion: How One Throwaway Joke Cost Us a Major Deal

One joke cost me a deal worth more than my entire annual sales target…


And I think we’d lost it before the presentation even started. We had the capability. We were well positioned. The deal felt like ours to lose.


Then we arrived late. And as we walked into the meeting, my manager tried to diffuse the situation with a bit of humour and blamed ‘my poor driving skills’. To be fair, he was right.


It was intended as a joke. We weren’t trying to avoid responsibility and neither of us thought it was particularly significant at the time.


But there’s a useful principle in communication: What is heard matters more than what is intended.


The presentation was well rehearsed, but it wasn’t landing. We didn’t hear back as quickly as we’d expected afterwards. And when we eventually did… it was bad news.


We subsequently discovered that one of the client’s organisational values was: ‘Own it’. We were clearly underpreprared… or we would have known it. 


Think about what they’d just seen. We were late and the boss’ immediate response appeared to be to blame the junior.


It was one throwaway joke. But through the lens of something that mattered deeply to them, it potentially said far more about us as an organisation than the presentation that followed.


We didn’t win the work. One of the reasons cited was ‘values alignment’ and the joke. I’ll never know with certainty that the joke cost us the deal. But I came away convinced we’d failed a test we didn’t even realise we were taking.


The Criteria That Isn’t in the RFP

Some of the most important information in a negotiation will never appear in the RFP.

We tend to focus our preparation on the things we can see and measure: price, capability, experience, terms, delivery, methodology and risk. But there are often other criteria at play:
 

• Do I trust these people?
• Do they understand us?
• Will they behave the way we expect when things go wrong?
• Do I actually want to work with them?

Those things are much harder to objectively define and score, but that doesn’t make them less important.

In fact, when several suppliers can credibly meet the technical requirements, they can become the difference.

It’s why at Scotwork we encourage negotiators to spend time trying to understand the counterpart during preparation and discovery BEFORE making any proposal. Think of it like spending the time earning the right to make a proposal first.

Not just what they are asking for, but why: Their pressures / interests / priorities / stakeholders / alternatives / etc.

And if you are thorough with this, you will start to learn about their values… not just their stated ones, but the ones they live!

Before your next important negotiation, ask yourself:

What matters to the other party that isn’t written down? And, importantly, what would behaviour inconsistent with those values look like?

Because you’re being assessed long before you start negotiating.

In the reception area. In how you treat their staff. In how you respond when something goes wrong. And apparently, in who you blame when you’re late.

You can meet every criterion in the RFP and still fail the test they never wrote down.

Got an important negotiation coming up?

Good negotiation preparation goes well beyond deciding what you’re going to ask for.

If you’re a Scotwork alumnus and you’ve got a difficult negotiation coming up, give us a call on a Friday. Our alumni hotline exists for exactly this reason – a second pair of eyes to challenge your preparation, help you think about the other party and spot the things you might be missing.

And if you’re not an alumnus yet, perhaps we should talk.

Because sometimes the most expensive mistake in a negotiation happens before anyone starts negotiating.