Well, it’s my first day out on my own and I have already had a rejection. Whee!
In reality, it was a contract job that I bid on without too much expectation of getting the work. I definitely was not counting on this work as part of my survival in my new jump to self employment. Mostly it was an interesting problem that I would have enjoyed working on and I would have been able to work with some good people; this is my main disappointment with not getting the work.
However, I did get feedback on my proposal, which is great. A lot of times, people will just blow you off and you later get the, “Oh, we went with someone else” a few months down the road. The feedback was positive, that the proposal was well enough done, which was reassuring because I haven’t submitted many in the past. The reality of the situation was that they decided to go with a completely different architecture for the project, which I had no chance of doing well. As such, their decision to not go with me was a good one.
I suppose the biggest disappointment after “not getting the work” was that I failed to convince them to see my solution as the best solution (really the point of any proposal). I knew this would be an uphill battle from the beginning as the project manager seemed to favor the other way of architecting the solution. But how do you change someone’s mind when they have been envisioning a particular type of solution from the beginning? This isn’t isolated to this situation, I have experienced a preconceived notion by managers in the past.
I could complain about a manager making a decision in a vacuum, but the truth is, I don’t know if this decision was made in a vacuum. In fact, it could be that the solution that was asked for is in fact the best way to go forward. If I really wanted (or needed) the work, I suppose I could tailor a solution to the manager’s preconceived notion, quickly iterate on it and show how it ultimately will fail as a final solution and then be ready to propose the alternate (better) solution. Is this realistic as a contractor? No. I think from the outset if you plan on failure, you’re going to hurt your reputation. Plus, as I mentioned above, I have no way of actually creating the (preconceived) solution, so this wouldn’t have even been an option for me. I think the only real way for me to win this (long term) would be to develop this solution on my own for fun/educational purposes and then be at the ready to offer it up later as a possible solution, assuming the preconceived method does ultimately fail. In reality, I have other things to get done, so I’ll just wait and see if they call and I’ll start on the work then.
So yeah, first day out of the gate and I’ve already had a rejection! It feels good to get it out of my system…I’m sure no more will happen in the future…right? RIGHT? Riiiiiiiiiiiight.
2 replies on “First Day Rejection”
I’ve found that presenting clients with all the options available without prejudice is a good way to approach this problem. Allowing the client to make the choice and being prepared to implement the solution that best suits them has been a fruitful path for me.
I agree with Matt. You note “my solution is the best solution.” Are you 100% sure? Does that matter even if you are? Having been on the side of hiring, I am looking for a person that provides me options and can summarize the pros and cons – extra credit if the pros/cons are not only technical, but fit within my business model (cost savings, better customer experience, more robust…). Ultimately a right solution is a small piece in an overall product experience. The more you address their business needs, the better.