Jay Challa - Minority Enterprise Executive Council

In The NewsThe Shumaker ReportBy Gary ShumakerOK, you didn’t win. Now what? It’s an old story. You dideverything right. You slaved over a great proposal. Yousubmitted with minutes to spare. You waited months. Itfinally happens.You get the letter or phone call telling you what a wonderfulproposal you had and how much they appreciate yourinterest, but that there were many good proposals, youweren’t selected, and they hope you’ll give them anotherchance to select you on future opportunities. What now?DebriefsThe first thing you need to do is request a debrief immediately.There is a clock on a debrief request, and they may turn youdown if you wait, so doing it the sameday you receive notification is a goodidea. In most cases, the governmenthas to give you a debrief, but often,even if it isn’t required, they will if youask. (Actually, you should ask for adebrief even when you win. Don’t youwant to know what you did right?) Theymay invite you in for the debrief (the firstchoice from your perspective, since it gives you face timewith them) or they may do it telephonically or occasionally inwriting.It’s important how you approach the debrief. This should bea learning experience for you. You want to come to betterunderstanding of how they evaluated your proposal. Thisis not a forum for you to argue that they evaluated yourproposal incorrectly and should have given you a higherscore. The people giving the debrief have no authorityto change the result of the proposal evaluation. Even ifafter you explain what you did, they totally agree with youthat your proposal was evaluated incorrectly and shouldhave been scored higher, THEY HAVE NO AUTHORITY TOCHANGE THE EVALUATION! There is no point to becomingcontentious; they can’t change the result. If you think theyfailed to follow the published evaluation criteria, it doesn’tmake any difference in the debrief. Even if, after you leave“This should be alearning experiencefor you.”Gary Shumaker, President,Gary E. Shumaker, Inc.the room, they scratch their heads and say to each other,“Wow! How did we blow the evaluation like that?”, theycan’t change it at this point.This is an opportunity to learn. If you think they missed animportant feature of your proposal, ask them how you couldhave made it more recognizable. Learn from them.If you become contentious and argumentative, they will almostalways reduce the quantity of information they give you to thebare minimum so they can be done with you quicker. Shouldyou take your lawyer along? If they spot a lawyer, again, they’llmost likely get defensive and give you a lot less information.If they think you really want to learn, they’ll often give you realhelp, sometimes even more than they should. Use the time toestablish a relationship with the potentialcustomer. And feel free to ask aboutupcoming opportunities. They know alot about your capabilities from readingyour proposal, and if it’s been a sessionthat flatters their egos, they’ll often pointyou to something that you’re even betterqualified to win.ProtestsThe next question is, “Should you protest?” You can protestbasically two things: either that the government botchedthe evaluation, or on small business awards, that the winnerdoesn’t meet the size standard. Size standard protests are thesubject for a future column. If you decide you need to protest,you DO need a lawyer. Much of the information involved in theprotest will be proprietary, and you can’t be granted access toit. Your lawyer, however, can be admitted to a protective orderwhich will allow him access. He can’t share the proprietaryinformation with you, but he can give you advice based on whathe’s seen. You’re operating blind if you don’t have somebody onyour side who can see all the evidence.Protests of the evaluation process are almost always a badidea. A major reason is that you basically have to allege thatthe agency you want for a customer is incompetent, at leastat running a solicitation. The protest will certainly run up a26 Minority En t e r p r i s e Adv o c at e • January / February 2009