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Selling Consulting Services by Mike Schultz

1/27/2013

 
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This is a helpful report you can learn from. Although it is a couple of years old, I don't think the ideas have aged at all. Mike Schultz at RainToday.com is a good source of sales advice.

Over the years, I have found that the best way to absorb information is to pay attention to it when you notice it. My theory is that noticing it is an indication that you are receptive to that type of learning at the moment. Even if you are too wrapped up right then, bookmark or copy or 'Instapaper' it for consumption later. Conversely, when you sign up for a seminar, webinar, or follow someone else's suggestion (like now), you are less likely to make the information your own because it wasn't your attention that put it in front of you. 


Depending on how you like to do things, you might download this report and file it away, bookmark RainToday.com or simply remember that you found it here.


Ignore Details Early On

1/16/2013

 
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One of my favorite companies is 37signals. Although they are a web development firm, there is a lot of similarity between what they do and what a traditional architect does. Their blog, Signal VS. Noise, is very worthwhile. This post about not tackling detail too soon is something that designers of all types struggle with from time to time. Seeing someone you admire address the topic is gratifying.
SIGNAL VS. NOISE                                                                               January 7, 2013
Ignore details early on
Jason Fried

There’s a lot of talk about how impor­tant details are. But what’s often left out of the dis­cus­sion is tim­ing. Details and tim­ing are inti­mate­ly relat­ed.

God, the devil, beau­ty, per­fec­tion, pre­ci­sion – these aren’t the only things you’ll find in the details. You’ll also find stag­na­tion, dis­agree­ment, meet­ings, and delays. These things can kill morale and lower your chances of suc­cess.

How often have you found your­self stuck on a sin­gle design or code ele­ment for a whole day? How often have you real­ized that the progress you made today wasn’t real progress? This hap­pens when you focus on details too early in the process. There’s plen­ty of time to be a per­fec­tion­ist. Just do it later.

Don’t worry about the size of your head­line font in week one. You don’t need to nail that per­fect shade of green in week two. You don’t need to move that “sub­mit” but­ton three pix­els to the right in week three. Just get the stuff on the page for now. Then use it. Make sure it works. Later on you can adjust and per­fect it.

Details reveal them­selves as you use what you’re build­ing. You’ll see what needs more atten­tion. You’ll feel what’s miss­ing. You’ll know which pot­holes to pave over because you’ll keep hit­ting them. That’s when you need to pay atten­tion, not soon­er. 
(Reprint­ed from Get­ting Real, The smarter, faster, eas­i­er way to build a suc­cess­ful web application.)


Jason Fried

Everything Is Not Equally Good

1/16/2013

 
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One of my favorite companies is 37signals. Although they are a web development firm, there is a lot of similarity between what they do and what a traditional architect does. Their blog, Signal VS. Noise, is very worthwhile. This post from their blog about everything not being equal gives expression to something we have all experienced. I know I don't always point out that "the emperor has no clothes". I like the way David Heinemeier Hansson looks at the issue.
SIGNAL VS. NOISE                                                                                              January 2, 2013
Everything is not equally good

When talk­ing shop, there’s a nat­ur­al ten­den­cy to avoid the drama of con­fronta­tion by rel­e­gat­ing all dis­putes to Your Mileage May Vary. If we can declare all approach­es and tech­niques to be of value only “under cer­tain cir­cum­stances”, then we can avoid the hard work of find­ing the bet­ter alter­na­tive and mere­ly stop at dif­fer­ent.

I don’t think this serves any­one. Well, that’s not entire­ly true. It sup­ports the ego of the per­son propos­ing the bad idea. It also helps the ego of any­one who bought into it. But it doesn’t help the world move for­ward to hoist up every bad idea as “just anoth­er option”.

Of course, you can’t stop this from hap­pen­ing. Not least because peo­ple dif­fer on what’s a bad idea. And that’s fine! There will always be dif­fer­ent groups advo­cat­ing for dif­fer­ent things. But as indi­vid­u­als, we shouldn’t be afraid to impart our opin­ion on ideas.

Ideas are meant to be attacked, torn apart, and put back togeth­er again. You may well want to shield your idea from the harsh sun­light at first, but by the time it’s ready to meet the world, it should also be ready for rain or shine. Bad ideas are sup­posed to with­er under the stress of crit­i­cism.

Hell, even good ideas are sup­posed to with­er in the win­ter of their life. Pre­cious few ideas are immor­tal, and even those should be con­stant­ly test­ed to ensure their hearts still beat vibrant­ly.

The rea­son we get rid of bad ideas is to make room for new ones. If your cat­a­logue of tech­niques is brim­ming with YMMV char­i­ty cases, you’re less like­ly to come up with or enter­tain new entrants. Hoard­ing bad ideas that might come in handy when the full moon shines pur­ple is just that. Hoard­ing.

The flow of new ideas is far more impor­tant. Throw ‘em up, bat ‘em out. Declar­ing “oh well, that didn’t work out like I thought” is an incred­i­bly lib­er­at­ing feel­ing. I might even go as far as to say it’s moti­vat­ing. It’s like clear­ing your desk or emp­ty­ing your inbox. Ahh, a fresh start!

It takes a strong ego to let go of bad ideas that you orig­i­nat­ed, but rarely peo­ple will think less of you for it. Which is more than can be said of cling­ing end­less­ly to bad ideas past their due.


David

Bidding Activities  (part 2 of 2)

1/11/2013

 
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Over the years we have bid a lot of projects both privately and publicly. We have also documented our process to avoid 'reinventing the wheel'. The following describes the steps in our process. Several of the documents or forms that we use are downloadable by clicking their name. Perhaps this will be helpful to you. Questions? Use the Comments to ask...

See PREPARING TO BID A PROJECT  for preliminary tasks.

DURING BIDDING
You have your project 'on the street'.  Now what do you need to do?
  • Monitor the need for corrections and clarifications that will require an addendum and issue it in a timely fashion. 

It is extremely rare to go through a bidding period without at least one addendum. It isn't unheard of to issue some of the documents by addendum. That isn't recommended because coordination and completeness of the documents can become awkward. Your goal is to give the bidders a clear idea of what is required of them. Addenda invariably get ignored and that causes other problems for everyone.
The last addendum must be received at least 2-3 days before bid due date or you should postpone the due date in the addendum. The timing and method of delivery of any addendum is often covered in the (Owner provided!) Bidding Documents, so make sure you comply. 
 
PREPARATION FOR THE BID OPENING (PUBLIC)
  • Alert receptionist at the place of bid receipt to the bid due date and time; and arrange for receipt of bids. 
  • Determine participants' roles in the bid opening - introductions, opener of bids, reader of bids, recorder of bids. 
  • Announce what clock will be considered the correct time. 
  • Offer & make available blank bid tab forms to all present 
  • Make introductions to all present 

BID OPENING PROCEDURES (PUBLIC)
  • Announce, at the designated time, that no more bids will be accepted. 
  • Introduce yourself, members of the Owner's staff and other design team members in attendance. 
  • Explain procedure to all present 
  • Open bids 
  • Read bids 
  • Tabulate (record) the bids 
  • Announce apparent low bidder 
  • Describe process for making an award and establish when that will occur 
  • Ask for questions 
  • Allow those in attendance at a public opening to review the bids received. 
  • Close meeting 

PREPARATION FOR THE BID OPENING (PRIVATE)
See the description of the preparation for a public bid opening above. A private opening would take place in the architect's or the client's office and is informal. The same process is followed without an audience of bidders.

BID OPENING PROCEDURES (PRIVATE)
See the description of the Bid Opening Procedures for a public bid opening above. A private opening is as informal as you want to make it, but most of the steps still apply. Since the bidders are not present, you can expect a flurry of inquiries within an hour or so of the bids being due. Decide with your client what results and when the results will be disclosed. Even if it isn't the actual results, I suggest that you make the plan for disclosure available if you haven't done so yet.

POST BID ACTIVITIES   
  • Research Low Bidder's references. We often run a Dun & Bradstreet [D&B] report if they are not well known to you and the client.  
  • Review and re-tabulate Bids, double-checking all numbers and content / completeness. 
  • Prepare a letter of recommendation for the client. See sample recommendation letter.
  • Prepare Agreement based on Contract Documents and Bid.   


Once the Owner/Contractor agreement is signed or a Notice To Proceed is issued, you are ready to start the Construction Administration phase of the project.

Preparing To Bid A Project  (part 1 of 2)

1/9/2013

 
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 Over the years we have bid a lot of projects both privately and publicly. We have also documented our process to avoid 'reinventing the wheel'. The following describes the steps in our process. Several of the documents or forms that we use are downloadable by clicking their name. Perhaps this will be helpful to you. Questions? Use the Comments to ask...

  

PRELIMINARY TASKS
These tasks should have been completed in earlier design phases. Verify that they have been.
  • Obtain the Owner's Instructions (AIA G-612) 
  • Verify that the drawing title blocks are consistent for project name, date, etc. and agree with the Owner's Instructions or any other instructions.
  • Verify availability of AIA or other documents if including them in bid sets or as otherwise needed. Watch out for copyrights!

PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE
The main differences between public and private bidding is 1] who is permitted to bid and 2] how documents are distributed.

Who to permit to bid.  For public bidding you cannot restrict who bids except to place bonding requirements (often required by regulations) and minimum experience requirements on the potential bidders. For private bidding, the bidders should be by invitation only. Invite only firms you know can complete the project satisfactorily and let their bids decide who will be awarded the project. Three to six bidders is ideal. The more bidders, the less enthusiasm for bidding.

How documents are distributed. For public bidding it is fairly common these days to make the documents available at cost to whoever wants them. Alternatively, you can require a deposit (about 150% of actual cost) which is returned to the bidder when he returns the plans. Plans are usually placed with plan rooms also who provide a notification service to contractors. 
For private bidding, you would distribute documents the same way except that you might just give the documents to the bidders in recognition of the invitational nature of the bidding. You would not place the drawings with plan rooms unless your invited bidders want to do that. The reason for no plan rooms is that uninvited bidders will submit bids, thereby undermining the concept of  only pre-qualified bidders, any of which you would be happy to work with. Remember the old saw: "The low bidder is the guy who made the biggest mistake."

TASKS AT THE START OF THE BIDDING PHASE 
  • Create Project Manual Cover 
  • Prepare a legal ad, 'Advertisement for Bids', if it is a public project; or an 'Invitation to Bid' if it is a private project.  
  • Review the Owner's Instructions (AIA G-612) for relevant input from the Owner. 
  • Edit the Instructions to Bidders (AIA 701) or your own document.
  • Prepare the Bid Form (see sample) and check with the client to see if he is required to use a specific format - usually addressed in Owner's Instructions (AIA G-612).   
  • Determine the necessary number of sets of bidding documents you will need to distribute to non-bidders, for example, the Owner (consider Using Agency and Providing Agency), Design Team, Local Building Officials, State Building Officials, Plan Rooms (if any).
  • Contact Invited Bidders by sending the  Advertisement for Bids or the Invitation to Bid to those firms that you would like to bid the project whether public or private.
  • Place Legal Ad ('Advertisement for Bids') for public bids - often the client knows how to get it published but we like to prepare the document. 
  • Prepare a Bid Tabulation Form (see sample) and make copies for the bid opening (about 1.5 x number of plan holders). 

DISTRIBUTING DOCUMENTS
There are three ways in which to distribute the Bidding Documents to the bidders depending on the technology available to you (and that the Owner's process permits you to use). The TRADITIONAL  method is to print multiple sets of drawings and distribute them from the architect's office. The architect collects deposits or payments for the bidding sets and track contact information about the bidders for issuing addenda. As you might imagine, this is a big, disruptive task. The MODIFIED TRADITIONAL method is to print bidding sets as needed and distribute them from the reproduction house, who tracks information about the bidders and issues addenda and returns deposit (if any). This delegates the whole process; and the only drawback is that you are responsible to the Owner, but a third party is taking care of the task without oversight. The ELECTRONIC PLAN ROOM is the ideal solution because it mimics the Modified Traditional method but everything is documented online where you can monitor the process.

See BIDDING ACTIVITIES continuation article (coming soon) for tasks during and after bidding.


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