I'm not proud to admit that I once answered 127 RFI/RFPs in one year. I went to a Mirren BizDev conference once, and the speaker asked how many people in the room answered 10 RFP's in a year. Everyone's hand's shot up. "25?" Hands went down. "30?" One hand left up. I was embarrassed, so I pulled my hand down at that point. Like the lottery ad says, the truth is "you gotta be in it to win it." But, seriously, you can't be in all of them and expect to be "New Business Brilliant" every time.
You've got to pick and choose your battles. The difference between a success and failure is sizing up the opportunity and then going after the ones that you know you can win. Easy to say. Hard to say "no".
Donny Deutsch talks about taking his father's company from $40 Million to $400 Million. Do you know what he said his secret was? He "learned to say NO".
Another famous Donny - New York Yankees First Baseman, Don Mattingly (Donnie Baseball) reminds me:
"Get a good pitch. Hit it hard somewhere. The rest is out of your hands."
I have always tried to heed the advice of both Donny's as I approach every new business opportunity.
