Let me tell you a story…

For the last 15 months, my team and I have worked with a large international nonprofit. Over this time we’ve helped them achieve a lot (despite COVID).

• Donation value is up nearly 250% year over year.
• Email list is 25% larger this holiday season.
• Traffic is up 54% year over year.
• The bounce rate has dropped to under 40% (about half of what it was before they started working with us).
• The time on site is up over 100% year over year.

While we’ve had a lot of success while many other organizations have experienced the opposite our contract is coming to an end on December 31, 2020. That’s right, we lost the contract.

An incumbent bid

In September of this year, they informed me they would be releasing an open RFP for the contract for the next 2 years. This stung a little. Why not just renew our contract, or do a closed RFP — I mean do I need to remind you about the numbers I shared above?

The team and I struggled with writing a proposal for many reasons. We had a lot of information. We knew their capacity. Their internal process. We were bitter about having to bid on a project that we didn’t feel we should have to bid on. It’s said knowledge is power, but in situations like this, it can also be a burden.

At the end of the day, we wrote a proposal that we were proud of. One that outlined a vision for next year and the year after. One that took their organizational capacity into account while also laying out an ambitious plan.

We got invited to present to their RFP panel as part of the second phase. The presentation included a board member and the team we’d been working with for over a year. The presentation went well as we laid out our plan, explained why it would work for them and how we came to the conclusion we did.

At the end of the day — over a month after the presentation I got the call from our POC that they would be going in a different direction in 2021.

A loss full of Success

The agency life is interesting. There is any number of reasons an organization chooses you or chooses to stop working with you. As a strategist, I’m invested in projects and clients – my whole team is. It hurts when we lose clients for sure, but I’m a strong believer in trying to learn something from every experience.

So what did I learn? Numbers are not everything. Successful metrics don’t mean a successful account.

We achieved the aggressive growth they wanted, but at some point, we lost the connection we had with them – we lost the reason they hired us in the first place. We thought big, maybe we dismissed the small things they were interested in too fast. Maybe we focused on the end goal too much.

The blog and a life update

I started this blog to give people a glimpse inside of a digital agency. To provide strategic digital advice. I’ve turned to it in times of personal confusion and frustration to sort out thoughts and ideas. I use it to organize my thoughts and prepare for presentations.

I took a break for a while as I had a daughter and struggled to find the balance between work and family. Ultimately have returned to writing as it’s an escape and digital products, tools, and strategy is a passion that I’m lucky enough to have turned into a career.

I’m excited to bring new content to the blog — on a bi-weekly basis going forward. I’ll continue to post quotes and content that I find relevant and look forward to reconnecting with y’all.