My vendor team, LingoTrans, was tasked with coming up with a proposal for a potential client that needed some translation work done. We were in charge of localization engineering and the translation of software/UI/metadata – .resx files, as well as: Marketing and Transactional Emails  (Word docs); Legal (Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Cookie & Tracking Policy) (Word docs);Customer Service Content (pre-written answers for Customer Service, audio recording of after-hours phone message etc.) (Excel & mp4 files; SEM: Keywords, Google Ads, Banner Ads for GDN – Excel; SEO Content – Excel; Social media posts – Excel. We were also responsible for the initial roll-out and testing.

Overall, our RFP went well. We were able to win the favor of the potential client over another competing group. We were able to provide adequate answers to all questions asked to us by the client, and we also presented some solid calculations to the client on the cost of the entire project, and they did not seem put off by the numbers.

I think overall, our presentation of our timeline did not go as well as planned. While we initially planned to launch in May as directed in the assignment; however, during our pitch the client admitted that we potentially had as long as 6 months, which threw us a bit off guard and we had to regroup and essentially tell them that it could be done sooner than that,

There could, and probably should have been more of a focus on the numbers. At the very end of the presentation we gave a brief rundown of the cost of the project, and while we feel our estimate is close to the actual cost, we could possibly have given a more precise figure had we reserved more time for presenting them.

The lessons learned for this presentation are as follows: Nail down your timeline, and also consider what would happen if this timeline was changed significantly. Also, go further than just giving an estimate, if you can, give yourself more time in the pitch to offer some more detailed figures