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Core Principle: Conclusion

The first thing I want to start with was what was most important for you is there uh you know what if anything should we follow up on this or anything that we should have some additional discussion on we could do it right now or if you think of something well we're in the midst of this fourth and final segment um uh anything that I need to reinforce anything you'd like me to extend or elaborate on send me an email asked me a question whatever um and and we will and we will certainly do that. So so please be aware we're also going to see the final segment of our little soap opera uh between alfa group and better world and see what happens see how the deal goes down as they say and I'll be very interested in everyone's reaction to it on the com comments and conversation and especially in how you would relate this to you because that's what's always most important here is what is the take away that I can get from this experience even though perhaps I might not be in that particular experi...

ence which is true with all these all these examples so just a quick reminder alfa group has purchased charge it for outstanding astounding fifty billion dollars and I want to talk a little bit more about charge it for just a moment charge it is a device that changes the flow of electricity as it goes into a battery making a battery the equal of gasoline in terms of the amount of energy and amount of range that a car would have charge it makes it possible that any moving object including up to some airplanes could fly on battery power and it reduces the need to depend on on fossil fuels by as much as ninety percent. So it is a remarkable transformation technologically and in fact it's very possible and it's very close to being released right now. So these kinds of things are actually in the works uh charge it, as I said, will dramatically extend the use of anything powered by a battery. And of course, better world is a design firm based on a real design firm that is competing in the global industrial design market, and it in does indeed charge significantly more than its competitive design firms. But the reason it does it is it is pouring far more dollars into the process of rapid prototyping and other tech sneaks to improve the success of its prat of the of the work that it does for its clients. As a result, they have a smaller profit margin and they are not growing as fastest their competitors and within the organization of better world. Not everyone is completely in agreement uh over the future of better world. Alison, who is the ceo the chief executive of a better world she is on a mission to save the world ben agrees with her mission in principle you know he gets it that it's a higher purpose and it's a good thing but he's a little worried that they're kind of not making the progress that they should be against their competitors because they're considerably smaller and clothes growing slower than their competitors and of course his his his takeaway as an owner is not nearly as large as it would be if he worked for another firm, so he has a little bit of a little bit of tension between the two founders of this wonderful design firm and in fact I've done some consulting with them and seen this firsthand and so there's some tension not everything is perfect and cindy's brand new toe a role and you can see that she's a little bit nervous about her position and not quite as sure of herself certainly has been for alison in her roles and then at alfa group, which is based on a very large industrial organization and we have three players one from marketing one from from purchasing and then a new a new director of design and the director of design is clearly trying to make her mark and trying to figure out which way to hop so she can be successful in her relationship with charles or ted preferably both but if she needed to a band one abandoned one of the two of them for the other because that was a better uh ship to write on she would probably do it you know it's not completely bad I don't know I don't fault her for that she's young she's trying to get ahead and she is trying to do the right thing within the organization but she's looking out for herself as well and that's just the nature of these things so again we're going to take some notes as we go along the same questions apply you took taken down these questions prior ah how would you describe the dynamic uh this is the final the final negotiation between the two of them so and number two so what are the issues and what are the underlying interests were looking for the underlying interests just like a question you on the underlying interests in the aggressive close scenario on dh why ah ben in that case was being so aggressive I want you to always think is this logical what would cause someone to behave this way that's what we're always looking for because that will give us insights into what to do or not to do and how has any number four have you had a similar experience you know and how would it relate to this so what was most notable in the deal so now we're gonna run the video moving my chair so please go ahead and run the video you know I have to say it's all very nice we have a no higher purpose you guys here are clearly doing that you you know you I mean I don't see a reason frankly um uh charles has to go upstairs he has to explain to senior management you know you're the extra expense here and, uh I uh I'm not seeing a reason uh and I'm sad to say that that frankly it's it's it is an incredibly important opportunity for our organization so far I've heard nothing that with I would say to me that you're the right choice for with ideas fam self e e time really? Oh, I can't explain but it's a timing issue we'll weaken what we can do in a certain amount of time compared to the competitors can you dive a little deeper? You mean a specific reason isn't why you've worked with us before you know our process you know how we treat the designed life cycle, you know our profit margins you know how all that money goes back in? Can you give me more specific what you're asking? You know I'm a fan I'm a fan of better world we did they led thing together it was phenomenally successful it was huge for me personally I mean it's all good it's fantastic, but here we are you guys are a million dollars high we're all talking about your profit margins and blah blah blah and you know there's nothing there for us I mean charles and I go way back charles has to go upstairs and face the music I'm not hearing anything that explains an extra million box that the cfo the ceo are gonna buy frankly and that's an issue for me we're gonna you know uh I mean, ideas is not my first choice for my first choice um but they can do the job I know they could do the job we forty before they're very good they're very good it really comes down to timeline I hear what you're saying but you put yourself in my position, right? So I'm up with jon I know john john and I go way back and john says so you took their opening offer? You just said yes, this is a really nice is if I know you're very nice, right? I know you're very nice I'd like to go out and have a beer with you, but but now here in this cave, but so that's my difficulty and and he's I'm not saying he's not very nice because he is very nice, but I mean what what how am I going to explain that we simply said yes and didn't get any thing else or didn't get paying any less as a result of a negotiation we just took your opening offer he's not gonna like that. Well, I think I don't blame him. I think once he understands what the what the opening offer serves for a company basically we're positioning ourselves as as allies. Okay, your goals are our goals, and it seems to me that your goals right now are to get the money flowing back in because people are, um ah, little wary at what was spent in the charge of purchase and also you need investor confidence. Two skyrockets all of that is right, right is grand and so we were working backwards from that point, it all comes down to timeline. Um then you can explain centre's excellent point, which I would start with asking another question, what is your timeline target? How? What is your competition saying that they can get this to market and how many months what do you guys targeting for that? Well, you said six months we said six months, but we're guessing that you've been told by maybe other people you're interested in more like nine to twelve does that sound familiar? I'd rather not reveal that okay, so well from from that assumption because that's where we started a swell, but we realized that what you need is money coming in and cut and concern investor confidence to go up, which means we will speed to market get the product out there more quickly it will cost more, but we'll get you in a position to have income and confidence you do not have that six months you do not have enough of an advantage for charles to go upstairs and and, uh talk you want us to pay more money for the same product? No, no, I just hear you now. He said she said she said basically she said she said that that they're at six months and that that's worth an extra million bucks well, that's, you know, we knew they were out six months and and that's not enough for charles to go upstairs. Well, that's a fair point um, we feel very confident that our six month timeline is better than the competition, but like you say, we don't need that to be revealed that's an assumption that we make because we're used to being the best okay and granted the price tag make sure that we go to market in six months with no flaws, that our track record proves that, but let's, just take a step backward uh, this re engineered this whole thought process there is a value on every month you save I don't know what that value is, but what is that value to you guys? Time is very important. Yes, I can imagine in the situation that you're in with a competitive product coming to market soon it's becomes a race with some of the criticism on the price tag. We understand there's a lot of pain in the butt politics involved. Uh, what if we threw something at you from left field? What if we were able tto have our timeline? What if we were able to dedicate all of our resource is from all of our offices are hundred employees have the timeline. We've already ran a pole with our clients, seeing that they would be okay if we set some of their deadlines delayed him a little bit, and this was the beautiful thing about this conversation is all these clients understand that what we're doing is about to better the world, so they gave us some forgiveness. If if we were to do this, they gave up some forgiveness because they also have this understanding that we're about to change the world. Now, of course, that's an increased price tag, but from where I sit every month that you save his millions and its consumer confidence, it's investor confidence, and it puts you that much further ahead than your competition, who is about to bring a product to market? All those air good points, the sooner we get on the market, we way make money, obviously, but you're now you're asking us to go upstairs to not only ask for the same amount, which was a lot more than the computers ask for more, it would be more how much more? Significantly more do you have an amount that we can't down five million for three months? Find you've got a perfect product so faster the guarantee delivery dates guaranteed cunt, consumer acceptance this is both offices totally dedicated to twenty four seven london officer, chicago office. We stop everything else, and we do just this work, and we leave it to your analysts to do the math to figure out how much you're saving per month, which is a lot more than five million dollars here's another, uh another option that we could do either with that with that amount or the previous amount more of a risk sharing, um, performance based, um, job where you would do the work for baby the competitors press of the two million won two million. And then once we see the results and get the product out there, then we would pay you that difference. So whether we're working with their three month timeline or the six month timeline, um, that's, that's definitely an option we could always bring up two senior management to see if if they don't approve the other amounts, that would be a way for us because there's a lot of risk on our end to exist, you know, your basket and that's a lot of trust I mean, there is trust involved with whatever company would choose um but that might help them you know, I love the outside the box thinking honestly, um the only issue is which we've explained already is that, uh, all of our costs are going right into the product so we would be taking a deficit it's not it's not, uh basic profits that were here are two million if we continue with our life cycle, the way we handle our process, we're losing money and we're losing money quickly so it's everything I like to say everything's on the table for discussion, but uh, we're putting ourselves at risk ask in that process and I don't know about the rest of you, but I want to get this product out to the world and I think there's more bess oh, tabatha is proposing a performance wait so we would eventually pay the full amount once we get results, so would be a risk sharing like that, but if we're to put more risk on the table, uh, it feels like our risk shouldn't return our original bed if you want us to share risk I think it's only fair that way have to look at getting mohr for the performance that we're definitely going to give which wrist share trust me this is a great product this is what you should exactly when we all have faith in the product that's amazing. So we're saying um ninety days ninety days ninety days flawless ninety days flawless has done the analysis for five million bucks and what john is going to ask me is how do you know it's going to be flawless? Well, I know because I like all of you were going out for beer um that's all fine. I like your ideology. I like everything about this and forty days from now something will have had to have happened that is flawless, which may or may not occur in the general scheme of things as we know there could be a sandy event uh there could be who knows? There could be a massive terrorist attack some where there could be all kinds of things that would happen that would make this not as flawless as all six of us hope right now what how do we know that what happens to great don't go over there three months? I think that one thing that we I would be willing to consider is along with your performance based idea is that we keep with the same agreement that you're not releasing these funds all on one some they're coming to us as we meet each deadline that way we'll stage is exactly that way we're keeping we're keeping the money that we need to perform right? But you're not getting any o by the ways from us okay? And you will be in the loop at every stage. Yeah. That's a great point sure that we will communicate everything teo as quickly as we have the information as well. And are you? And are you too comfortable that you know enough about what's going on here that that that will be significant from our stamps is sorry adequate three months would be awesome. Yeah. Three months, three months would be awesome. Do you think three months would be awesome? Nobel peace prize? Uh, it's it's uh, it's would be that would be a huge benefit for us that would solve that would solve the problems john articulated john uh, john would love that I'll throw another chip into play. One of the reasons that we have such a track record for the reason that we have all of our clients are happy with us is we don't just go away, design your product, come back uh, we like to make our clients feel like they're part of the team so we can have I think we'd be willing to discuss having as many of your analysts or engineers there with us every step of the way so there are only ru getting our way we would we would um with john's blessing we would make all the resource is of alfa group available to you that's what we would do the design resource is engineering resource is uh whatever research that we have on file that will help us that we'll give you a start that kind of start that you need to get going and get on the right foot um what will be a priority for the company? Could we count on you to give us timely approvals because we can wait eight days something time. Time is the priority here. I mean, really time time is the priority. Um I think john and the team upstairs would I appreciate the fact that you're being paid for hitting the milestones that you described. Um so I think that's ah wei would kindly move forward with that with accepting that but the three months is is, uh that would be phenomenal. I mean, that would be phenomenal. Um just go back to charles uh, question anything should happen in any country here in the u s or europe we do have different offices that will be working on this brand in this launch so we will make sure that that we have the different offices focus and if anything should happen here we always have backup in other offices were big enough tio have these other locations to back up if I ever needed but this isn't just about charges for me before our team what we want to do in this process is make sure that you guys never go to another design company again possible friends for life I mean yeah if this is such a big the censure I don't know I think I don't know about that well I'm on time the fan here remember that keep it with this let's keep it to this let me see if I understand where we are that we're talking about design contract for this that would guarantee a product in ninety days er for five million dollars uh that would be a hand exclusive commitment from you that would involve a set of shared resource is which we could work out between the two companies ah and would result in a set of installment or periodic payments uh based on some kind of agreement benchmarks is that what we're talking about? Did I miss anything sounded right to me what'd I miss thank you summed it up I mean obviously there's a lot of details to work out right that's what's on the table like this so do you feel comfortable going up to john with them yeah I think so I think so we may have to have another meeting before the meeting where we actually sit down and figure out what the details are should because maybe so he may other clients went for this to me the other clients went for this no way only give this to you no no no I mean you another way pitched it yeah we're also uniquely situated with some flexibility right now it's really a rare opportunity to do this for you I don't think we could make it a lifestyle it's just everything coming together yeah, yeah, yeah, we were too when we realized what was possible. Well, congratulations to your selection of clients prosecution and that's part of our process is that we choose the best toe work with very selective and we make them feel like family so when you go to your family and tell them we want a delay because we're gonna work on a product that could change the world it's easier to have that conversation right? Ok, well, I feel good about it and you yeah, I'm okay with it because I'm okay with we're giving them something else instead of saying that we just accepted you know that right? This is not this is get rolling over so at the next meeting would give you every piece of education you could need in or two speak convincingly or knowingly you know I think this is a this is a packet this is this's what yeah, this is what senior management we'll need to buy off on and then um what installment payments when quarter the benchmarks who from our shop goes to your shop who from your all those kinds of things will have to settle right so it's not a done complete deal once that's done which I think all of us could meet for a couple of hours do our homework meet for a couple hours hammer out then I think we're ready to go and that needs to happen quickly so we're going to see john wednesday cool all right if you need anything before your meeting definitely let us know conference call us email whatever it is okay can I may well I mean that I may well I'll take you up on that. Okay great all right thank you guys thank you very much here soon thank you for coming out to make you something exciting project wear very excited very passionate about three months okay? We're magic ted better world so what the hell was tabatha trying to do? She was trying to secure her her legacy in this company a designer proposing a pay for performance deal what's what's going on in the world shows charles could be friends with him this she sought charles had the power didn't you yeah yeah yeah I think I think that definitely happened when charles like put his foot down and saw that he like you saw his demeanor change for its like that's not gonna happen like we need something else yeah and I think that's one tablet so I was thinking okay I need a b on his side without without that I don't know if ben would've came up with the um solution that kind of snowballed off of her possible solution uh the which is said by each deadline there was a payment he snaked around nicely though on absolute cash cash flow issue didn't yeah well that it seems like time was the pain point that triggered everything yes it actually got them talking got them figuring out a real solution yes time time is almost always that issue it is almost always the issue that works in favor of the creative or people or organization because the client always has some kind of commitment that they have to meet that's why they're hiring in the first place uh clear of our it was wondering what you think if tabitha weren't knew what would someone in her role usually be asking for anything about the actual designs to come good credit a great question I hadn't even thought of that but that I think what would she would have been looking for was perhaps mohr interaction with the creative company more design power perhaps she would have been negotiating for integrating her design group with the outside company more, but she was trying to play with the big boys, and the money is the issue that the big boys are interested in. So she's wisely choosing that issue. So I think she was doing there right thing and the fact that she was sort of bouncing between ted and charles in in terms of who who she was going to sort of side up with. I thought that was completely wise on her part, and it was not a bad thing to do it all. It was totally in fact, correct for her to do that, and she was fairly subtle about it. I mean, you had to kind of watch for it to see it, so you can bet that ted and charles noticed it, but, you know, it was subtle enough that it was okay, so I think that's, but she would have she would have probably been more focused on the design aspects of it, but she's trying to make her mark as we've all as we've all observed. And, uh, the other moment that I thought was really interesting in retrospect is when, uh, charles basically finally put his foot down and says john's not going to like this john's not going toe like this change that I noticed that, yeah, that happy smile turned into a yeah he's trying to be a really good guy and he's knows he's not he's not negotiating over a factory here so he's being a bit like richard bendix you know he wants to help the design company that's actually quite sincere but his job is to make things happen you know and if you were negotiating with the guy and northern ireland who's holding the lease on the property that where they want to build the factory you could bet that his demeanor would be considerably different than it was with a design company in which he was being much more delicate in terms of the way he was working with them. Interesting question from curio so who says why is the plan to shorten the timeline not put into the bidding from the start? Why didn't they just open with that? Oh that's a that's a great question because as time goes by during a discussion like this and I'm talking about the larger discussion the months that have been involved or however long it's been since this whole charges thing happened um everyone's been adjusting themselves to new information so for instance we got a little suggestion here that originally alison wanted three point five million when she ran her budgets of what the research and the design task take she wanted three point five million and and ben was like my god that's a million five higher than the competition you know we kind of know what they're going to charge we can't possibly go in a million five high so he got her down a million bucks so you can see even then and then she adjusted her sights and she was committed in saying yes we can really do it for the three million dollars so so so things change as time goes by, the teams change there look, they learn everyone learns about what's going on and uh and it changes as we go along so and texas girl points out the client blew off the timeline in the beginning but then they hammered on it and brought to light that time is the issue we're doing it faster and that will make you money in the long run. Yeah so I asked a question back why do you think they blew off the timeline to begin with? Because I think that's a really interesting point anybody anybody in the room yeah uh because they probably blew off the timeline first because they didn't really consider like this mean option of like this are secondary option at first like the main one was just like oh you're just your million high from the competition which is pretty much doing the exact same thing they were focused on the box yeah is the body was just the money yeah yeah ended by the money yeah and I think there's another reason as well um executives who learn work for large, powerful organizations don't like to admit their vulnerabilities either, so they don't really want to talk about the fact that the wall street journal just ran an article that said they paid twenty five billion dollars too much for charges and their stock was wavering because their positions of power and influence are, uh, is this really the right thing to do or not? I mean, you know, they this is a huge risk for those executives personally, you know, they could be out in the street, so they don't want their naturally protective of themselves and don't really want to reveal that there's, any weakness involved an interesting comment from art girl, she said it was like that was lame, quote, are really a real goal is you never use another design firm, just what happened to we want to make the world a better place? What do you see? As far as like those shifting priorities, or did it shift was it was the we want to make the world a better place and just a show that they put on? Or can you have to kind of seemingly contradictory girls like that time? You can have certainly, well, that's not contradictory, this is one of the most one of the largest industrial organizations in the world, and and it could putting its resource is behind making the world a better place if we could get alfa group to put all of its resource is behind making the world a better place absolutely that's ah that's completely in line with better, better worlds goal so so I I don't think that's a contradiction at all but I mean yeah, they were asking for for additional work you know, that's a that's they also want to continue to be successful themselves yeah doesn't that go into like uh ted's like ted's complex what we were talking before like he want linc he is like butting heads with thousand about money I think this is something that you told us before this like he wants toe solidify his company where he has a repeat client now where it's like he knows money is always going to come in help growth uh you're talking about ben? Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Ben ben ben ben would like to make a little more money. Yeah, there's a lot of risk here for him and for alison. Alison apparently is not as cognizant of the risks because this design company is spending almost their margins very slender so they're spending all the dollars that they make that means that means that they don't have extra money to support individual outside uh other activities or even to put in their own pockets or whatever so so he's he's really wishing that they could make a little bit more money and he's pushing for that but alison has got this sort of cause that's her total driver is I want to do it right and I want to save the world and that's what I'm all about so there's just attention there you know and completely completely logical attention so they changed the context completely they completely changed the context completely in the best interest of the client and made money and increase the amount of money in the process and I have seen that happen many, many times many times and it's because they understood what the underlying interests were and they found a way to meet those needs that their competitors didn't see so not only did they get to extend their goal achieved their goal or come closer to their golden making a world a better place they eliminated the competition in the process so higher purpose results in a big win not just for not just for uh alfa group but also for a better world and in fact for the world and there's I have to say there's an awful lot of design out there that's ending up floating around in the ocean or in the land waste and uh you know and uh having created firms focus on making the world a better place I think we'll see is a trend because we're seeing it already make things better is in fact a slogan of a couple of design firms in the u s all right one in europe that I know of in one in the u s right now so another question I'd like to throw out is um how does this relate to you what kind of you know what is your takeaway that you can use from this scenario that will help you negotiating in the future what do you think the most important takeaway is for this free of you definitely for the future is preparing really preparing that toe look at those interests of my client and see ways that I can pull it pull out and change the context into you know something that's better for them but also incorporates my skill set to make it really extraordinary right yeah yeah what's a different scenario to separate you like what's a different different like scenario to separate you from the other competitors and taking your time I think that's a given is just all right let's just have a conversation with this leads us right way have all this way have all the time in the world yeah being able to put yourself in their place to kind of understand their interests and where that lies and the right change you know with planning beforehand a solution to like make it better for the both of you right and you know when you watch these things that your little antenna do go off and you can sense that tabatha is going this way and that way and ted is obviously being a little hard on the money thing because he really wants to offset the fact that he wants these guys to win and you know you can you can you can pick these things up so that's what you do in your real world negotiations is you're always attuned to what's going on you know and use your intuitions to guide questions you know it's like if nothing else it's a question to yourself why was tabatha like that could I advanced travis's goal here in some way which would be good for both of us and weaken because that's her interest you know, how are we going to do that? And you saw ben do that really successfully there when he especially when he turned around the not getting paid in such a polite way wasn't he politeness and he had a nice nice family I think yes get a couple interesting quotes from folks online we have texas girl who says pay attention to what the client glosses over that's often the key point of negotiation that they don't want you to notice yes in sort of a similar thing mark our says his takeaway is help clients discover their own interests might be glossing it over because they're not even aware of it that's right exactly right yeah, I love that yeah, well and these guys these guys were simply unaware that it was possible to do it that fast it would never occur to them that it could be done in ninety days and rhonda grew then says discover the higher purpose to which texas girl airplanes but not all clients have a higher purpose well, that's an interesting odd you know it's often not obvious the higher purpose possibility is often not audience and so looking for it you our job is to I pointed out, you know, it's uh it's like we don't know where the next perfect thing is for us you know, we don't know what we want but when we see it we go wow and that's our job as designers is to is to focus on what is it that I can deliver that delights and engages the other person because they can't envision it I mean that's why they're hiring us, you know? Yeah and descend devi says don't shy away from atleast mentioning the juicier goals that I can clearly see being a benefit to my client just because I'm afraid that they'll balk at the price tag, right? I mean, yeah, I forget what the final total was that they were going to get paid five to seven somewhere five million yeah when they were initially stopped at one million yeah, you know, yeah they went far over it because there was enough value to justify it. Yeah, well the competitors would do it for two they been three down from three five and ultimately they did the assignment for five yeah yeah, yeah yeah and just imagine what idea's anc thanks when they hear that the contract was let for five million dollars it isn't that a good feeling? Yes, yeah, I got it so we want to better well, that's an interesting point that you bring up, which is howto learn from the results when you don't get it yeah, because sometimes you do find out you know, the other team got it for even more than you uh you did and you have to be ableto that that should be an information to you that it's not about the price it's not always about the price anyway. Yeah people almost always when you do not win say that you were too expensive. That is the most common retort and uh and it's because it's the easiest thing to say because you'll never mostly in most cases you will never know because it's a private piece of business you will never know. So it's the easiest thing to say you were too much money and the second most common thing to say is the fit wasn't right the fit I'm afraid we just didn't have a fit between our senior people and your senior people and of course that that says almost nothing you know, both those things say almost nothing and it's because people are uncomfortable saying whatever the issue really wass because it's related to their underlying interests which they considered to be private and they don't want to reveal it and so on and a deal like this even a deal like this would probably not be reported in the press even though this is a public company because it's too small in number for to be forced to be a reported in their financials so um big number for us but yeah, uh maybe kind of a sum up a question that refers back to something that we talked a little bit about on day one l h says we have seen a strong trend recently for organizations to hide behind our f p s and refused to take phone calls or have conversations where interpersonal skills like the ones we've been teaching can be employed. I would give anything tohave the dialogues of role playing but the opportunities for that decreasing on a daily basis you have any advice on that? Do you agree with that trend or I don't respond to our peace our peace? Come on, we didn't even talk about this in the in the in the training our peace commoditize us the minute you get an r p it means you're playing on their terms because it lists, would you do this? You need to do this. You need to do that. You need to do that. You need to that. So puts all of your skills into categories that air preset by the client taken away any possibility that you have to differentiate yourself. And then they send that out to however many I guess we talked about it with karen however many suppliers they send it out to and end up with three. And then those three are commoditized down to being all the same. We'll somehow I can't imagine karen moskowitz being categorized, you know, really that's really silly and that end. And so I wouldn't even respond to an r f p I would just say there's, not enough information there. In fact, we had a little video. I guess it was yesterday where we the contract, not proposal video over the white board. The white board video. Uh, I think that was on day one. We had the whiteboard video. And in that case, cindy simply said there's, not enough here for us to really start with and we can do farm or for you and actually make it more successful for you let me come down and scope it out with you. And see what we can do. So we got past the r f p by doing that. So that's a technique for getting past the r f p in the client's best interest I mean, thie irony of an r f p is that they want the client wants to buy a spectacular result of some sort for their project that that's what they're looking for and r f p limits the creative suppliers opportunity. It pre limits the opportunity so it predetermines that only three suppliers are going to get the opportunity to talk to us, and they're only going to have to only going to be allowed to supply the same thing. Well, that's ridiculous. Those three little firms, they're all extremely different, and they would have different approaches to it and to to limit them with an r p actually limits the opportunity for the client. I mean, even if the money go, does get to be last, sir gets to beam or it just limits the vision on the assignment. So I think our peace are actually not in the best interest of the clients, and I counsel my clients to simply not respond to them to respond to them by asking questions and so that's the way to get past them, then is when you receive one. Call up the firm sentiment email just say hey I got your r p I'd love to sit down and talk with you more about that project to get more information but I can yeah discuss what we can do for you yeah exactly right yeah thank you and just a clarification for folks who may not have known the pea is a request for proposal that's a basically a document that people send out our requesting different firms to propose their their budgets and how much they would charge to do a certain job horrifies request for information are if q's request for quotation arth peace request for proposal you know it they're all bad they're all about uh okay anything else for us? I think we are good at the moment. I mean the one comment that ella continued was all government work is purchased through our f p's right so you can't ignore that segment. Can you perhaps start by asking him a question? I have the conversation and then fill out the document that they need you to fill out you need to decide what you want to do with did you need to decide what you want to do with it but all bureaucracies try to use policies and procedures to uh to limit your options and and to keep the costs low and even with government if they want you believe me they will find a way to get around there processes and that's. What happens? I mean, people who have the there's, always somebody with the inside track, because they have the special skill or a special relationship or whatever. And it happens all the time with god because of people, you know. But the sighting of of bureaucratic process is a very common way for an organisation to kind of deal with you.