EP114: Mastering Editorial Peer Review—with Jana L. Burge
A lot of my clients think they’ve got editorial peer review covered.
But there’s a lot more to it than simply having someone read through your response and check for spelling errors. And a proposal that hasn’t been through a thorough peer review lacks the professionalism you need to win business with RFPs.
So, what does an in-depth editorial peer review look like?
Jana L. Burge is Founder and President of JLB Consulting, a firm that supports businesses through editorial peer review.
Jana has 37 years’ experience in copy editing and proofreading, demonstrating an expertise in identifying errors and inconsistencies in RFP responses. She is also a master in improving the flow and readability of written work without altering the author’s overall tone.
On this episode of the RFP Success Show, Jana joins me to discuss the editorial mistakes proposal writers make most, challenging us to be succinct and embrace simplicity in our responses.
Jana explains why she addresses formatting errors first in the EPR process and offers advice on how to suggest changes without bruising the writer’s ego.
Listen in for insight on making time for a comprehensive EPR and find out what tools Jana suggests to build your skills in the realm of editorial peer review.
Key Takeaways
The misconception that just anyone can do an editorial peer review
How prospective clients lose trust when your RFP hasn’t been through an EPR
Jana’s insight on what editorial mistakes writers make most
Why fixing formatting first is Jana’s top priority in any new editorial peer review
How to be kind with your comments and suggested changes
Jana’s tips for being consistent throughout an RFP response
How long an editorial peer reviewer needs to read one page of an RFP
What Jana does when she isn’t given sufficient time to conduct a thorough EPR
What online tools Jana uses to support the EPR process
Jana’s advice for proposal writers on being succinct and embracing simplicity
How to get better at performing an editorial peer review
Jana’s tricks for navigating page limits (without changing margins or font size)
Connect with Jana
Resources
RFP Success Show EP114 Transcription
You're listening to the RFP Success Show with 8x author, speaker, and CEO of the RFP Success Company, Lisa Rehurek. Tune in each episode to learn what today's capture and RFP teams are doing to increase their win percentages by up to 20%, 30%, and even 50%, and meet the industry trailblazers that are getting it right. Let's get started.
Lisa Rehurek (00:24):
Hello everybody and welcome to the RFP Success Show. I am Lisa Rehurek, your host and CEO and founder of the RFP Success Company. And we have a super fantastic topic today all about editorial peer review. And our magical editorial peer reviewer that we use on all of our RFPs is Jana Burge. She is a owner, founder of J&R Consulting, LLC, and again, editorial peer review master. Master, master. So Jana, welcome to the RFP Success Show.
Jana Burge (00:58):
Thank you, Lisa. It's nice to be called a master by the master of RFP.
Lisa Rehurek (01:03):
Nice. Thank you. Thank you. Actually, in all honesty, I've worked with Jana for a really long time. We used to work in Corporate America together and she was fantastic back then, and I'm thrilled that she does a lot of work for our team now. Jana, tell us a little bit, tell our audience a little bit about how you got started in this kind of work, and a little bit more about your background.
Jana Burge (01:27):
Honestly, Lisa, I come by this naturally. Ever since I was a child all of my former books, I would take my little red pen and correct my library books, school books. It just irritated me if there was a mistake. I kind of fell into it, to be honest with you. It was something that I was able to do. It never occurred to me that this could be a career, but in each of my jobs it was something that was recognized and so developed more and more. And then honestly, when I worked with you 21 years ago, let's not admit how long that was exactly, you taught me so much about the RFP process. And I do attribute you to honing my skills in, quite a bit more to the perfectionism. Thank you for that. Definitely.
Lisa Rehurek (02:25):
Thank you.
Jana Burge (02:28):
And thank you. But it is something I just do naturally.
Lisa Rehurek (02:29):
Yeah, well-
Jana Burge (02:30):
You've been able to parlay that into a career.
Lisa Rehurek (02:33):
Well, and you're so good at it. And the interesting thing is I feel like there's a unique talent to it when it comes to RFPs, right? There's one thing, we're doing letters and even maybe some reports and all of that, but an RFP is generally a heck of a lot longer than anything else. And there's some consistency pieces and we're going to get into some of this. But I do think that there's a unique talent when you can do it for RFPs and you've definitely figured out that formula for sure.
Jana Burge (03:00):
Definitely. Well, you have to read the actual RFP. It is a matter of, here's some words and I'm going to read this. Is the font the correct size that they have requested? Or the margins. Normally, if you get a report from your company, it's already set up in your company's template. But with an rfp, each one is going to be different. And so you have to be thinking about what does the intended target, what are they looking for? And have I delivered that?
Lisa Rehurek (03:30):
Yeah, it's such a great point. A lot of times people will come to us and they'll say, "That's okay, we've got editorial peer review cover. We've got that covered." And then they don't even remotely have it covered, right? Because they don't know all of the pieces of the puzzle. But let's kick off with this question. What do you think the biggest misconception is or are, there's multiple of them, when it comes to editorial peer review?
Jana Burge (03:54):
One of the biggest misconceptions is that just anyone can do it, that just sitting down and reading a document is considered peer review. And one of the issues with that is most people read with their brains and not their eyes. And what I mean by that is when we read with our brain, we can take a paragraph that has every word that's misspelled, and our brain will automatically figure it out and we can read the entire paragraph without faltering. But when you read with your eyes, you look at every letter and every word, every word in the sentence, every word in the paragraph, making sure it pertains back to the subject. So the difference of that is if you are reading and you have the word from, and it should have been form. When you're looking at that with your brain or you're reading that with your brain, you don't notice the R and the O have been transposed.
(04:48):
But when you're reading it with your eyes, it stands out automatically. And that goes even down to smart quotes. Word and its infinite wisdom likes to use smart quotes randomly. And most text is a San Serif, or an Arial or Times New Roman, Helvetica, those which has a slight curve to the apostrophe or the quotes. If one of those quotes is a smart quote, it's straight up and down. So the normal person would not look at that and think that's wrong, but your brain did pick up on it because we are hardwired to notice anomalies. Even if it's subconscious, our brain notices it, just piles it away that something's not right.
Lisa Rehurek (05:29):
And it's a distraction.
Jana Burge (05:30):
And it's a distraction, yes.
Lisa Rehurek (05:33):
Yeah. Super interesting. Yeah, I find that kind of back to your original comment about the misconception is that people are like, well, we've got so and so that can do that. Or we'll just do a quick cursory review of it or it's not that important. And evaluators will tell us when we talk to them and when we look, it was just a mess and we just didn't think it was professional enough. Or even if they didn't consciously notice it, to your point about the unconscious, people lose trust when there's unprofessionalism and when there's things out of sorts and [inaudible 00:06:11] conscious.
Jana Burge (06:11):
Exactly. You consider this as your response to get the business. This should be the best work you ever give to this potential client. So if that work is subpar, what are my reports to you going to... How is that going to read? And especially if you were dealing with state clients, all of those documents go on their website.
Lisa Rehurek (06:35):
Yeah, they're forever, right? Yes. That's a great point.
Jana Burge (06:39):
So they need to be perfect.
Lisa Rehurek (06:41):
They really do. So what editorial mistakes do you think writers make the most?
Jana Burge (06:46):
I think the biggest mistake people make is they write the way they speak. And we don't always talk so good. The other one is if you can say something in 10 words, don't use 40.
Lisa Rehurek (06:59):
Yes. That is such a pet peeve of mine. Thank you for saying that.
Jana Burge (07:03):
You need to take a step back and realize that there are a team within the state or another potential client that are actually reading each of these responses. And so if they receive a 100 and most responses are 40, 50 pages, and yours comes in at 700, it doesn't mean they're going to disqualify you, but you're going to be the last one red. These are still human beings that are scoring these. And while you might still receive a decent score, you might not receive as good a score as you would if everybody on the team wasn't so annoyed that they're reading superfluous information.
Lisa Rehurek (07:42):
You know, it's true. And I say that a lot too, that there's a human being on the other end of this. And even if they're only reviewing three or five responses that are 100, 200 pages, that's a lot of stuff to be reading even when it's interesting. And I'm going to tell you, most of it it's not that exciting. This is not a compelling draw you in story. It tends to be very technical stuff. And so the more simply you can write it to your point, I love that. All right, anything else on the editorial mistakes?
Jana Burge (08:15):
And this may be, I don't know if this is a mistake or if it's a personal pet peeve of mine, but if you're writing a sentence and you start with, "Lisa went to the store," and then you have a paragraph and parentheses, and then you just end it, you've missed your... Not only have you lost your train of thought and your reader has lost their train of thought, but you've probably missed the result because there was so much information that was in the parentheses. Put footnotes. Footnotes are great. If it's just a little side note, and then they can come back and read it at their leisure. Because if it's in the middle of a few comments or if it is in a parentheses, it's an afterthought. It's not germane to the situation.
Lisa Rehurek (09:00):
Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, what a great thought. I've never even thought about that, but I agree with you because it's true. It's not germane to the conversation, but it's important to note. And if it is germane to the conversation, it shouldn't be in parentheses.
Jana Burge (09:12):
Exactly. It should have been a full on part of the sentence.
Lisa Rehurek (09:17):
Yeah, absolutely. What a great tip. That's a super good tip. Okay, so when we're talking about editorial peer review where we've been talking about not just anybody can pick this up and do it, one of your top handful of things that you automatically look for at the onset of editorial peer reviewer, y'all are going to start hearing me say EPR because it's just quicker abbreviation for that. So what are those things that you automatically look for when you kick off your EPR?
Jana Burge (09:50):
Fix formatting first. When you're reading a document, if it's just all over the place, your bullets are over here, they're over there, it's inconsistent, it is distracting as you're trying to read. And so your eyes are not going to pick up on an error. They're going to pick up on the fact that this just does not look very well. So go in, fix the formatting, and then you have a nice smooth read as you go.
Lisa Rehurek (10:16):
I love that tip. Let me just digress here real quick. That is such a great tip because I know when I've gone through and done that, I totally get sidetracked with formatting. And then you think you're doing both at the same time, but you're really not. Great tip.
Jana Burge (10:29):
[inaudible 00:10:30] an entire page because you fixed the formatting down the page, too, but you forgot that you stopped reading at half of page one. So you can actually miss a lot. One of the other biggest tips that I can give is to be kind with your comments and with your changes. Because we always have to remember, if I change something you wrote, I'm in essence telling you that you've made a mistake. There's a right way and there's a wrong way to let you know that. So I always tell people, if you're putting comments, be inclusive. Can we word it this way? Usually not, "You did this," or, "This doesn't make sense the way you wrote it." Come in and say, "I'm not making sense of this," or, "This doesn't make sense to me. Just to me. Maybe it's just the way I'm reading it. Can we word it this way?" And so just someone's ego has gone into what they have written.
Lisa Rehurek (11:25):
Yep, it's true.
Jana Burge (11:27):
So take care of that ego.
Lisa Rehurek (11:30):
Yeah, that's a really, really great point. I tend to be very direct in my feedback when I'm doing a strategic review, very direct. And it can be off-putting to people because they'll be like defensive. I like that approach of can we do this or might I suggest this or something a little bit nicer and...
Jana Burge (11:48):
Don't overcorrect. If it gets a personal opinion of yours, of how something should read, that's your personal opinion. You can put a comment and make a suggestion, that's fine, but don't change something just for the sake of changing it.
Lisa Rehurek (12:03):
Right. Take kind of your personal preferences is that keep it to the professional editorial side. And the other thing that I want to point out as we were talking about formatting, so editorial peer review is not just checking for spelling errors. It is making sure all the formatting is good, making sure that all the requirements of the format are met. Page limits, margin limit, font size, which you mentioned earlier, so all of that encompasses editorial peer. Super important for somebody to understand all of those pieces of the puzzle. So we talked about some of the things that you automatically look for. What are some of your top tips and tricks, which might kind be along the same line, but do you have anything for somebody that's out there doing editorial peer? Or any good tips and tricks that we can share? We've already shared a couple, but I think we'll-
Jana Burge (12:59):
Attention to consistency. I hound this on folks. And I always like to tell people I used to train on peer review. Even if it's wrong, if it's consistent, it's right because again, you subconsciously are going to pick up that something is off. If you're always saying grievances & appeals, and then all of a sudden partway through the document, you write out the word and, you're saying the same thing. It's not wrong, but it's different. It's inconsistent and you're going to pick up on that at some point. Keep your consistency.
(13:36):
And I always keep a notepad with me. And so if you are writing principle, and you're always capitalizing the P, you always need to keep doing that. Don't do it up here and then stop doing it down here. Because of course, capital it's either a pronoun or it's giving it extra importance. So if you're on page one and you're saying the principal, capital P, the principal capital P, but on page three it's little principal, well why don't they matter as much as they did before?
Lisa Rehurek (14:05):
Good point. At the company you and I used to work at, one of the things that we used to do is kind put together kind of some naming conventions and editorial conventions pre RFP. So like the word healthcare, is it one word or two? Do you capitalize the word state? Do you not capitalize the word state, things like that. You're right. And so having kind of that guideline on the front end everybody agrees on will really help you on the back end because there's never enough time for editorial peer review, right? Editorial peer reviews get screwed because they get the brunt of everybody missing their deadlines and then they think magically I'll show up in the middle of the night and do this all within five minutes and it's done.
Jana Burge (14:55):
Exactly. Or they think it just takes that long. Well, I read in 10 minutes. Yeah, you did. You read it in 10 minutes. You didn't peer it in 10 minutes. Because it can take 10 minutes to get through less than one page. We're not just reading it once, there are going to be times too, where you may make a mention on the second page and then you make another mention similar on page 50. Did you say the same thing? Did you refer to it the same way? If somebody says, "Well, CMS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services," here's a direct quote. Is it? Google it? That's another tip that I give. Always have Google open or Bing or whatever your search engine is. Because there are a lot of times when they will make a claim in a document. Is it? I mean, was this the exact quote or was it a paraphrase? Did CMS state this or was it another entity? Verify. Trust but verify.
Lisa Rehurek (15:59):
Trust but verify. Very key.
(16:00):
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(16:25):
I want to go back to this whole timing thing because I feel like EPR doesn't get the respect that it really deserves. And again, kind of when we look at timelines, the one that gets crunched the most is EPR because it's at the tail end, but it's the one that is basically here's the presentation of your opportunity. So how long does it really take? I mean, can you give us approximation by page? How long does it take to EPR one page? I know that's kind a loaded question because it depends.
Jana Burge (17:02):
It actually is not. If you need to look at not just the verbiage but also the formatting, it could take 11 minutes to read one page. Between 11 to 15 minutes to read one page depending on the... Or to deal with each page. So if you have a four-page document, that could take an hour. I've actually had a one page document take an hour because the writing was maybe not as great as it could have been. And the formatting was all over the place.
Lisa Rehurek (17:32):
So I mean, if you have a 100 page document, I mean, that could take a good two days.
Jana Burge (17:37):
That could take two days. And you have to [inaudible 00:17:14] keep in mind too, that after you've read for a certain amount of time, you glaze over. You're no longer receptive. So you know, you can read for about eight hours straight or I can, but most people cannot read for that long and keep catching everything. You need to take some breaks, you need to step away. You need to let your eyes focus on something other than a white screen. But yeah, you're not reading for 24 straight hours.
Lisa Rehurek (18:07):
Right. Exactly. And again, for the listeners out there, think about really building that time in and if you're a proposal professional, you know it. But if you're a sales guy or if you're a owner of a company and RFPs is not your area of expertise, I'm particularly talking to you because you need that time in there for the editorial peer review. And then, oh, by the way, you need a little bit time on the back end of that to make sure that you can go through and agree with everything the editorial peer reviewer did. So there's still some time that needs to happen there. We always build it in and we're always calling Jana with changes to the schedule.
(18:52):
I mean, we build it in, we pat it, and we're always calling Jana and saying, "Okay, this got changed, this got pushed. We don't have everything we need here." And one of the things that we try to do is can we peer review the resumes and bios, the forms, all of that stuff that can be done in advance? So my point of all of that is the importance of planning for it and not thinking of it as an ugly stepchild. It's important. It's important to the presentation of what you're putting out there and the professionalism that the buyer is going to see in you.
Jana Burge (18:59):
Exactly.
Lisa Rehurek (19:25):
That fine thing is a huge pet peeve of mine. And I get it. I understand but yeah.
Jana Burge (19:31):
Well, and also, especially if you're doing RFPs, there is a due date so everything works back from that. But also, if you're working on an RFP, understand that your dates you're given, they're going to change. If you tell me if something is due on the seventh and you tell me I'm going to get my peer on the first, okay, maybe it'll be the third.
Lisa Rehurek (19:54):
Yeah. [inaudible 00:19:55] thinking, right?
Jana Burge (19:56):
Yes, and it's great to have those dates, and you really need to strive for them. But if you are, especially if you are peer reviewing just understand that some of this is going to be a little fluid. And don't get so stuck on, oh my God, they said I would have it by 11:00 and I don't have it yet. What am I going to do? Don't shut down. Just, okay.
Lisa Rehurek (20:15):
Deep breath. And so in those instances where you get the crunch and you don't have time to do the full here's what I really need to have done, what is more important and what can be let go of?
Jana Burge (20:27):
The most important thing is to let your requester know. So that they're not expecting a full blown peer. So let them know, and then I call it looking for the big chunks. I'm going to make sure that my company's name is correct, my potential client's name is correct. I'm going to make sure at least it looks uniform. Definitely run a spell check. And then may have to do it in a skim, which means you probably are going to miss some things. But if you are a true peer reviewer, mistakes jump out at you. It's like little explosions to me. They go off on the page, oh my god, the R's in the wrong spot. Oh my God, they didn't put a colon here. If this is your natural ability, that will jump out at you. But you may miss some things if you're just doing a big chunk look. But you still at least make sure that looks attractive. If you send a hot mess and every word is spelled correctly, it's still a hot mess.
Lisa Rehurek (21:30):
True.
Jana Burge (21:31):
What I like to say is you can serve the most delicious cut of steak on a garbage can lid and it's garbage. Or you can serve McDonald's on fine China and you have a good meal. It's the presentation, that's the first thing everybody notices.
Lisa Rehurek (21:47):
It's the first judgment, I agree. They're going to judge you on that. Again, whether it's conscious or subconscious, it's there and it plays into the fact that-
Jana Burge (21:56):
Again, these are human beings that are scoring it. So if your top score is a 10 and it just kind of looks meh, you might come in at a seven. Even if everything you said is exactly what they need, it was so difficult to get to the point or it was just the presentation was off you're going to score lower.
Lisa Rehurek (22:18):
Yeah. I 100% agree with you there. I mean, you just mentioned spell check. Are there any other tools that you use other than your fabulous brain? Do you use anything like Grammarly? Do you suggest using the Word and grammar check in Word, the spell and grammar checking word? What kind of tools should people be using?
Jana Burge (22:40):
I would definitely use the Grammarly. I do not always agree with words option or suggestions on Grammarly. Sometimes it's like that's actually wrong, but definitely at least let it point out to you so that you can double check it. I always have Google open, just even if I need to, is it effect with a E? Is it affect with an A? You can put a sentence in. I definitely, I use Grammarly sometimes just this doesn't sound right to me, but I'm not a 100% sure how to fix it. You can plunk it into Grammarly and this oh yeah, this is the wrong word. I always keep, believe it or not, an actual dictionary. I'm old school, I like to look things up. You can use dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, that's another one. I usually have those open as well.
Lisa Rehurek (23:29):
Yeah. I think Thesaurus is so important because if I have to read, "We have extensive experience in," and that word extensive drives me absolutely crazy for a multitude of reasons. But I'm like, can we at least change the word? I generally want to change the whole context of that but-
Jana Burge (23:47):
Exactly.
Lisa Rehurek (23:48):
... thesauarus is super important. I love your use of Grammarly because I think a lot of times people have it so they try to do the whole document at one time in Grammarly, which can be a little bit overwhelming. So for those of you that are not seeing Jana's... The look on her face was total fright because that is overwhelming. And we'll get people that say, "Well, we don't want to use Grammarly because it's just overwhelming." I love your use of it. Just use it for the pieces that you really-
Jana Burge (24:16):
Take that one sentence. And I never put more than one sentence in because...
Lisa Rehurek (24:22):
That's great.
Jana Burge (23:23):
Yeah. It's just another one. And this goes back to maybe part of a personal pet peeve of mine, but it is part of the writing is overusing the word that. Ensure that, she said that. If the sentence makes sense without a certain word, remove it. That is filler. We typically do not get paid by the word. So again, go back down to being a little more concise and succinct. And then words such as very, very large. What does that mean? In relation to what? So always when you're writing and when you're peer reviewing, read it from the perspective of the intended target. I know what I want you to know, but this is all new to you. So if I'm saying, "Oh yeah, we're very good at this," what does that mean?
Lisa Rehurek (25:17):
I have no idea. Yeah, I always tell people like, write as if you're trying to explain it to your grandmother or your mother depending on your age, right? Because the simplicity of it I think sometimes freaks people out. We are taught somewhere along in life that we have to be fancy schmancy with our words, and we have to pontificate in order for it to sound really professional. And that doesn't do anybody any favors. And back to that conversation we were having about they're being a human being there, and them having multitude of these to read, multiple of these to read. Then it's so nice when they get something that's very simplistic, but it's hard for the writer. It feels really remedial to the writer because the writers usually write definitely a subject matter expert. Dummy it down that much feels really uncomfortable, but that's really the best course of action when we're writing.
Jana Burge (26:12):
Well, we forget sometimes just because we know something and it's just second nature to us, it doesn't mean the other person knows that.
Lisa Rehurek (26:20):
That's so true. And that's why there's a gazillion For Dummies books out there, right? Because-
Jana Burge (26:27):
[inaudible 00:26:02] on my desk right now.
Lisa Rehurek (26:28):
I love it, oh my God.
Jana Burge (26:32):
I love the For Dummies series.
Lisa Rehurek (26:33):
Yes, because if we don't know it, which we don't know most things, right, we're dummies in most things that we're not an expert. So we need to be thinking about that when we write for sure. I love it. All right, so for our listeners that are listening in that are saying, "Okay, I'm not an expert peer reviewer," how might somebody get better at peer reviewing? What might they do to get their skills up to where they need to be to really be an editorial peer reviewer?
Jana Burge (27:00):
The first thing I would do is reach out to someone that does this professionally. Like me, because if you're walking into it and you don't know what you don't know, you don't know what to ask for. But break everything down to each individual word, which if it's several hundred pages, that is overwhelming. But that is how you need to peer. You need to take each individual word as its own. Is it the right word? From and form. Does your sentence make sense? Does it pertain back to the subject? So you need to look at each individual word instead of just skimming and reading as we usually do. Because that's when you go back to your brain and your brain is going to fix every misspelled word, but your eyes are going to check it.
Lisa Rehurek (27:47):
I love your political correctness with four and from. I'm thinking six and sex. That's going to show up. It's probably not going to show up in spell check. It might show up in grammar check. But those are the ones that are really horrifying, too. We got something and there's many other really...
Jana Burge (28:04):
What's [inaudible 00:27:38] that were full on curse words that the person just didn't... And spell check doesn't catch it because you spelled it right.
Lisa Rehurek (28:10):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Jana Burge (28:12):
Who wants to drop an F bomb on a potential client? When you were trying to say fickle and you forgot part of the word and it just, you know.
Lisa Rehurek (28:23):
Exactly. That is never fun. Oh gosh, all right. So we were talking about somebody really wants to get better at their skills. And I'll tell you, Jana did do some training for one or two of our staff members and it was fantastic. So we'll be sharing her contact information with you and it'll be in the show notes. So definitely reach out to [inaudible 00:28:19].
Jana Burge (28:44):
I got to warn you, if you start to peer, it's hard to turn it off. You are going to peer street signs, menus, your license plates. You will start to peer everything and you'd be amazed. God, don't even look at the news. But you would be amazed the sheer volume of errors in writing.
Lisa Rehurek (29:03):
It's true.
Jana Burge (20:05):
Perfect example of that, I received a box that was technically one of two. And the box on the box though it said box, two of one. How many thousands of boxes did they have made with that typo on it because nobody peer-reviewed? Oh wait a minute, maybe it's two of two?
Lisa Rehurek (29:20):
Interesting, interesting. It is really interesting what you start looking for. I don't do it as much as I used to because I used to do a lot more peer review than I do now, so I've kind of gotten out of that. But it is interesting and it is interesting kind of the judgements we make, the subconscious judgements that we make that, again, you just don't want anything that is going to take away from the best score you can possibly get. I mean, sometimes it is neck and neck in those evaluations, so you really don't want to take any away there. All right, Jana, any other last tips or pieces of advice you want to give to our audience around EPR?
Jana Burge (29:59):
Have fun with it. Always walk into it with, okay, I'm going learn something. It's always RFPs. The response is there's always something in there to learn, and enjoy it while you're doing it. I love words. I love the written word. That's maybe that's why I'm so good at it. Maybe that's why I love doing it because I enjoy it. So if you go into the mindset of this is actually fun. I'm getting to make something that looks good, and that's going to make someone money.
Lisa Rehurek (30:34):
Love that.
Jana Burge (30:35):
I'll say it, one of the biggest catches I've ever made was a response for a specific airline. And unfortunately they used a different airline's name throughout the... And it was their number one competitor. And the document they stated, oh it doesn't need peer. Okay, well did you want to maybe get the client's name at least right?
Lisa Rehurek (30:57):
One little thing, I heard that story, too. Here in Phoenix, we have two electric companies and they often get RFPs responses with their competitor's name. Because the company just took an old RFP response and just repurposed it. And guess what? Those go straight in the trash. They don't even read them. So it's a huge mistake. And I know people listening are like, "We would never do that." Never say never.
Jana Burge (31:22):
Never say never. And never think that you cannot be disqualified.
Lisa Rehurek (31:26):
Yeah.
Jana Burge (31:29):
If they tell you to use 11 point font, you come in with a nine point font, they're not even going to open it. They're just going to go, okay, I can't see that chunk. And it goes in the trash.
Lisa Rehurek (31:36):
Follow them. They can tell when you change the margins. They can tell when it's not right. Yeah, when you're trying to cram too much. People do that when they're trying to... When there's a page limit, people just say, "Let's just change the margins." And I'm like, you got to be so careful with that.
Jana Burge (31:50):
Exactly.
Lisa Rehurek (31:51):
I can go through, and I'm sure Jan, and you can do this 10 times better than me, but I can go through and take out those extraneous filler words and drop it down by a half page because of that.
Jana Burge (32:01):
Here are two other tips on that. When they give a font size limit, they're not including their questions. So if your answer needs to be a font 11, their question could be a font size nine or 10 or somewhere around that so that can short up a little bit. Another one is you typically put a six points before and after your text shore that up, just [inaudible 00:32:03]. Don't do it so much that if most of your document is fine on their page limits and you have this one section, I just can't get these three lines up, just scooch it up a teeny tiny bit.
Lisa Rehurek (32:41):
Yeah. Like three instead of six or two instead of-
Jana Burge (32:45):
Exactly. So your brain isn't so much going to notice that it's really off, but it is just a little teeny tiny. But it will get you back up to that page limit.
Lisa Rehurek (32:54):
Yep. Love it. Great tips. Jan, this has been so, so, so valuable, and so many amazing tips. If somebody wants to get in touch with you, what's the best way to do that?
Jana Burge (33:05):
My email address is Jana, and that is janaburge@teamjrconsulting.com.
Lisa Rehurek (33:20):
Wonderful. And we'll have that in the show notes so if you didn't catch that well, you can see it in the show notes. Jana, she owns her own business. She's a contractor. She works with us, but she works with a lot of people. So if you need training, if you need additional support, definitely-
Jana Burge (33:34):
Well, I also work with Roxanne Bledsoe. I'm not sure if you have ever met her. You worked with her a little bit on the RPS [inaudible 00:33:15], another excellent peer reviewer. She and I went into this and [inaudible 00:33:19].
Lisa Rehurek (33:44):
Yeah, so they're a team and there's both of them. Thanks for mentioning Roxanne. That's perfect.
Jana Burge (33:47):
Yeah, it's Jana and Roxanne, Team Consulting. That's how we came up with that. But yeah, and she does great with project management too. So if you wanted to reach out to her, it's roxanne.bledsoe, and then the same extension.
Lisa Rehurek (34:07):
Perfect.
Jana Burge (34:08):
So yeah, we're both here to help anyone.
Lisa Rehurek (34:11):
We love it. We love it. Well Jana, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you being with us.
Jana Burge (34:16):
Thank for having me, Lisa. Like I said, this is an honor. I consider you the master of RFPs, so thank you, and thank you for teaching me what you did. It has been invaluable.
Lisa Rehurek (34:27):
Wow. Well thank you for that. I appreciate it. And yep, this has been fantastic and I love working with you. So all right, everybody, we will close this out and stop our little love fest here, which is always fun. Thanks for listening in to the RFP Success Show, and we'll see you here again on the next one.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
This has been another episode of the RFP Success Show with Lisa Rehurek, 8x author, speaker, and CEO of the RFP Success Company. Thank you for joining us. If you have feedback on today's episode, email us at podcastrfpsuccess.com. No matter your business size industry, if you have an in-house RFP team or need outside support, the RFP Success Company helps increase RFP win ratios by 10%, 20% and even 50%. Learn more at the rfpsuccesscompany.com.