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I feel your pain - really! It's easy to second-guess after the fact, but more of us have been in this situation that would prefer to admit it.
My succinct advice is to read the clues from how the prospective client treats you. Their refusal to meet with you or even speak with you by telephone communicates that *they* don't value the work and don't value you as a value-add/solution provider/partner.
I completely understand your willingness to persist under adverse conditions because you saw this contract as a point of entry to other, better work.
However, similar to a prospective employee seeking full-time employment, a prospective client will never treat a consultant better than they do right before the agreement is signed. If the early signs are bad, the situation will only get worse should you be (un)fortunate enough to get the work.
We also have adopted the policy of never responding to RFPs, and telling prospects this. In fact, I had a call yesterday from a prospective client who said she was calling around looking for quotes. I wished her good luck, but told her we don't involve ourselves in competitive situations. In this case (and in some others), my blunt statement led to a 30-minute conversation and a commitment to meet in person. We'll gladly meet in person (locally) or by phone once at our own expense and risk to discuss options, but without a commitment from the client to move forward with us pending reducing an agreement to writing, we'll gladly walk away and wish the prospect well.
This approach surprises some people, but we've had it happen more than once that the prospect we lost later becomes a long-term client after they sampled the competition or tried to handle the project in-house.
Michael L. Wyland
Sumption & Wyland
818 South Hawthorne Avenue
Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57104-4537
(605) 336-0244
"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend." - Thomas Jefferson to William Hamilton, April 22, 1800
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