November 20. Sunday Night.

Hi Journey.

You know there is one thing that just really gets old and that is losing. 2 nd place today.

Out of 6.

Still, losing is losing. Still stinks!!!!

RFP was for a makeover of a bank branch over on 120 th and Baystone. They wanted to gut their current, industrial look in favor of a more “home-style” approach. First Charter Bank itself put out the request. Awarded the contract to a downtown architectural firm--Derrick, Isaac, Robinson and Trent.

I typically won't touch anything in the commercial sector. Too cold, too corporate, and too cut-rate. Plus, I like working with the people who will live in my work; the folks who'll interact with it every day. How can I possibly know what a person likes to be enveloped inside for 2000 hours a year unless I talk to her?

Plus, everybody in sales knows RFPs are stacked in favor of the vendor that helped spec it out. Pretty much a formality in the private sector, from what I've seen.

But that's not what's rally eating me. I was flat outsold, plain and simple. Should ring up Dad and draw some advice from him. Good as he was selling life insurance all those years I know there were times he just wasn't on top of his game. Anytime he came home and didn't heft me up atop his shoulders I could tell he'd had a rough selling day.

Problem is I should've phoned back one more time. My gut told me to. Call back one more time and see if they liked our ideas.

OK, let's get honest. See if they liked Shelly's ideas.

But I didn't call. Excuse piled on top of rationale, with a little fear fueling my lack of action. There was a client every day, then there was damage control with Mrs. Grufsen's paint, then it was over. Can't blame this one on Mark Forney, though. Maybe I'm just scared to go head-to-head with a bigger competitor; esp. when I'm on unfamiliar turf.

The worst of it is I could tell that we were better. Makeovers are our specialty. Just ten minutes interviewing the tellers and the branch manager and I damn well guarantee my team could have made that branch homier than any big downtown architectural firm ever could have.

At least Shelly was cool about it. She squandered a lot of time on the project, and gave away some of her best ideas. Probably a mistake. Five'll get you ten that First Charter will straightaway share her best brainpower with their pals at Derrick, Isaac, Robinson and Trent. We'll have to swing by and cash a check after their grand re-opening just to see how many of our ideas they swipe

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